Transcript for "The Air Force's Next $4.5B Vehicle Is Already Taking Shape": Alright. Cool. So it looks like we're live. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. I know it's the end of the year, so everyone's schedule is looking crazy. So I really appreciate you taking the time to join us to learn all things about Air Force's newest vehicle, Megatron, and I'm joined by a really great guest, Brian Geem. So we're gonna get started right now. So it's the top of the hour. We're gonna get started, and I'm gonna get to some, let's see, before event details here. So, yeah, everyone. My name is Britney Winkler. I'm the head of industry relations here at Govdash. I do a lot of different things. I manage the intel newsletter you might be subscribed to that you get monthly. I write all of our industry reports that come out quarterly. I also run the webinar program, so hopefully this isn't your first time seeing me. I do these weekly, and it's a lot of fun. Also, when you guys are joining, feel free to drop your LinkedIn, any information about who you are, what businesses you're attached to or you're running. It's a really great way to connect and network, so take advantage of those opportunities today. And we're gonna get started here. So joining me today is Brian Gein. He's the, senior vice president of US sales at SBIR Advisors powered by Alexandra. He has such an extensive history. This is hopefully not the first time you're seeing him. I feel like he's everywhere. But, you know, why we picked him today and why he said yes is just, you know, he has a really great background in the air force, space force, has history of helping building relations that ultimately lead to people getting opportunities such as Megatron, and a ton of others. So I'll let, Brian take it away with, you know, some insights of who he is, what he loves to do, and what he's working on right now. But this is going to be a really fun event, so please stay for the whole program and ask questions as they come up today. So, Brian, I'll let you introduce yourself. Yeah. Perfect. Thanks, Britney. Appreciate you having me. I think it's gonna be a great talk today. Yeah. I've been in the technology for over twenty five years, really working kind of in the government space for about the last eighteen or so, primarily focused on the military of the past eight. I'm really helping early stage defense tech companies or or commercial companies that have dual use technologies get into the space kind of as a as an organization. And and prior, I was a client of of Supervisors for a number of years. I worked with the team for about five and a half years before I joined the team about two years ago and just saw the cool things they were doing and how they were helping really drive impact for the warfighter by getting innovative technology into their hands. And, again, you know, have worked as a, like, as a client, won a number of different contracts. Actually, it worked with ABMS in in the early days of that program when it was at Cloudbees. And so, just got a lot of different visibility into kinda how this works. You know, we work with over 200 companies on a on a regular basis. We've won over 600,000,000 in funding for those companies. So I've kind of been in there firsthand to be able to see this, and so I'm excited for the talk today and, looking forward to this discussion. Awesome. Thank you so much, Brian. Yeah. We're so happy to have him. It's always great when we can have, you know, experts that have actually done this work. So we're gonna get started pretty quickly. Alright. So today, it's gonna be a forty five minute talk. We're gonna get into everything about Megatron, everything you need to know to leave, feeling good about what actions you need to take. That's the ultimate goal, actionable intel. We're not just gonna present, you know, research, educational content, but also next steps of what you should be keeping in mind today before, you know, Megatron becomes real. We're gonna be saving a good portion, fifteen minutes for q and a. Or me and Brian can set aside that time to answer your questions. So as questions come up, feel free to put them in the chat, or we do have a q and a chat as well where you can add to them. We're gonna make sure we get to all questions and make sure you guys are leaving feeling really empowered by the content today. Another note, this, recording will be available on demand as soon as this event closes. Everyone that registered is gonna get the email with the on demand video. Also some takeaway resources. Today, we have so many free resources that, you know, I put together to really give you guys, a good starting point of, you know, when you leave this event, what are the next steps. One of those is gonna be capturing, 2027, the newest report that I wrote, a few months ago. It has a lot of good content on Megatron, tons of data, and then I also recently put together a spreadsheet of all past awardees, past incumbent history of the previous two vehicles to Megatron, so that's free for you today. And also some more insights on what events we're having in the future. We're running a pricer series, so a lot of interesting content. Please take advantage of it. But, again, you should get an email with all of those resources as well. Alright. So we are five minutes in. This is great. Okay. So we're gonna start off with what really Megatron is, the backstory of how this became to existing today. And doing that, we're gonna be looking at the past two iterations of vehicles that Megatron is looking to really combine. We're gonna look at what Megatron is going to try to accomplish in the next few years here. We're looking at the money, the parts, the most coverage, looking at what industry leaders are talking about when it comes to this vehicle and how you can ultimately go down the pipeline of competing for task orders as they come up. Alright. We're also gonna be talking about the mechanics of it. So we're gonna be doing a deep dive into the I think it's seven capability areas that Megatron is looking to fill out, looking at the exact timeline progression of a final solicitation, the ceiling, positioning, prime versus teaming. This is a huge opportunity for sub subcontractors, and we have the data to back that up. Again, it's gonna be all in the spreadsheet. Also, just what you need to be building in the next, you know, few months here and what actionable steps do you need to take to make sure your firm is in the best place possible to ultimately compete on something like Megatron? Alright. So I'm gonna start us off here just giving you guys a really good overview of what Megatron even is, and Brian is gonna get into the details of what teaming looks like, what those action steps actually need to look like. So Megatron, it's more than just a crazy name. It's it's a lot of what has happened in the past combining into something new here. This administration has made it clear that innovation is top of mind, so this is a