From a startup consulting shop to a $1.4B IBM acquisition, Octo Consulting Group's story is one of the great growth journeys in government IT. Brian and Sean sit down with Jay Shah, Octo's former COO, who helped guide the company through every inflection point — the pivot to DevSecOps and agile, the move from sub to prime, the strategic (and intentional non-) use of the 8(a) program, the 2019 Arlington Capital investment, four acquisitions, the launch of OLabs, and the IBM exit in December 2022. Jay shares the unvarnished playbook for scaling in the federal market: why diversification matters more than the 8(a) badge, when to be bold with primes (and when to bluff), how to turn billable services into IP, why OLabs only worked because they had base hits first, and what most founders get wrong about working capital. Plus, Brian and Jay geek out on funk master flautist Karl Denson.
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RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Featured Guest
- Jay Shah
- Octo
- OLabs

Capital, Mentorship & Workforce Development
- Mason Enterprise — APEX Accelerator
- Veterans Institute for Procurement (VIP)
- Andreessen Horowitz American Dynamism
- Pax Ventures

Books & Frameworks Referenced
- The Trusted Advisor by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford
- The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
- Westrum Organizational Culture Typology
- Gene Kim & The Phoenix Project
- DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment)

Live Music Worth Checking Out
- Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
- The Greyboy Allstars
- Kenny Rogers

Insane Knuckleballs

Jay's Nonprofit Work
- The Children's Inn at NIH
- Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts
- Loudoun Hunger Relief

The Hosts & Show
- Swish
- GIST360

CONNECT WITH US

Got an idea for a future episode? Want to be a guest? Let us know.

Brian Lake - blake@swishdata.com

Sean Applegate - sapplegate@swishdata.com

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