Discovering a buyer on your product within the Division of Protection is difficult: Who must you speak to? How do you get their consideration?
Searching for DoD prospects
How have you learnt if they’ve cash to spend in your product?
It virtually all the time begins with a Program Government Workplace.
The Division of Protection (DoD) not owns all of the applied sciences, services to discourage or win a warfare – e.g. AI, autonomy, drones, biotech, entry to area, cyber, semiconductors, new supplies, and many others.
At the moment, a brand new class of startups are trying to promote these merchandise to the Protection Division. Amazingly, there is no such thing as a single DoD-wide telephone e book obtainable to startups of who to name within the Protection Division.
So I wrote one.
Consider the PEO Listing linked beneath as a “Who buys within the authorities?” telephone e book.
The DoD buys a whole lot of billions of {dollars} of services per yr, and almost all of those purchases are managed by Program Government Workplaces. A Program Government Workplace could also be liable for a selected program (e.g., the Joint Strike Fighter) or for a complete portfolio of comparable applications (e.g., the Navy Program Government Workplace for Digital and Enterprise Providers). PEOs outline necessities and their Contracting Officers purchase issues (dealing with the formal buying, issuing requests for proposals (RFPs), and signing contracts with distributors.) Program Managers (PMs) work with the PEO and handle subsets of the bigger program.
Present protection contractors know who these organizations are and have groups of individuals monitoring budgets and contracts. However startups? Most startups don’t have a clue the place to start out.
This can be a basic case of info asymmetry and it’s not wholesome for the Division of Protection or the nascent startup protection ecosystem.
That’s why I put this PEO Listing collectively.
This primary model of the listing lists 75 Program Government Workplaces and their Program Government Officers and Program/Challenge Managers.
Every Program Government Workplace is headed by a Program Government Officer who’s a excessive rating official – both a member of the army or a excessive rating civilian – liable for the associated fee, schedule, and efficiency of a serious system, or portfolio of programs, some price billions of {dollars}.
Under is a abstract of 75 Program Government Workplaces within the Division of Protection.
You may obtain the complete 64-page doc of Program Government Workplaces and Officers with all 602 names right here.
Caveats
Don’t rely on this doc for accuracy or completeness.
It’s possible incomplete and incorporates errors.
Navy officers usually change jobs each few years.
Program Workplaces get closed and new ones opened as wanted.
This implies this doc was old-fashioned the day it was written. Nonetheless it represents a useful place to begin for startups seeking to work with DoD.
Easy methods to Use The PEO Listing As A part of A Go-To-Market Technique
Whereas it’s useful to know what Program Government Workplaces exist and who staffs them, it’s even higher to know the place the cash is, what it’s being spent on, and whether or not the price range is rising, lowering, or remaining the identical.
The very best place to start out is by trying by way of an outline of your complete protection price range right here. Then seek for these applications within the linked PEO Listing. You will get an concept whether or not that program has $ Billions, or $ Thousands and thousands.
Subsequent, check out the price range paperwork launched by the DoD Comptroller –
significantly the P-1 (Procurement) and R-1 (R&D) price range paperwork.
Combining the price range doc with this PEO listing helps you slim down which of the 75 Program Government Workplaces and 500+ program managers to name on.
With some follow you possibly can translate the topline, account, or Program Aspect (PE) Line adjustments right into a gross sales Go-To-Market technique, or no less than a speculation of who to name on.
Armed with this system description (it’s stuffed with jargon and 9-12 months old-fashioned) and the Excel obtain right here and the Appendix right here –– you possibly can establish targets for gross sales calls with DoD the place your product has the very best likelihood of becoming in.
The folks and organizations on this record change extra incessantly than the cash.
Realizing the folks is useful solely after you perceive their priorities — and cash is the very best proxy for that.
Future Work
In the end we wish to give startups not solely who to name on, and who has the cash, however which Program Workplaces are receptive to new entrants. And which have transformed to portfolio administration, which have tried OTA contracts, in addition to highlighting those that are doing one thing novel with metrics or outcomes.
Going ahead this mission can be saved up to date by the Stanford Gordian Knot Heart for Nationwide Safety Innovation.
Within the meantime ship updates, corrections and feedback to [email protected]
Credit score The place Credit score Is Due
Clearly, the U.S. authorities intends to speak this info. They’ve revealed hyperlinks to DoD organizations right here, even itemizing DoD social media accounts. However the record is fragmented and irregularly up to date. Consequently, any such listing has not existed in a usable format – till now.
Filed beneath: Air Power, Gordian Knot Heart for Nationwide Safety Innovation, Hacking For Protection, Nationwide Safety, Navy |