Steve Clean How To Promote to the Dept of War – The 2025 PEO Directory
Announcing the 2025 version of the DoW PEO Directory. Online here.
Think of this PEO Directory as a “Who buys within the authorities?” cellphone ebook.
Finding a buyer on your product within the Department of War is tough: Who do you have to speak to? How do you get their consideration? What is the correct Go-To-Market Strategy? What is a PEO and why ought to I care?
Ever since I co-founded Hacking for Defense, my college students would ask, “Who ought to we name within the DoW to allow them to know what drawback we solved? How can we present them the answer we constructed?” In the previous few years that query stored coming, from new protection startups and their buyers.
At the identical time, I’d get questions from the brand new wave of Defense Investors asking, “What’s the perfect “Go-To-Market (GTM)” technique for our startups?
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 startup it’s a wholly new language, new buzzwords, new companions, new guidelines and it requires a brand new “Go-To-Market (GTM)” technique.
How to Work With the DoW
Below are simplified diagrams of two of the various paths for a way a startup can get funding and proceeds from the Department of War. The first instance, the Patient Capital Path, illustrates a startup with out a working product. They journey the standard new firm journey by the DoW processes.
The second instance, the Impatient Capital Path, illustrates a startup with an MVP and/or working product. They ignore the standard journey by the DoW course of and go on to the warfighter within the subject. With the rise of Defense Venture Capital, this “swing-for-the fences” full-speed forward method is a Lean Startup method to develop into a subsequent era Prime.
(Note that in 2025 promoting to the DoW is prone to change – for the higher.)
Selling to the DoW takes time, however a well-executed protection technique can result in billion-dollar contracts, sustained proceeds, and technological affect at a nationwide scale. Existing protection contractors know who these DoW organizations are and have groups of individuals monitoring budgets and contracts. They know the trail to getting an order from the Department of War. But startups?
Why Write the PEO Directory?
Most startups don’t have a clue the place to begin. And promoting to the Department of War is in contrast to any enterprise or B-to-B gross sales course of founders and their buyers could also be conversant in. Compared to the business globe, the language is totally different, the organizations are totally different, the tradition of threat taking (in acquisition) is totally different, and most significantly the go-to-market technique is totally totally different.
Amazingly, till final yr’s first version of the PEO listing there wasn’t a DoW-wide cellphone ebook obtainable to startups to determine who to name within the War Department. This lack of awareness made sense in a globe the place the DoW and its suppliers have been a carefully knit group who knew one another and expertise innovation was taking place at a sedate decades-long tempo. (And assumed our adversaries didn’t have entry to our DoW net pages, LinkedIn and ChatGPT.)
That’s now not true. Given the fast tempo of innovation outdoors the DoW, and new distributors in UAS, counter UAS, autonomy, AI, quantum, biotech, et al, this lack of transparency is now an impediment to a whole-of-nation method to delivering innovation to the warfighter.
(This lack of awareness even extends internally to the DoW. I’ve began receiving requests from employees at a number of Combatant Commands for entry to the PEO Directory. Why? Because “…it will be highly effective to incorporate a database of PEOs to hyperlink to our database of Requirements, Gaps, and Tracked Technologies to particular PEOs to name.”)
This is a traditional case of information asymmetry, and it’s not wholesome for both the more and more pressing wants of the Department of War or the nascent startup protection ecosystem.
Our adversaries have had a whole-of-nation method to delivering innovation to the warfighter in place for many years. This is our contribution to assist the DoW compete.
2025 PEO Directory Edition Notes
The first version of this doc began solely as a PEO listing. Its emphasis was (and is) the worth of a startup speaking to PEOs early is to get alerts on what warfighter issues to resolve and whether or not the DoW will purchase their product now or sooner or later. Those early conversations reply the questions of “Is there a necessity?” and “Is there a market?”
This 2025 edition of the PEO Directory makes an attempt to seize the key adjustments which might be occurring within the DoW – in organizations, in processes and in individuals. (For instance, the PEO workplaces of the three largest new protection acquisition applications — Golden Dome, Sentinel and Columbia – will report on to the Deputy Secretary of War, slightly than to their respective Services. And the SecWar killed the cumbersome JCIDIS necessities course of.)
What this implies is that in 2025 the DoW will develop a brand new necessities and acquisition course of that may determine probably the most pressing operational issues going through the U.S. navy, work with trade earlier within the course of, then quickly flip these into fielded options. (That additionally means the Go-to-market description, individuals and organizations on this doc will likely be outdated, and why we plan to replace it frequently.)
What’s New?
This 2025 edition now contains as an introduction, a 30-page tutorial for startups on how the DoW buys and the assorted acquisition and funding processes and applications that exist for startups. It supplies particulars on how you can promote to the DoW and the place the Program Executive Offices (PEOs) match into that course of.
The Directory now additionally contains details about the components of the federal government and the laws that affect how the DoW buys – the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). It added new workplaces akin to Golden Dome Direct Reporting Program, DIU, AFRL, DARPA, MDA, CDAO, OSC, IQT, Army Transformation and Training Command, SOCOM, and others.
To assist startups perceive the DoW, for every service we added hyperlinks to the group, construction, and language, in addition to a listing of every Service’s General Officers/Flag Officers.
Appendix B has a linked spreadsheet with the names on this doc.
Appendix C has a listing of Venture Capital corporations, Corporate Investors, Private Equity corporations and Government businesses who spend money on Defense. In addition, the Appendix contains particulars in regards to the varied DoW SBIR applications, a listing of OTA Consortia, Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) Organizations, and Tribal/Alaska Native Corporation (ANC) Companies.
Appendix D now lists and hyperlinks to the navy and state FFRDC check facilities the place startups can conduct demos and check gear.
Appendix E added a listing and hyperlinks of Defense Publications and Defense Trade Shows.
Appendix F has a listing of all Army system contractors.
A couple of reminders:
- This is not an official publication of the U.S. authorities
- Do not rely upon this doc for accuracy, completeness or commerce recommendation.
- All knowledge is from DoW web sites and publicly obtainable info.
Thanks to this yr’s companions serving to to keep up and host the Directory: Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, America’s Frontier Fund and BMNT.
This version of the PEO Directory is on-line so it may be up to date as the newest adjustments develop into obtainable.
Send updates and corrections to [email protected]
You can entry and obtain the total doc here.
Filed below: Corporate/Gov’t Innovation, Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, Hacking For Defense, National Security, Technology Innovation and Great Power Competition, Venture Capital |