great example of what they're looking to do by combining two prior existing contracts. And we're also seeing that as, you know, MAPS start to develop, as well. MAPS is also a combination of two prior vehicles. So that's a lot of what the future is looking like here, consolidation and innovation. So, you know, just to get us off here, Megatron is the Air Force's next command and control IDIQ. Just really letting the Air Force and the Space Force buy c two technology from multiple companies under one multiyear vehicle, and it sits under PAEC three b m and supports, Battle Network, which grew out of the previous vehicle here, ABMS. So the whole goal you know, I like to really just give a great overview of what these vehicles accomplish because it lets you forecast, you know, what Megatron would actually be doing here when we're looking at the mission at stake. So ABMS, this was a 2020 vehicle. This was the Air Force's JAD c two contribution. It it included seven capability areas, rapid competition cycles, and vendor onboarding through 2023. Its seven capability structure is the blueprint for what we're seeing today with Megatron. And we're looking at the documentation of how Megatron is growing and where they're pulling in these missions from. ABMS's, clearest mission was homeland, homeland defense against cruise missile attacks proven through a series of live on ramp experiments run specifically with NORTHCOM and SPACECOM. So if you have that intel, you know exactly what the mission Megatron is looking to, fill out here. In the second part, x a, you just brought in that vendor base of what they were trying to accomplish with that first vehicle. For capture teams, these two vehicles today are closed to new vendors. Megatron is the new entry point, and it's really using these as the blueprint for that. Incumbents hold an edge in the unrestricted pool, and the categories a company selects at proposal time define which task orders it can compete for, throughout the whole life cycle of that new contract. Right now, the Air Force runs this kind of work through two separate vehicles. It's these two. But those timelines are coming up very quickly here. One ends in 2027 and the other one in 2023 as soon as Megatron is looking to be awarded. So once one closes, the door is going to be opening on Megatron. Administration has really made it clear that Megatron is replacing both of these vehicles, folding them into what is going to be the command and control, way to provide services to the DOD community. And if you're interested in more data on these two previous iterations, that's the spreadsheet that's also linked in this PowerPoint. I also put it here for you guys as well, but I have a full detailed history of who is winning these awards at what time, how much down to the dollar, what services they were providing, where they were located, who they sub contracted with, and how much those subcontractors made. It's really interesting when you can pick out, you know, the top 10 leaders for each vehicle. It gives you a really great forecast of what that next iteration Megatron is ultimately going to look like here. And I'll put these links in the chat as I go. Alright. So two public sources here. Let's see. Yeah. I wanna make sure I'm reading this correctly. Alright. So when I was looking at the data for what this new program, Megatron, is going to include, it's it's really different. We have so many industry experts out there in the field that have run webinars in the past that have, other write ups differently from what I'm looking at in sam.gov. So I wanted to include both here. So if you look at just the official documentation that is in sam.gov today, it lists out these specific key areas of what they're trying to accomplish through Megatron. But also, you know, I wanted to include what industry experts are saying. This looks a little bit different from the official documentation, but, you know, it could go either way. We've seen this administration really change things at the last second. There's so much opportunity here especially for small business, and we're gonna be detailing that in just a second. Alright. Yeah. So those were the capability areas. This slide specifically is contract mechanics and what we have confirmed as of today. When I do capture and research, I like to look at the past timeline, look at what we're experiencing right now, look at other vehicles for great examples of what the timeline might be, and then also, listen to, you know, Industry Days. There's a great one coming up, and also pay attention to what administration is saying, if anything, about this specific program. And in this case, there is a lot they are saying. So on contract mechanics, Megatron runs under something called the RFO. That's the revolutionary overhaul of FAR, and it's a deviation that replaces the standard. It's codified FAR part 15 process for this specific acquisition. It's also decentralized. Meaning, once this award, this contract is in the phase of awards, any air force program office or really any DOD agency can place orders against it directly. And I think that's really important to note, because even if you are not a past incumbent on the previous vehicles, there's still so much opportunity, and I and we're gonna prove this to you today through data. Now that I got to that, we're gonna talk about these dates, key information that is public that I think everyone here should know about today. These are the dates that really matter. The acquisition stat strategy got approved, a few months ago, August 5. Well, actually, it's last month. The draft SOW came out September 4, and if you want to submit feedback on it, that's due September 30. It's coming up really quickly, straight to the contracting officer, and we have details about who that is. And you can even research this person, What contracts have they worked on before, you know, to get a really good timeline of what they might want out of this. There's also an industry day. And in this slide, this is also a takeaway, so you guys will have the link, and I'll put it here in the chat today. Industry is having a virtual day. No. Actually, this is in person. It's October 7. You register by Teams. It's really great information. There's really high level officials that are going to be there. In the registration link, you can look at who's gonna be talking about what and why. This is really important information that anyone is looking to get onto this vehicle needs to be in the know of. A lot of the times, and I I hope this isn't the first time someone's joining an industry day, but what they do is give you great information that you really cannot find anywhere else, and you have the ability to ask questions. So I'll put the link in the chat for that. Please sign up. If I remember correctly, it's on a wait list basis, so get in there as soon as you can. And on the pool structure here, sam.gov actively classifies Megatron today as a partial small business set aside under FAR 