Wyoming Business Tips for Sept. 11

A weekly look at Wyoming business questions from the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (WSBDC), part of WyomingEntrepreneur.Biz, a collection of business assistance programs at the University of Wyoming.

By Andrea Lewis, Wyoming Entrepreneur Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) procurement specialist

“I have come across this site -- PublicPurchase.com. What is it, and how do I use it?” Jasmine, Aladdin

Government opportunities can be difficult to locate. While federal opportunities over $25,000 are required to be posted on www.fedbizopps.gov, state and local government opportunities are harder to locate.

A growing number of third-party providers are offering services to government entities to assist in marketing their bid opportunities. One such company is PublicPurchase.com, which is a privately held Utah firm that provides software solutions to government agencies.

Agencies, for no charge, can register with PublicPurchase and use its software to manage opportunities. Vendors have access to a free registration, or they can select to pay for more services. For the purposes of this article, we only will be referring to the benefits of free registration.

The free registration comes with a variety of services that are focused around its “Bid Board.” The Bid Board posts business opportunities from more than 1,140 government institutions from around the country. Within Wyoming, 20 current government entities are registered.

Bid opportunities from these agencies will be available to those vendors who register with the agency within PublicPurchase. Examples of the agencies are cities or towns (Cheyenne, Cody, Evanston, Green River, Kemmerer, Riverton or Star Valley Ranch); school districts (Campbell County, Carbon County 2, Crook County 1, Fremont County 6 or Sheridan County 3); Fremont County government; community colleges (Laramie County Community College and Western Wyoming Community College) and the University of Wyoming; and the state of Wyoming and Wyoming Department of Transportation.

Once a PublicPurchase.com user account has been created, you can manually register with each agency to do business with and receive automatic updates of bid opportunities that are in your field of business.

Adding codes to your profile lets the system know which bid leads to send. All business opportunities are ready to download at a click of a button, although sometimes plans (especially construction) may have a fee attached. Many of these agencies allow vendors to respond electronically. Some agency registrations will have documents to fill out online when you register with them, while others do not.

The Wyoming SBDC Network PTAC offers assistance in registering and using PublicPurchase.com. We can assist with adding codes to your registration and connecting with the appropriate agencies. For more information, contact (307) 772-7372 or amlewis@uwyo.edu.

A blog version of this article and an opportunity to post comments are available at www.wyen.biz/blog1/.

The WSBDC is a partnership of the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming. To ask a question, call 1-800-348-5194, email wsbdc@uwyo.edu, or write 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3922, Laramie, WY, 82071-3922.