The whole job, from first meeting to awarded contract
Most firms in this market sell the proposal. The proposal is the last few weeks of a job that takes a year. Business development and capture are where the win is decided, and they get the same weight here that proposals do.
Four phases. The writing is the smallest one
A federal pursuit is mostly research, positioning, and relationships. If a firm starts working the day a solicitation drops, they are not running capture, they are typing.
Business development
Find the offices with the problem, the money, and the authority to buy. Build the relationships before there is anything to sell them.
- Runs continuously
- Sets everything downstream
Capture
Qualify the specific pursuit, understand the competition, shape where shaping is lawful, decide the teaming, and make the go or no-go call.
- Typically months before release
- Where the win is decided
Proposal
Write to the evaluation criteria, build the cost volume, run the reviews, and submit. Fast, because the thinking was already done.
- Weeks, not months
- Executes a decided strategy
Post-award
Perform, administer, and position the follow-on money before this contract runs out. One award is a milestone, not a business.
- Starts at kickoff
- Decides whether there is a next one
The service most of our clients call us about first
Government business development is not outbound email to a .mil address. It is finding the offices that already feel your problem, learning how their requirement is written and funded, and being known to them before anything is competed. This is the core of what we do.
Market intelligence and demand signals
We read budget justification documents, program office postings, unfunded priority lists, SBIR and STTR topic releases, BAA and CSO announcements, and award history, and we translate them into a short list of offices that can actually buy what you make.
Federal positioning
Your commercial pitch will not survive contact with a program office. We rewrite how you describe the technology so it maps to a stated capability gap, uses the language the requirement is written in, and answers the question a government evaluator is actually asking.
Stakeholder mapping
We draw the buying chain for your specific technology: the end user with the problem, the program manager, the requirements owner, the resource sponsor who holds the money, the technical point of contact, and the contracting officer who has to sign.
Program office engagement
We take the meetings, run the follow-ups, and keep the relationship warm across the eighteen months it typically takes for a requirement to mature into money. Under your name, inside the ethics rules, with every contact logged.
Pipeline construction and management
A real federal pipeline has stages, probabilities, named owners, and realistic cycle times. We build yours, keep it current every week, and give you the view your board asks for: what is real, what is slipping, and what is dead.
Teaming, primes, and partners
Sometimes the fastest revenue is a subcontract, a CRADA, or a spot on someone else’s vehicle. We identify who is already on contract in your space, decide whether you should prime or sub, and make the introductions that follow from the pipeline rather than from a favor.
Deciding the win before anyone starts writing
Capture is the discipline between business development and the proposal. It is the reason two companies with the same technology get different answers.
Opportunity qualification
Is the money real, is it the right color, is the requirement already shaped around someone else, and can you actually perform. Four questions, answered honestly, before you spend a dollar.
Competitive assessment
Who else is going after this, who is incumbent, what the award history says about how this office buys, and where your realistic discriminators are rather than the ones you like.
Pathway and vehicle strategy
SBIR, STTR, Phase III sole source, OTA, CSO, BAA, or full and open. The pathway decides speed, competition, and ceiling. Choosing wrong costs a year.
Go or no-go
A recommendation with the reasoning attached, made early enough to matter. When the odds are wrong we say do not bid, and we say why, even though the bid would pay us.
Written by people who have scored them
An evaluator reads dozens of these against a scoring sheet, in order, under time pressure. We write for that reader, because members of our team have been that reader.
SBIR and STTR
Phase I, Phase II, and the transition instruments that follow. Technical narrative, commercialization plan, budget justification, and the submission mechanics that quietly disqualify companies every cycle.
AFWERX and SpaceWERX
Open Topic submissions, and TACFI and STRATFI packages including the matching-funds strategy and the program office alignment those instruments require before they are worth submitting.
BAAs, CSOs, OTAs, and FAR competitions
White papers, solution briefs, prototype proposals, and full volumes. Compliance matrices, review gates, and a cost volume that survives the question a contracting officer will ask about it.
Proposal management
Schedule, assignments, color reviews, compliance checking, and submission. Your engineers spend hours on this, not weeks, and they spend them on the technical content only they can write.
Pricing and negotiation support
Cost realism, indirect rates, price-to-win reasoning, and support through negotiation and award, drawing on experience from the government’s side of that same conversation.
Compliance and registrations
SAM.gov registration and renewals, representations and certifications, WAWF invoicing, and the administrative machinery that stops payment when it is wrong.
Turning one award into a federal business
The gap between a company with a Phase II and a company with federal revenue is everything that happens after the first award.
Contract administration
Modifications, options, invoicing, reporting, and the contracting officer relationship. Performance is past performance, and past performance is the next win.
Transition and Phase III positioning
Phase III authority is one of the strongest instruments a small company can hold. We work the transition sponsor and the funding line long before the current contract ends.
Playbooks and training
Written processes, templates, and a pipeline your own people can run. We would rather be replaced by your first BD hire than be needed forever.
Board and investor material
A federal pipeline explained to a commercial-native board: what a stage means, why a cycle is long, and what the next twelve months should produce. Forwardable, in one page.
Traction, Momentum, or Scale
Same three words founders already use to self-sort. Our definitions follow the federal continuum: pick the stage that matches your reality; the engagement model follows from that, not from what sounds biggest.