19.5. So there is actually going to be a dedicated small business pool sitting alongside the unrestricted pool. That is confirmed today. That's not a maybe. That's actually the pathway that they're going to be pursuing. That can also change. So just always make sure you have some type of tool or capability. Even if it's manual, you are looking at this special notice and tracking as updates come down the line. Alright. So getting to some really interesting data, vehicle economics. So this part is really beneficial for anyone that is that does not have time to do the data like I do or does not like to do it. So this is more than just a ceiling. These are dates. And when I look at both, predecessor vehicles, nearly every company that held the slot eventually won some type of task order. It's looking like there's so much opportunity, but when you really look at the data, you can pick out pieces of where your company might fall in line. And nearly yeah. Every company that, you know, bids something, they win something in a task order, whether that was a prime or working through as a subcontractor. Getting on the vehicle was not really the hard part when I look at, you know, who is bidding and who actually won something. But there are top 10 companies on each vehicle that took almost 99% of the share. And if you want that data, you can see it for yourself how much everyone was, winning on those vehicles. This is the same exact story, you know, that we've seen in other vehicles similar like this. There's always, you know, top 10 incumbent lists. It's always those big crimes. But when you dig into the data, you can actually see who they worked with to get their numbers so inflated. There's so much path, you know, that can be pursued, and we'll have the data to back that up for you guys too. It's totally free. It's something I love doing, and it's gonna be accessible for everyone that's joining our call today. Alright. So looking at a little bit of teaming before, Brian takes it off here. So if you're wondering how companies actually break into that top tier of incumbents winning the largest shares of vehicles, This is where to start. On the ABMS side, SAIC is the hub. This was really the top awardee here, but they did this through, I picked out 59 exact subcontracts that they worked with, and I detail, you know, some examples of people that we're working with, as they I see here to get this done. Same thing on the XA side. You know, General Dynamics is always a key leader, and I feel like so much of the data that I look at. But who did they work with to get that? They worked with 21 subcontractors awards, and these were the top ones. So if you're looking at, you know, potential teaming partners, this might be a good list to get started. There's more information in this, spreadsheet that I'm gonna put the link out for once I am done talking here and hand it all over to Brian. But this is really great information. This is great capture work. You always wanna be in the know of who was winning what before it happened, looking at past examples of work history, getting full details down to the dollar of how much someone was obligated. Did they even spend that much? Who did they work with to get that done? It's all relationship building, but also just providing really great services, having the tools to write those proposals to get on the vehicle, and also ultimately compete, in a really great way through sub, task orders. Alright. Alright. And this is my last slide, so I can put all of the links in here that everyone is asking about today. So, also, when I'm looking at capture, I look at data, I look at what people are saying, and I look at past. You know, it's really a full overview of what you can expect for something that's gonna happen in the future like Megatron. So two things before I hand it off here. First, if your company doesn't have past performance with this specific program office yet, This is a real low stakes way to get in, build some past performance to be in a better position ultimately when Megatron does come down. It's currently open right now, this opportunity. I'll also put the link for this. It is with the JADC two. It's open right now. Current response date as of today is November 9, so you have, you know, a few months to work with here. It works in two steps. It's currently asking for a white paper and a rough price estimate, and then you're ultimately invited to, propose to the if the government wants to move forward with your white paper information. This is a legitimate start to start building, past performance with contracting officers, with, you know, the program office that is ultimately building Megatron today. And the second part here is just looking at what industry is saying here. So positioning you straight from the program office itself. It's not something we're guessing at. This is great information if you are in the know of what's happening, what people are saying about Megatron. So this is from something that just happened last week. Let me make sure my notes are here. Yeah. Black box systems integration, looking towards models, swappable best of breed components, really open data importance is what is gonna be high level for Megatron walking in. This was something that was said last week. Let me see. I have the exact name here. But, yeah, you you just always wanna make sure you are, you know, taking consideration what the government, what the program officers are saying about this new vehicle, what they're trying to get out of it, what they're looking to do with it. That's ultimately gonna give you a ultimately gonna give you a better idea of where you're able to compete, in the future here. Alright. So I'm gonna work on putting those links in the chat for you guys. I think I have the industry day, some other intel, but I really wanna pass it to Brian here. He's gonna have some really great time on just more information about, you know, what exactly you should be doing when Megatron actually comes, to, you know, our final solicitation time. So, Brian, I'll let you take it away here. Perfect. Thanks, Britney. I think the data you showed, you know, sets this up really well. I think when companies, you know, at least my experience, when when companies see something like Megatron and the 4,500,000,000 plus ceiling, I think the natural first question is, like, how do we get on it? I think when working with a lot of the companies that we interface with, there are, you know, everything from a more traditional small business to nontraditionals, dual use commercial companies, early stage defense techs. I think the more important question is really, if we get on, what are we actually going to sell through it? Who's going to buy it? And why are they going to buy it from us? And I think a lot of the data that you just showed kind of around those existing vehicles, how task orders were flow starts to kinda lead to this conversation. I think getting on to an IDIQ and generating meaningful revenue