Anyone frustrated why their SBIR/STTR proposal rejection letter was limited on detailed feedback? Maybe you had multiple similar submissions with differing evaluation results. All can seem a bit confusing when taken as a whole, especially if it’s your first time playing the SBIR/STTR game. Allow me to shed some light on these otherwise murky waters.

But to keep things interesting let’s just make the answer simple with an easy rule of thumb. If you have a potential Government or Military customer that is willing to pay now, and time is of the essence in any sense (especially for the customer), then go OTA, otherwise go SBIR. Is it that simple, no, but can it be that simple, yes. There are many things to consider, and you could come up with all kinds of justifications for either contract given any number of situations. At the end of the day, people like simple answers to hard questions. To that end, it is best to look to the primary advantages and disadvantages of each to form a rule of thumb.

You can reverse engineer the best leads for technology collaboration, partnerships, and sales from public defense contracting data. All the RFPs and approved contracts for defense organizations big and small are publicly available. Want to know what the AI priorities are, and who is funding them? Want to know the trends in AI applications for DoD? All this and more is not hard to figure out, and modern Generative AI tools make this easier than ever.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is at a crucial point in its initial planning stages for how best to deploy capital to develop and purchase AI systems for a range of functions across the services. The plan offered below gives some insight to how the services could leverage the strengths of diverse contracting tools to foster innovation and maintain the DoD's competitive edge. The following plan outlines a suggested order of contract execution and potential parallel implementation of these contract types, to provide both high effectiveness and efficiency of their combined outputs.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) employs various FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) based and Non-FAR based contract types to foster military innovation and maintain a competitive edge. This article delves into the advantages, best use cases, and potential disadvantages of four such contract types: Other Transaction Authority (OTA), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs, Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), Prize Competitions, Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA), and Technology Investment Agreement (TIA).

Other Transaction Authority (OTA) contracts have emerged as an innovative mechanism for funding research and development (R&D) projects in the government sector. These contracts have provided agencies with increased flexibility and speed in procurement, while also attracting non-traditional partners. This essay will explore the history of OTA contracts, discuss the advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional government contracting methods, and present best practices for employing OTA contracts in R&D projects.

While the traditional federal acquisition process can be slow and cumbersome, there are several mechanisms and approaches that can expedite the approval and funding of prototype systems. These alternative pathways can enable rapid acquisition and help accelerate the development and deployment of new technologies for various government agencies. Some of these mechanisms include:

The Military Urgent Operational Needs (UON) and Joint Urgent Operational Needs (JUON) program is a procurement initiative utilized by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to quickly acquire critical technologies, capabilities, and systems to address urgent and unforeseen operational needs in the field. This essay will explore the concept, history, and use cases of the UON and JUON program.

It was a great weekend at SXSW here in Austin, and a really healthy discussion on a wide range of innovation topics at Capital Factory's events. Of the many interesting items that got discussed, to which I will have subsequent articles covering, was one I wanted to highlight of interest in a "Joint Open Topic SBIR" program across the DoD. The interesting thing about this concept is that many people forget or simply don't know that, despite only the combined Air Force and Space Force SBIR program offering an Open Topic solicitation currently (Navy starting in summer 23), there has always been the availability to utilize any SBIR/STTR selection or award by any federal organization. Let's take a look at the direct language from the AF/SF SBIR program covering everyone's favorite example of what does this mean..."Selectable - Not Funded".

"The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are highly competitive programs that encourage domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/Research and Development (R/R&D) with the potential for commercialization. Through a competitive awards-based program, SBIR and STTR enable small businesses to explore their technological potential and provide the incentive to profit from its commercialization." (www.sba.gov)