Discovering a buyer in your product within the Division of Protection is difficult: Who do you have to speak to? How do you get their consideration?
On the lookout for DoD clients
How are you aware if they’ve cash to spend in your product?
It virtually all the time begins with a Program Govt Workplace.
The Division of Protection (DoD) not owns all of the applied sciences, services and products to discourage or win a struggle – e.g. AI, autonomy, drones, biotech, entry to house, cyber, semiconductors, new supplies, and many others.
At this time, a brand new class of startups try to promote these merchandise to the Protection Division. Amazingly, there isn’t a single DoD-wide telephone ebook 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 ebook.
The DoD buys a whole lot of billions of {dollars} of services and products per yr, and practically all of those purchases are managed by Program Govt Places of work. A Program Govt Workplace could also be chargeable for a particular program (e.g., the Joint Strike Fighter) or for a complete portfolio of comparable applications (e.g., the Navy Program Govt Workplace for Digital and Enterprise Companies). 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.
Current 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 begin.
This can be a traditional case of data 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 Govt Places of work and their Program Govt Officers and Program/Undertaking Managers.
Every Program Govt Workplace is headed by a Program Govt Officer who’s a excessive rating official – both a member of the navy or a excessive rating civilian – chargeable for the associated fee, schedule, and efficiency of a significant system, or portfolio of methods, some price billions of {dollars}.
Beneath is a abstract of 75 Program Govt Places of work within the Division of Protection.
You may obtain the total 64-page doc of Program Govt Places of work and Officers with all 602 names right here.
Caveats
Don’t depend upon this doc for accuracy or completeness.
It’s doubtless incomplete and comprises errors.
Army officers usually change jobs each few years.
Program Places of work 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 trying to work with DoD.
The right way to Use The PEO Listing As A part of A Go-To-Market Technique
Whereas it’s useful to know what Program Govt Places of work 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 funds is rising, lowering, or remaining the identical.
The perfect place to begin is by wanting by way of an summary of the whole protection funds right here. Then seek for these applications within the linked PEO Listing. You may get an concept whether or not that program has $ Billions, or $ Tens of millions.
Subsequent, check out the funds paperwork launched by the DoD Comptroller –
notably the P-1 (Procurement) and R-1 (R&D) funds paperwork.
Combining the funds doc with this PEO listing helps you slim down which of the 75 Program Govt Places of work and 500+ program managers to name on.
With some apply you possibly can translate the topline, account, or Program Ingredient (PE) Line modifications right into a gross sales Go-To-Market technique, or a minimum of a speculation of who to name on.
Armed with this system description (it’s filled 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 one of the best likelihood of becoming in.
The folks and organizations on this record change extra incessantly than the cash.
Understanding the folks is useful solely after you perceive their priorities — and cash is one of the best proxy for that.
Future Work
Finally we need to give startups not solely who to name on, and who has the cash, however which Program Places of work 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 undertaking will likely be stored up to date by the Stanford Gordian Knot Heart for Nationwide Safety Innovation.
Within the meantime ship updates, corrections and feedback to sblank@stanford.edu
Credit score The place Credit score Is Due
Clearly, the U.S. authorities intends to speak this data. 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, this kind of listing has not existed in a usable format – till now.
Filed underneath: Air Pressure, Gordian Knot Heart for Nationwide Safety Innovation, Hacking For Protection, Nationwide Safety, Navy |
