Ka Lun Chan
Section311

Project

WhereIndependent product
RoleProduct, design & engineering

FedPath: federal contracting, from notice to bid decision

Small businesses can find federal contracts worth pursuing, and decide whether to bid, before they spend hours reading solicitations.

Product · GovCon SaaS · Product engineering / Government contracting / Data & decision tools

Visit gofedpath.com
FedPath home page: a headline about finding government contracts worth pursuing beside an Opportunity Watch panel listing matched federal notices
FedPath on a phone, with the headline and Find opportunities button
Fig. 311 FedPath on desktop and phone

Problem

Federal contracting rewards teams that can read the market quickly. Small businesses without capture or proposal staff face thousands of SAM.gov notices, long solicitations, and a bid decision that often gets made after the hours are already spent.

Built for

  • Small businesses bidding on U.S. federal contracts
  • Teams new to government contracting
  • Owners who do capture and proposals themselves

What I built

A GovCon product that takes a small business from SAM.gov opportunity discovery through fit analysis, a Go/No-Go decision and a compliance matrix, in one workflow.

  1. 01Readiness
  2. 02Watch
  3. 03Fit
  4. 04Go/No-Go
  5. 05Compliance
Opportunity Watch
New SAM.gov notices that match your work, checked every few hours.
Fit Analysis
Compares each opportunity with your business profile and shows the reason for every finding.
Go/No-Go
A structured bid or no-bid assessment before any proposal work starts.
Compliance Matrix
Turns solicitation requirements into items a team can track to submission.
GovCon Readiness
A five-minute check for businesses deciding whether federal work is for them.

Key decisions

How should Fit Analysis reach a verdict? 311-3.1

  • RejectedScore opportunities with an AI modelQuick to demo, but hard to explain, and solicitations would leave the product for an outside model.
  • ChosenFixed, explainable rulesEvery match, gap and open question shows its source, and solicitation PDFs are read on FedPath’s own server.

What should the product be? 311-3.2

  • RejectedA better opportunity searchUseful, but it leaves the expensive part, deciding whether to bid, to the user.
  • ChosenOne workflow from discovery to complianceWatch, fit, decide, pursue and track requirements in the same place, so each step feeds the next.

When should people have to sign up? 311-3.3

  • RejectedGate search behind an accountMore sign-ups, and more people leaving before they see any value.
  • ChosenBrowse real opportunities without an accountThe product proves itself on live SAM.gov data first.

Outcome

  1. One path from a SAM.gov notice to a compliance matrix, built for teams without a capture department
  2. Fit findings that explain themselves, labelled as known or inferred
  3. Solicitation documents stay on FedPath’s server; none are sent to an AI service
  4. Live on real SAM.gov opportunities, open to browse without an account

Capabilities

SAM.gov opportunity data, Rule-based fit engine, Document parsing, Decision workflow, Compliance tracking, Product & UX design

See it live

Lessons

  • In a domain this regulated, an explanation is worth more than a score.
  • The most valuable feature is often the decision not to spend the next ten hours.