through an IDIQ are are really two different things. So, you know, getting a seat on the vehicle definitely gives you access. It gives you the ability to compete. It doesn't necessarily create demand. And I see variations of it this all the time with the technology companies entering or scaling in the federal market, where they tend to first focus on the acquisition mechanism. You know, what's the contract? What's the IDIQ? What's the OTA? What's the server that I need to pursue? And those things, they absolutely matter, but ultimately, how the government buy those are ultimately how the government buys something. They don't really answer the question why the government is going to buy your thing or your service. I think the the revenue still starts with a customer emission problem, demand for a solution, and ultimately funding. Then you need an acquisition pathway that lets you convert the demand into a contract. So I think when you look at something like Megatron, I I really I'm really thinking about two questions in my own head. Like, should you pursue the vehicle, number one, and and in what capacity? And we'll talk about that here in a little bit. And then how are you gonna win work once you have access to it? And I think that's that starts with deciding which track you actually wanna build on. So if you wanna switch to the next slide. Awesome. So I think we start to look at, you know oh, sorry. Yeah. So that's fine. So that was actually the last slide. So go to the next one. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. So what we we really wanna look at here, right, I think there's three potential tracks that most companies are gonna look like. You know, do you prime? Do you team? Do you build towards that in the future? I think if you're going to prime, I wanna see more than the ability to submit a compliant bid. You have to ask yourself the question, do you have the relevant past performance? Do you have real customer relationships within those organizations existing today? Do you really understand the mission problems that you specifically are positioned to solve through your technology, through your services? Is there a mission aligned pipeline on the back end of this that actually is gonna drive towards the capability that you're bringing to the table? And do you have the capture capacity to continue competing once you're on the vehicle? And I think that last one actually is is almost the more most important because you can put an enormous amount of organizational energy into getting onto a contract vehicle, and then you learn that you've just earned the right to compete again, and again and again because winning the vehicle isn't the end of that capture process. It just creates another capture environment. So if you wanna prime, I think it's important to understand not just how you're going to win a spot or win a seat. I think I want you to understand how you're going to create and capture demand after you do. And this is often something that we that we see with with companies that we've worked with where they'll they'll come to us and they've already been added to an IDIQ. They've already got some type of create a in place or some type of contract in place, but they don't have intimacy with that customer. They don't really understand exactly how their products are gonna solve a mission need, and so they end up kinda stalling and not ultimately receiving as much, task orders or opportunities through that because they kind of wait are waiting for the government to put that out. I think the second track you gotta look at is is teaming. And so maybe you really genuinely, have a differentiated technology. You have a strong mission fit, but you're kinda missing some combination of past performance, customer coverage, maybe contract infrastructure to actually manage it or or technical breadth. Maybe even just to capture resources themselves, because that that in in and of itself can be a large undertaking. Again, not just the initial award, but kind of that ongoing captured engagement. But that doesn't necessarily mean you should sit out or that it's a reason to sit out. It it may really may just be a reason to team. And I wanna really emphasize this. Right? Teaming isn't a consolation prize. Especially when you think of an emerging or dual use technology company, your objective shouldn't necessarily be to put your logo on top of a contract. The objective is to get technology into the mission, ultimately generate value, generate revenue, create for yourself, create the past performance, start to really deepen those customer relationships, which now allows you to expand from there over time. And sometimes the fastest way to accomplish this is through somebody else's contract. Right? And I think with in the previous examples you should that Britney showed, you know, there were a number of that across both the AVMS and XA vehicles, right, where there were subs that were being added underneath that. I think when you think beyond that, you have the opportunity to build. So when I think build, maybe your technology is interesting, but you're still validating the defense use case. Maybe you have a fully ready capability, but you don't have yet have the customer relationships. Maybe you can't identify the specific program or organization within that vehicle that would actually buy from you. Again, maybe there's a lack of relevant past performance. And so maybe the biggest reason Negatron is interesting to you is that you saw 4,500,000,000. And that's when I would build before I would chase. And that's why I like the word build rather than wait. You're not sitting on the sidelines. You're deliberately building the customer relationships, mission validation, past performance, and government traction that make you credible later. Because a 4,500,000,000 ceiling doesn't automatically mean a $4,500,000,000 opportunity for you. Right? The question is how much of that market aligns to a real customer problem that you're actually well positioned to solve? Next one. So I think this is actually probably the the most important distinction in my section, I think. I look at it as, two different games. On the left side, it's getting on to the vehicle. Right? And on the right side is actually winning the task orders once you're on. And so, again, game one, getting on. To get on the vehicle, we're talking about things that we've mentioned. Do I have the relevant past performance? Is my technical capability been validated and I've proven that out? Do I have the ability and readiness to actually do the contract management piece of this? Do I have the right team and structure around the team to be able to show the the customer upfront how we can deliver and then actually deliver on the the back end. And then, ultimately, the actual proposal itself that we're demonstrating, that we're demonstrating, hey. We're qualified here to compete this work. Now those things matter. You don't get to game two without game one if you