Unsure? The strategy call will name your stage, the model, and the number before you send us anything.
Traction
A real federal path, or an honest stop, before you burn a year.
- No past performance, or a thin one
- The technology is real, but funded offices are not yet named
- The board is still asking whether to do federal
- Federal Readiness review (market intelligence, positioning, relationships, compliance) in writing
- Go, no-go, or wait, with the reasoning attached
- If proceeding, Model 01 or a scoped targeted engagement
Model 01 (or targeted Readiness / strategy).
A standalone proposal with no office interest.
Book a strategy call · TractionMomentum
Early awards that compound, with BD and proposals as one job.
- Phase I, Direct to Phase II, or a similar first instrument, or a live sponsor conversation
- A noisy pipeline
- You need one team, not two vendors
- Weekly BD under your name
- Capture on qualified pursuits
- Proposal support when the pursuit is real
- A board-readable pipeline
Model 02 (sometimes Model 01 if BD-only).
Book a strategy call · MomentumScale
Durable federal revenue: transition and hold, not a one-off award.
- Phase II is in performance, or Phase III and follow-on is the real question
- The next funded phase matters more than the current award
- Post-award admin (SAM, WAWF, mods, reporting)
- Transition sponsor and funding-line work before the period ends
- Handoff hygiene toward an internal BD hire
Model 02 with post-award weight, or Model 03 if BD is already staffed.
Book a strategy call · ScaleThree ways to work together
Pick by what you already have inside the company, not by what sounds biggest. If you are still naming the stage, start at Traction, Momentum, or Scale.
Federal business development
Dedicated BD capacity without building an internal team.
- Federal go-to-market strategy and roadmap
- Demand signal monitoring and opportunity identification
- Stakeholder mapping and program office engagement
- Weekly outreach executed under your name
- Pipeline built, managed, and reported
Business development and proposals
The full fractional federal growth team, end to end.
- Everything in the business development model
- Capture management on every qualified pursuit
- SBIR, STTR, BAA, CSO, OTA, and TACFI or STRATFI proposals
- Proposal management through submission and negotiation
- Contract administration and compliance support
Capture and proposal execution
Firepower for a team that already has federal relationships.
- Opportunity qualification and competitive assessment
- Full proposal development and management
- Pricing, cost volume, and negotiation support
- SAM, WAWF, and compliance mechanics
- Phase III and transition positioning
A scoped retainer, and we share the outcome
Engagements run on a monthly retainer scoped to the work in front of us, with a success fee tied to awards. The retainer buys a defined scope and a defined cadence. The success fee means we carry part of the risk with you, which is the part a proposal shop does not do.
We will tell you the number on the first call, before you send us anything. We would rather lose an hour than have you spend three weeks discovering we are the wrong size for you.
- You build the capability internally.The intended outcome for most clients. We hand over the playbooks, the pipeline, and the relationships.
- The federal fit is not there.If the assessment says your technology does not map to funded demand yet, we say so and stop, rather than billing you to find out slowly.
- The scope is finished.Targeted engagements end when the deliverable lands. No automatic conversion to a retainer.
When you need one thing, not a retainer
Scoped, fixed, and finished. Several of these exist because a client asked for exactly this and nothing more.
Federal Readiness review
An expert-led assessment across market intelligence, positioning, relationships, and compliance, with a written result you can hand to a board. The usual first step for a company that has stalled.
Go-to-market playbook
A written federal strategy for your technology: target offices, pathways, positioning language, and a twelve-month plan your team can run without us.
Opportunity identification
A live, maintained pipeline of high-fit SBIR topics, BAAs, CSOs, OTAs, and direct award routes matched to your technology and your stage.
Stakeholder mapping and engagement
The buying chain drawn for one technology area, plus direct engagement with the decision makers across DoW and civilian agencies.
Outreach sprint
A time-boxed campaign to saturate a defined set of offices before a major event, demonstration, or submission deadline.
One-off proposal support
End-to-end support for a single SBIR, BAA, CSO, OTA, or TACFI and STRATFI submission, aligned to how the evaluators actually score.
White-labeled business development
We operate as your embedded BD team under your name, running outbound, tracking progress, and handing warm relationships to your people.
Contracting and administrative support
Compliance, invoicing, WAWF, SAM, modifications, and reporting, guided by real Contracting Officer experience.
Advisory sync
Focused calls on a specific problem: which agency, which pathway, how to answer a question you just got from a program office.
The advice that costs us money
Our buyers arrive afraid, and the loudest firms in this market sell to that fear. We would rather be the firm that told you the truth early, even when the truth is that you should keep your money.
If you have no federal past performance and no funded office interested in your technology, a proposal is not your problem and buying one will not fix it. If the requirement is already written around an incumbent, we will show you why we think so. If the answer is wait two quarters and build the relationship first, that is the answer.
- “Do not bid this one.”With the reasoning attached, early enough that you can put the effort somewhere better.
- “We do not know yet.”When the office has not decided, or the money is not confirmed, we say that instead of guessing confidently.
- “That is not what that instrument does.”Federal instruments have legal limits. We will not let you build a plan on a misunderstanding of one.
- “You are not ready for us yet.”And here is what to do for the next two quarters so that you are.