Steve Blank How To Sell to the Dept of War– The 2025 PEO Directory
Announcing the 2025 edition of the Do W PEODirectory Online here.
Think of this PEO Directory as a “Who purchases in the federal government?” phonebook.
Finding a consumer for your item in the Department of War is difficult: Who should you talk with? How do you get their attention? What is the right Go-To-Market Strategy? What is a PEO and why should I care?
Ever because I co-founded Hacking for Defense, my trainees would ask, “Who should we employ the Do W to let them understand what issue we fixed? How can we reveal them the service we constructed?” In the last couple of years that question kept coming, from brand-new defense start-ups and their financiers.
At the very same time, I ‘d get concerns from the new age of Defense Investors asking, “What’s the very best “Go-To-Market (GTM)” technique for our start-ups?
PEOs, PMs, PIAs, PoRs, Consortia, SBIRs, OTAs, CSOs, FAR, CUI, SAM, CRADAs, Primes, Mid- tier Integrators, Tribal/ ANC Firms, Direct- to-Operator, Direct- to-Field Units, Labs, DD-254 … For a start-up it’s a completely brand-new language, brand-new buzzwords, brand-new partners, brand-new guidelines and it needs a brand-new “Go-To-Market (GTM)” technique.
How to Work With the Do W
Below are streamlined diagrams of 2 of the lots of courses for how a start-up can get financing and earnings from the Department ofWar The initially example, the Patient Capital Path, shows a start-up without a working item. They take a trip the standard brand-new business journey through the Do W procedures.
The 2nd example, the Impatient Capital Path, shows a start-up with an MVP and/or working item. They disregard the standard journey through the Do W procedure and go straight to the warfighter in the field. With the increase of Defense Venture Capital, this “swing-for-the fences” full-speed ahead technique is a Lean Startup technique to end up being a next generation Prime.
(Note that in 2025 offering to the Do W is most likely to alter– for the much better.)
Selling to the Do W takes some time, however a well-executed defense technique can cause billion-dollar agreements, continual earnings, and technological effect at a nationwide scale. Existing defense professionals understand who these Do W companies are and have groups of individuals tracking spending plans and agreements. They understand the course to getting an order from the Department ofWar But start-ups?
Why Write the PEO Directory?
Most start-ups do not have an idea where to begin. And offering to the Department of War differs from any business or B-to-B sales procedure creators and their financiers might recognize with. Compared to the business world, the language is various, the companies are various, the culture of danger taking (in acquisition) is various, and most notably the go-to-market technique is entirely various.
Amazingly, till in 2015’s very first edition of the PEO directory site there wasn’t a Do W-wide phonebook readily available to start-ups to recognize who to employ theWar Department This absence of info made good sense in a world where the Do W and its providers were a carefully knit group who understood each other and technology development was occurring at a sedate decades-long speed. (And presumed our enemies didn’t have access to our Do W websites, ConnectedIn and ChatGPT.)
That’s no longer real. Given the fast speed of development outside the Do W, and brand-new suppliers in UAS, counter UAS, autonomy, AI, quantum, biotech, et al, this absence of openness is now a challenge to a whole-of-nation technique to providing development to the warfighter.
(This absence of info even extends internally to the Do W. I have actually begun getting demands from personnel at numerous Combatant Commands for access to the PEODirectory Why? Because “… it would be effective to consist of a database of PEOs to connect to our database of Requirements, Gaps, and Tracked Technologies to particular PEOs to call.”)
This is a timeless case of information asymmetry, and it’s not healthy for either the progressively immediate requirements of the Department of War or the nascent start-up defense environment.
Our enemies have actually had a whole-of-nation technique to providing development to the warfighter in location for years. This is our contribution to assist the Do W complete.
2025 PEO Directory Edition Notes
The initially edition of this file began exclusively as a PEO directory site. Its focus was (and is) the worth of a start-up speaking to PEOs early is to get signals on what warfighter issues to fix and whether the Do W will purchase their item now or in the future. Those early discussions address the concerns of “Is there a requirement?” and “Is there a market?”
This 2025 edition of the PEO Directory efforts to catch the significant modifications that are taking place in the Do W– in companies, in procedures and in individuals. (For example, the PEO workplaces of the 3 biggest brand-new defense acquisition programs– Golden Dome, Sentinel and Columbia— will report straight to the Deputy Secretary of War, instead of to their particularServices And the SecWar killed the cumbersome JCIDIS requirements procedure.)
What this suggests is that in 2025 the Do W will establish a brand-new requirements and acquisition procedure that will recognize the most immediate functional issues dealing with the U.S. armed force, deal with market previously at the same time, then quickly turn those into fielded services. (That likewise suggests the Go- to-market description, individuals and companies in this file will run out date, and why we prepare to upgrade it routinely.)
What’s New?
This 2025 edition now consists of as an intro, a 30-page tutorial for start-ups on how the Do W purchases and the different acquisition and financing procedures and programs that exist for start-ups. It offers information on how to offer to the Do W and where the Program Executive Offices (PEOs) suit that procedure.
The Directory now likewise consists of info about the parts of the federal government and the guidelines that affect how the Do W purchases– the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). It included brand-new workplaces such as Golden Dome Direct Reporting Program, DIU, AFRL, DARPA, MDA, CDAO, OSC, IQT, Army Transformation and Training Command, SOCOM, and others.
To assistance start-ups comprehend the Do W, for each service we included links to the company, structure, and language, along with a list of each Service’s General Officers/Flag Officers
Appendix B has actually a connected spreadsheet with the names in this file.
Appendix C has a list of Venture Capital companies, Corporate Investors, Private Equity companies and Government companies who buyDefense In addition, the Appendix consists of information about the different Do W SBIR programs, a list of OTA Consortia, Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) Organizations, and Tribal/Alaska Native Corporation (ANC) Companies.
Appendix D now notes and connects to the military and state FFRDC test centers where start-ups can perform demonstrations and test devices.
Appendix E included a list and links of Defense Publications and Defense Trade Shows.
Appendix F has a list of all Army system professionals.
A couple of suggestions:
- This is not a main publication of the U.S. federal government
- Do not depend upon this file for precision, efficiency or company suggestions.
- All information is from Do W sites and openly readily available info.
Thanks to this year’s partners assisting to keep and host the Directory: Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, America’s Frontier Fund and BMNT.
This edition of the PEO Directory is online so it can be upgraded as the most recent modifications appear.
Send updates and corrections to [email protected]
You can gain access to and download the complete file here.
Filed under: Corporate/Gov’t Innovation, Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, Hacking For Defense, National Security, Technology Innovation and Great Power Competition, Venture Capital|
