GovPort is a relatively new company that is focused around helping government contractors manage subcontractors.
Tonio DeSorrento, CEO of GovPort, is a Naval Academy graduate, having served in artillery as a Marine for six years. He founded GovPort, formerly known as GovForce, one year ago with venture capital. “We formed to tech enable contract administrators at prime federal contractors … We help them monitor and oversee the compliance of their subcontractors,” he says.
His time in the Marine Corps taught him that he’s most happy creating things and starting something that wasn’t there before. After leaving the Marine Corps, DeSorrento moved around the National Capital Region, an area filled with government employees and contracting companies. As an entrepreneur, DeSorrento had spent time with his previous business traveling the country selling to colleges and universities.
But, being in the NCR, he found that he wanted to help and work with friends and colleagues in the government contracting space. Having never worked in federal contracting before, he turned to friends in the industry to find the needs and gaps that federal contractors had. That’s where people like AMSG CEO Jim O’Farrell came in. Meeting through Bunker Labs’ CEOcircle, DeSorrento got to know Jim and the work that AMSG was doing.
“I started asking people like Jim, “What issues do you have?”” DeSorrento says. “He helped me see the opportunity there.”
GovPort seeks to solve the problems that get government contractors bogged down in managing contracts. By revolutionizing the way that government contractors can manage their contracts, from being more efficient to amplifying capabilities, GovPort is changing the way government contractors do business.
“We want to help and empower people … to handle more business without burnout,” he says. “There are lots of companies that build software, but we aim to help owner/operators with their own business.”
As a small business, with just eight employees, GovPort is a tight-knit team that coordinates well. DeSorrento says the size of the company actually means they’re more effective in getting out quality software because they can be more selective and customer focused.
“I get to choose my investors, choose my customers, and that lets us, you know, set ourselves up to be excellent to everybody,” says DeSorrento.
In the fast-paced government contracting world, burnout can run rampant. By offering a product designed to manage contracts better and more efficiently, administrators are free to work on higher level concerns.
What may be GovPort’s largest impact, however, is what DeSorrento refers to as the “Ripple Effect.” When a company, such as AMSG, buys GovPort software and passes it along to their subcontractors, it aids a company who may not have had a very good system or the means to acquire one. In the long run, selling software to many larger contractors gets the software into the hands of thousands of subcontractors, truly changing the face of contract management.
“The social impact is big, it’s coaching up smaller companies like AMSG was 15 years ago, so that they can make fewer mistakes, grow faster, and the owner/operators of those places can focus on delivering for their customers instead of finding stuff they lost in their email inbox,” he says.
Working closely with customers, GovPort is continuously improving to provide the best user experience possible. The recent name change also comes with expanded vision.
“Our long term goal is to develop a comprehensive platform for navigating the entire government contracting landscape. In the coming years, we’ll continue to branch out with more services, broader support, and innovative solutions,” DeSorrento wrote in the name change announcement. “The rebranding to GovPort is more than a name change — it’s a promise. A promise to keep you ahead in an ever-changing industry, to be your reliable ally in government contracting, and to journey with you into a future full of possibilities.”
Written by: Sheila Rupp