Discovering a buyer in your product within the Division of Protection is tough: Who do you have to discuss to? How do you get their consideration?
On the lookout for DoD clients
How have you learnt 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) now not owns all of the applied sciences, services and products to discourage or win a warfare – e.g. AI, autonomy, drones, biotech, entry to area, cyber, semiconductors, new supplies, and so on.
As we speak, 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 ebook out there to startups of who to name within the Protection Division.
So I wrote one.
Consider the PEO Listing linked under as a “Who buys within the authorities?” telephone ebook.
The DoD buys tons of of billions of {dollars} of services and products per 12 months, and almost 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 whole portfolio of comparable packages (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.
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 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 price, schedule, and efficiency of a serious system, or portfolio of programs, some price billions of {dollars}.
Beneath is a abstract of 75 Program Govt Places of work within the Division of Protection.
You possibly can obtain the total 64-page doc of Program Govt Places of work and Officers with all 602 names right here.
Caveats
Don’t rely 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 seeking to work with DoD.
Methods 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, reducing, or remaining the identical.
One of the best place to start out is by trying by way of an summary of your entire protection funds right here. Then seek for these packages within the linked PEO Listing. You may get an concept whether or not that program has $ Billions, or $ Hundreds of thousands.
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 follow you may translate the topline, account, or Program Component (PE) Line modifications right into a gross sales Go-To-Market technique, or at the very least 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 may establish targets for gross sales calls with DoD the place your product has the most effective likelihood of becoming in.
The folks and organizations on this listing change extra regularly than the cash.
Figuring out the folks is useful solely after you perceive their priorities — and cash is the most effective proxy for that.
Future Work
In the end 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 shall be saved up to date by the Stanford Gordian Knot Middle 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 printed hyperlinks to DoD organizations right here, even itemizing DoD social media accounts. However the listing is fragmented and irregularly up to date. Consequently, this kind of listing has not existed in a usable format – till now.
Filed beneath: Air Drive, Gordian Knot Middle for Nationwide Safety Innovation, Hacking For Protection, Nationwide Safety, Navy |