Your first public tender: where to start
Updated: 2026-09
A first public tender rarely fails on the bid and usually on the selection: first-time bidders reach for a procedure too large or too formal for a start. The route that holds begins with a deliberately smaller tender.
Public contracts are seen by many SMEs as out of reach — too formal, too laborious, too far from their own practice. That assessment is partly true for the first procedure and increasingly untrue for those that follow.
The real mistake at the start is selection. Taking a large open tender with an extensive specification as your first procedure invests many days in a bid with no basis in experience — and teaches little from the rejection, because too many factors were new at once.
The second mistake is the procedure itself. Formal errors — a missing signature, a missed deadline, a declaration not enclosed — lead to exclusion regardless of professional quality. For first-time bidders those are the most common stumbling blocks.
How it works
- 01
Assess your own eligibility soberly
Before time goes into a bid: do we meet the usual eligibility criteria at all? Missing eligibility cannot be cured by a good bid.
- 02
Choose a smaller procedure to start
Working on a manageable procedure first delivers experience at lower cost than a large open tender.
- 03
Read the documents fully before writing
The most common waste of time for first-time bidders is a bid that misses the task because the specification was skimmed.
- 04
Build a formalities checklist
Signatures, enclosures, declarations, submission form and deadline. Formal errors lead to exclusion and are the most avoidable loss there is.
- 05
Ask questions within the deadline
Procedures generally set a deadline for questions. Using it clears up uncertainty instead of guessing.
- 06
Build the content base after the procedure
What was written once becomes the basis next time. From the second procedure the effort drops considerably.
Why it fits here
Submira is designed for exactly the situation where no bid content base exists yet — the first run builds it while it happens.
The simap connection supplies tenders from the official source; for first-time bidders even finding suitable procedures is a hurdle.
The free plan allows a first procedure to be worked on without an investment decision — sensible while it is unclear whether public contracts suit the company.
FAQ
Are public contracts worth it for an SME?
That depends on the service and the market. The effort of the first procedure is high but drops considerably afterwards — the question is therefore whether several procedures are realistic.
What is the most common ground for exclusion among first-time bidders?
Formal errors: missing documents, a missed deadline, a declaration not enclosed. Substantive weaknesses come after that.
How do you find suitable tenders?
Through the official publication platform. Filtering by service type and region is the difference between a targeted search and reviewing everything.
Should you start small?
Yes. A manageable procedure delivers the same learning at considerably lower cost than a large open tender.
Do you need consulting for this?
Not necessarily. For the first procedures, support can prevent formal errors; building the content base itself is your own work.
Submira
Submira is designed for exactly the situation where no bid content base exists yet — the first run builds it while it happens.
The simap connection supplies tenders from the official source; for first-time bidders even finding suitable procedures is a hurdle.
The free plan allows a first procedure to be worked on without an investment decision — sensible while it is unclear whether public contracts suit the company.