intend to prime, but look at what changes once we move over to the other side. So So when we think about winning the work, now we're talking about developing that customer intimacy, right, and really getting to understand their problems. Are they looking for larger exquisite capabilities? Are they looking for more optionality? They want modular components. They want different types of of sensing. They want that all rolled into a complete solution, but, ultimately, they wanna own the data. So, again, understanding to build mission alignment against that, That starts to help you create that demand and ultimately a path to funding. It also helps you differentiate yourself in market because now you've actually heard what the customer's asking for and you're building towards that and developing that relationship as you go. And now you're really in that pre RFP capture mode. Right? Even if you're already on the vehicle, because you're again developing towards those task orders that ultimately you can satisfy. And those are really different muscles. Right? So now the question isn't simply, are you qualified? It's why should this customer buy this capability from you for this mission right now? And I think that's where a lot of companies get acquisitions backwards. They start with an opportunity. Here's an RFP. Can we bid it? And then they try to manufacture customer strategy, mission alignment, and even the team around the solicitation. And I don't wanna go the opposite direction. Right? Start with, like, who actually owns this problem? What are they trying to accomplish with this effort? Where does my capabilities, services, technology fit within that, with within the problem they have and what they're trying to accomplish? And where are they at within that journey today? Do they already have someone prototyping? Do they already have someone building something off to the side? Really understanding where it is because that'll help you understand, is there actual demand? If there's demand, is there funding? And then who else within that organization do I have to build a relationship today to be successful? And then who needs to be around us? Is this something that we as an organization can execute on our own? I mean, often when we're working with earlier stage defense tech startups who have some really great technology, they've already been through, you know, let's say something like the SIVR program. They've won phase one, phase two contracts. They've built past performance. They have sole source eligibility. They've gone and they've done a technical funding increase, and they've really proven the technology. But can they deliver the entire solution, or do they need a team around them to help execute it? And then, ultimately, you know, what's the right acquisition path once I've built all those relationships? Megatron might be that path, certainly, but the vehicle should support the capture strategy. The vehicle shouldn't become the capture strategy from my perspective with the companies and and organizations that I've worked with over the years. And that's the difference between the two sides of on the slide. Right? Qualified to compete does not mean position to win. And that becomes especially important when you start thinking about teaming. So let's go to the next slide and talk about that. I get this this I get a some version of this question almost on a daily basis. Right? Especially in that, you know, my role is often working with these, you know, earlier stage companies or nontraditionals. And they'll they'll come to me, and I usually get two questions. Is, one, can you enter take me to the Pentagon so that we can, show the military all this cool stuff we have so they can award us a $30,000,000 contract, which I have to explain is not really how this works. And the second one that is actually just as common is, can you introduce us to primes? And my response is usually like, yeah. You know, certainly. Right? We have those relationships. Primes love partnering with small nontraditionals. But what are you going to say when I do? Because if I look at the left side, often what they come to me with is like, look. I've got this great technology solution. Oh, we're a small business, so we're gonna help them check boxes in certain areas. Hey. Check out this cool deck that, you know, our VCs love, and they you know, here's the capability we have, or, oh, we want access to, you know, these vehicles. Maybe Megatron's one of them. And I would say none of those things are inherently bad, but I think about it from the prime's perspective and say, well, how many companies are approaching them with essentially that same exact pitch? A prime really doesn't need another logo for a slide. They need partners to make them more likely to win more. And as a partner subcontractor on from a product perspective on existing vehicles, that's exactly when we would be successful with prime team prime sub relationships was when they were more likely to win work because of the capability or service that I brought to the table that they may not have specialized in or wanted to resource on their own. And I think that's the shift on the right instead of, like, hey. Can you know, put us on your team. Can we get on your team? The conversation becomes, here's how we can win together. We understand this customer. We understand this mission problem. Our technology fills a specific gap that we know exists there, and here's what differentiates us. Here's what we bring that strengthens your position. And ideally, if you can, and this has been, you know, my most successful opportunities is here's an opportunity that we're bringing to you that we believe we can pursue better together, and that's a different teaming conversation entirely. And I think there's a simple way to test whether a partnership actually makes sense. So I I look at it and go, what do they what do they have that you don't, and what do you have that they need? And then maybe they bring vehicle access, customer coverage, integration capability, scale, or past performance, and maybe you bring differentiated IP, specialized technology, some customer insights, a mission relationship, or, again, a specific opportunity to the table. And now that's complimentary. Right? And so if neither side can clearly articulate that exchange of value, you may have a teaming agreement. You don't necessarily have a capture team. And so if you remember one thing from this slide, it's bring a prime and opportunity, not just a capability. And I would start those conversations now, not when everybody is under solicitation pressure because now the RFP is live and everybody's gotta get this out out the door. So let's talk about what to do next if you wanna switch to the next one, Britney. Thank you. So let's actually turn this into action. So let's say you've decided you're gonna prime, team, build. What do you actually do next? So I think when we think of prime if you're gonna prime first, we gotta validate the