If I Was Only in It for the Money - A Business Idea for a Startup

Cover of The Mothers of Invention album We're Only in It for the Money

If I was only in it for the money, I cannot think of a better business than taking my share of the public sector ITC projects in Finland.

Take for instance this € 90 million project that I found from the Facebook updates of my friends (Thanks for the links Ville, Vessi et al): Helsinki Region Transport (HSL) is purchasing a new ticketing and information system for € 60 million (plus € 30 million for maintenance) in a project lasting five years. It's not the only one of its kind. There are plenty of others but this is the latest future failure.

Alas, they have fixed budget, schedule and scope in the contract. As everyone in the business knows this means that it has been fixed that budget, schedule and scope will grow. They will find out from day one that some show stopper features are missing from scope and because everything else is required too they need more time and money to build it all. The vendor will not accept anything removed from the scope. Or at least from any of the monies they have been promised for the features.

I guess that the Facebook comment stating that it will cost around one guggenheim (€ 140 million w/o maintenance) to build the system is quite an accurate estimate.

The funniest thing in this particular case (if it was funny, which it is not because it is tax money, my money, they are playing with) is that during the tender process the buyer went to court with one of the vendors with a bid who claimed that they were dropped with unjustness because the buyer claimed that there cannot be SOA without ESB. So we now have a court solution that you do not need to have an ESB in your SOA! Remember this if anyone brings any of those ESB things nearby.

Market Court solution in case MAO:126/11 translated by Google

So, to get into some serious money pop up a faustian lean startup generating money from public waterfall projects. Here's the plan:

• Make an offer for some public tender, 
• Pivot in the court if you do not win,
• Pivot again using the compensation from they court to build up a new bid for another tender and
• Repeat until successful.
• Then just wait for this certain nasty dude to appear and claim your soul.