customer demand. Gotta start thinking about likely task orders and work you expect to pursue and start mapping towards what that's gonna look like once this is awarded. I think you also have to look at where your capability and past performance gaps may exist to start to build the right team around those gaps. Now if you notice the order there, I'm not assembling a team first and then trying to figure out what we can pursue based on the team that I've built. I'm actually looking at the work I believe exists, and there's a lot of good data points on this because this is a a centralization of two existing vehicles that have existing awards on them. But I'm not assembling team first and trying to figure out what to presume. I'm looking at that work that exists, I believe exists, and then building the team required to go win that future work. And then resource again that ongoing capture motion. This is not gonna be a one and done. Those that win on these types of vehicles, as many of you I'm sure know, are the ones that create that ongoing capture throughout that whole cycle. They don't build a capture organization that gets you onto Megatron and then disappear afterwards. You really need to resource, you know, the resources to continue competing because the competition isn't over once you're on the vehicle. Now I think from a team perspective, identify the primes that actually make sense. Not every prime on Megatron, the ones where your capabilities, the customers, and mission areas are complimentary to each other. And then start to define your unique value proposition. What specifically do you bring? Are you bringing customer mission insight? Start the conversations now. And whenever possible, move from we should partner sometime to here's something we can pursue together. And that's when a relationships starts becoming more and starts to actually become a a capture strategy. Now if you're in the build state, right, and you need to earn that credibility, you have work to do. You still gotta go in and validate the mission. You gotta build those customer relationships. You've gotta use smaller acquisition pathways where appropriate, and then build against that, you know, relevant past performance, and then really reassess your readiness. And those smaller pathways could be a number of things depending on the company and the customer. SBIRs, OTAs, CSOs, subcontracting, or even other acquisition pathways. And I think Britney pointed out a great one earlier with JAD c two, CSOs. Like, that could be a pathway. If you need to go, it's, you know, starting place as a white paper with some pricing estimates, and then it scales as you're kinda down selected for it. It also helps you start to really build that capture motion rhythm, I think, as you're starting to build towards doing this as a prime, and you're currently in still kind of that evaluation mode. The real objective here is to create evidence. A government customer has the problem. Our technology solves it. They will pay us to solve it, and we can execute. And then that's the credibility you wanna build. So build isn't the group that's doing nothing. It's the group that's deliberately building towards being ready to compete in the future. Alright. So let's go to the next one and talk a little bit about kinda what to do before the the RFP lands, the draft lands. So I'll close, like, with three groups because I know we have different companies represented here. So I think captured BD leaders, you know, if you're already operating in this market and, you know, map your customer relationships and expected demand against the Megatron's capability areas now. As you know, you don't just ask, where do we technically qualify? You're asking yourself, where do we have the customer intimacy and credible path to revenue? And those aren't the same answer. I think when we think of companies without XAADMS history, that's fine if you don't have XAADMS history. I wouldn't spend my time worrying about the fact that you weren't there yesterday. What I would start focusing on is what can you build towards today as we just talked about. You know, go ahead and start building those relationships and having those teaming conversations where you're bringing unique capability to the table and you're explaining the value to those you're partnering with in a strategic way so that you're positioned to win that work. I think you wanna understand who's already positioned around the customers and the mission areas that you care about so that you can identify the right partners that also are gonna be complimentary to the team that you're building and putting together. And I think you need to understand what you bring to the the the team, to the partner group. Right? Can you articulate that value, be it a technology, a service, the strength of your team, that customer intimacy knowledge, whatever it may be. And, again, waiting until the RFP is out to figure out who your team is is gonna put you behind, and I and I would say it puts you in a position where you're really kinda coming in too late. You need to start developing those relationships now. Start looking at these past contract vehicles, understanding those mission areas, those focus areas. When you think of, you know, everything from digital infrastructure, software, distributed c two, you know, when you're thinking about how you're gonna integrate into that and really provide support against that to help in this new construct will put you in a better position. Now for the earlier stage companies that, you know, are looking at this going, hey. We we have technology. We're developing. You know, maybe it's already been proven through a rapid acquisition pathway or non dilutive government funding mechanism like a CIVR contract. Great. If you're a commercial or dual use company trying to scale in to defense, don't start with the vehicle. Don't worry about getting on Megatron. There will be pathways. Start with the customer. Go have conversations. Understand the requirements. Go to the industry days. Get that deep insight. Start with the mission problem that they're facing and trying to address, and really build your narrative around that. And then look at where's their demand to solve those different areas. That may lead you to partnering with others, with other primes, but that will help guide you and then really work backwards into how the government can buy from you today. So that's true for Megatron and and frankly, I think it's true much more broadly in the market in general. So as we kinda come up here towards the end to start diving into q and a, if there's one thought I'd leave everyone with, don't wait for the RFP to tell you what your Megatron strategy is. The RFP can tell you how to compete with the vehicle. It can't tell you which customers need you. It can't tell you which mission problems you're best positioned to solve, and it can't tell you who you should partner with. And really, it can't tell you where your revenue is going to come from. Those are customer capture and go to market questions. And those questions, those are the questions you can start answering now. And, Britney, I think this is a good place to bring it back in because it gets directly into some of the questions, we're hearing around the small business pool, what companies should do if they don't have XA or ABMS history, and how much, companies should really be doing before the RFP hits the ground. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Thank you so much, Brian. Before we get into q and a, I do wanna remind everyone, if there's something you're interested in Brian or me covering right now in the last fifteen minutes, go ahead and add to the chat here. We'll we'll make sure we get to all of the questions. Just to kind of, you know, end it here before we get into the questions, I did wanna mention, you know, where do you go from here? Right? So this is a gov dash webinar. You can track, opportunities, contracts like this, Megatron, and more in Discover. We have full capabilities to really do capture proposal work, everything like that. If you're looking at the spreadsheet of data I gave you, for example, I pulled that directly from Gundash. We have access to, you know, almost every federal, database out there. It it really helps me when I'm doing research. I don't have to go through sam.gov, USA spending, other, you know, tools out there. I can really get it in one place and really turn the Excel into exactly what I need, not just straight data. So if you're interested in having a conversation about, you know, capture, proposal, anything like that, I'm more than happy to meet with you guys. You can also reach out to the team. We have experts in every part of the contract manage, management life cycle, but also Brian too. And I would love Brian to give more overview of, you know, exactly what, SVR Advisors does, his role, on the team. But, also, they're a great starting point for anyone that needs those consulting assistance as well. So, Brian, I'll let you take it away with a little bit more about what you guys are doing at SPR Advisors. Yeah. Sure. No. I appreciate that. Yeah. So, you know, we were we were founded back in 2020 really with the mission to get innovative technology into the hands of a warfighter. The team is all former military veterans. A lot of them come out of contracting and acquisitions. Our founder was a was a contracting officer in the air force, and and he was frustrated by the speed at which he could get capabilities into the hand of of the end users. Right? And whether that be just simple things like getting them, you know, old iPhones because it took forever to procure them. And by the time they would actually get them, they were already out of date. And he really saw a pathway as the government started and really the air force started looking at modernizing, these rapid acquisition pathways and leveraging the server program differently, specifically. Because they, at that time, and they've historically done specific topics where the government would put out a requirement and say, hey, innovative companies, feel free to apply to this. And if it matched, great. But what we found was that, actually, there was a lot of innovative technologies being developed that the government just didn't know how to apply to their use cases. And so the air force, through Afwerks, started the air force open topic program, and that allowed industry to come into the market and say, hey, government. I have this technology. I'd love to learn more about where you have perceived gaps, and how can we potentially apply this technology to solve that problem. And so what we really do and what I what I've been doing again, both as a client and and a customer and then an advisor as well is is really helping companies understand regardless of their life cycle. And I work with companies that are, you know, two guys bootstrapped just came out of y combinator, you know, fresh funding, you know, interesting technology, very early stage to well established companies that are well beyond the the revenue and employee thresholds, of something like the CBR program. And so although, you know, the name implies, CBR is certainly a focal point for us. We actually help companies transition a lot beyond that, whether that be, you know, sole source awards post their initial kind of building a past performance credibility with government, to ultimately those larger scale larger scale multimillion dollar contract awards directly to them. And so, you know, we're really here to just help companies understand based on where they're at in their federal life cycle journey, you know, how we can add, support and help beyond what they're doing today in a fractional basis that allows them to really increase the scale at how they can support the government. Alright. And then one other quick thing I wanna mention. So right now, this is session one of the three part series that we're running on twenty twenty seven vehicles. This was the first iteration of it. So this was with Brian. This was all about Megatron. Next month, we are going to be joined by, Katie, Eric, and Dan. We're gonna be really digging into OASIS Plus. These are the go to experts in the industry, so we are so excited to have them on and really get a really great overview of what happened in 2026 with OASIS with the most current data available and projecting what the next few years are gonna look like. And then also we have a whole session on maps. Allison Gregory spent over a decade as, you know, working in the contracting offices of the army. So much experience in maps specifically. Follow her on LinkedIn. I think she posts updates, like, every day of what's happening with that vehicle. So a lot to get to there. So I hope to see you guys again when we have, future guest speakers coming on. But we'll circle back to some questions. And, Brian, I think you could take this one. It's really interesting. So someone is asking, is there any tie between Megatron to the past, Air Force RL AMAC? Yeah. And, hopefully, I said that right. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. No. Perfect. Yeah. So my understanding, there's not a direct tie between them, but I do think AMAC and Megatron can be complementary because AFRL can help mature the technology that the battle network needs, and Megatron could then provide a path to integrate and deliver it. I think the bridge is a customer with a funded requirement. I don't there's not, from my knowledge, an automatic or instant handoff between those two vehicles, but I could see them some being complimentary in that type of a workflow. Even though Megatron does have some research capabilities, I think the AFRL side would probably be a better starting place depending on maturity. Awesome. Cool. We have another one. So is there an expectation that the categories will be different tracks to bid for, or will our teams need to address all categories? See. Brian, can you hear me? Oh, yes. Sorry. I didn't know that you were asking me that one. No. Sorry. I just wanna make sure. Yeah. So the question was, is there an expectation that the categories No. will be different tracks to bid for, or will teams need to address all categories? That's okay. I'm not I that's a good that actually is a good question. I am not sure that they are available to bid independently. That's just one of the reasons why I think there's the larger teaming opportunities. I. think it's not yet fully confirmed, which is why I haven't seen anything specific about it. It likely will come out when we see the pre RFP or the industry date may also talk about it. I haven't seen anything public yet that says that you can bid them individually, although you would think you would likely be able to based on your kinda strengths. Otherwise, it's gonna position itself really to be a a large prime vehicle with subcon small subs underneath it. Yeah. I I agree with you there. I haven't seen anything publicly. I mean, that's why I always suggest, like, just keeping up to date with you know, as the timeline progresses with that solicitation because it it's gonna really change the whole environment if you're able to bid individually or if you need to be covering all at the same time. We have another question from Michael. I I think I could answer this. Brian, also interested if you have some insider knowledge. I don't. But do you know why the government made the document access so convoluted in sam.gov? My take on that is I totally agree with you. Some days I go in there and there's data and there's documents, and then the next day they're locked. That goes for if you have a sam.gov account or if you're just a viewer publicly. The way I get around that is by using tools. I've worked for gov dash, so I have access to gov dash. But once the document is added into sam.gov, we upload it into our system and that never goes away even if access goes away. And we're totally compliant with CUI and things like that. So we're doing it in the right way. It's just better to have your information download those documents as soon as they become public so you never know when they're gonna be taken away or when data is gonna be removed. Also looking at those modifications when something does change in a RFI solicitation. Most of the time, they do document those modifications. You just wanna make sure they're accurate and you're not missing out on any intel that they might have removed. Do you have any insight into that, Brian? Have you seen anything like that in same.gov? Yes. Yeah. No. I mean, I think you called it out. Right? I mean, that that's why I think organizations like GoVash exist and why, you know, if you see something, you know, certainly downloading and and securing those files properly is important because we I've seen I mean, many, many times over the past ten plus years of I've seen things come out. All of a sudden, document's not there anymore, then it shows back up. So, unfortunately, that's just the process with sam.gov. Yeah. And I was looking at the industry date. If I'm looking at the right one today, I went into the solicitation for Megatron, and the link for the industry day is not even there anymore. So that's a really good example of something that was there that's not, if I was looking at the right solicitation correctly there. Brian, we have another really good question about Air Force. George is asking, has the Air Force announced the system to manage the intake of offers? He's asking about task orders. Yep. So not that I've seen publicly confirmed yet. So, you know, sam.gov is the announced information hub, but the plat the platform for submitting both the proposals in the system for competing task orders, I think, still needs clarification. I know that there was some talk about decentralized ordering announcements and, like, a common task order portal, but I don't think that has been identified in the materials that I've reviewed so far. Okay. Cool. And then last question here, and I think, Brian, you you will be in the best position to answer this. When it comes to small businesses that might not have that past award performance history, When they're looking to meet with those primes, you you mentioned, yeah, I can introduce you to somebody, but what are you gonna say when we get there? What is something that, you know, everyone here today can learn about how to talk to primes? You mentioned, like, you know, you need to make it in a way that's like you're aligned on both pursuits. It's beneficial to both parties. But is there any information that you've seen really work in those conversations? Yeah. I I think really what it has been is, like, coming in with some knowledge of the actual requirement that you're pursuing from the government side where, like, you also had a you know, some amount of government interaction to show that there's also, demand there. It's not always required, but a lot of times I see companies go like, oh, x y z prime has this vehicle. That's my customer. Make an intro. I'm gonna make their life so much better. And without understanding, you know, what type of vehicle do they have with that customer? What type of activities of work are they actually doing? What is the government happy with? And where does the government maybe see opportunity for improvement? And trying to really kinda understand that nuance, not to just, hey. I have cool cool tech that's gonna make you more efficient on contract x y z, but understanding, like, the actual mechanics of that contract so that when you're positioning with the prime, you're saying, here's how I can help you. And it may be help you on the recompete, help you on whatever area, but but I think it has to be actionable. And if the company has come in with too broad of a, well, I can just help you in a general way, I think it's harder for the primes to understand that because, again, you're not the only company coming to them that wants access to that customer or once thinks that they're going to help you solve a need. I think it's a lot of listening and learning and then responding and acting based on on that intel that you get. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And then I also just wanna say, Brian, thank you again for saying yes to this. We had a really great conversation. I wanna remind everyone that at the end of this, recording, it's gonna be available on demand. It's gonna get straight to your email. Along with the slides and all of the resources, there was a report, a free data sheet of everything you should know about the past vehicles that Megatron is looking to consolidate. But, yeah, that is the end of today. I hope to see you guys on more webinars. Again, we're having Oasis plus and, maps in the short feature here. So thank you guys again today, and thank you so much, Brian, for saying yes. We had a great conversation. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate everyone attending and asking good questions. Awesome.