AAL Ask Me Anything
The AAL Corporate Ventures team asked Army Program Managers (PMs) to share insights on how they buy and how to untangle the confusing web of acquisition bureaucracy. Join us for this special AMA to hear it straight from the people who know best.
What you’ll find out
- Tips on finding consolidated sites for opportunities (06:36)
- Army Applications Lab (06:59)
- Position, Navigation and Timing (09:35)
- The right time to start the business development process (11:01)
- Who makes decisions within the Army? (15:52)
- What success looks like (21:44)
- From SBIR to the program level (28:19)
- Talk about pain points (30:17)
- How the PM level views collaboration across DoD organizations (35:30)
Key quotes
- “For Army Applications Lab, we actually publish about the things that we do on LinkedIn very extensively, on Twitter extensively, and make sure that we are speaking to our marketplace. Our marketplace is not the primes...it’s the people who know how to use Twitter.” — Art Trevethan, AAL, Champion of Industry Opportunities (06:59)
- “On the AAL.army website, there’s a form at the bottom where you can enter your email, a short description of what you do, what industries you align with so that when we have opportunities in relevant industries or technology areas, we’ll send you a note via email and let you know about new opportunities.” — Brance Hudzietz, AAL, Entrepreneur in Residence (09:11)
- “If you’re gonna talk technical to a business development person, bring the technical person with you, because we like to dive deep when we can.” — Christopher Orlowski, US Army PEO Ground Combat Systems, Product Manager (14:15)
- “The most important is soldier feedback, customer feedback … if we can have opportunities in the field, whether it’s through an operational test or operational assessment, if it’s something at the prototype level.” — Chad Nash, PM PNT, Deputy & Technical Director (22:04)
- “For PNT, our front door is our OIL website, or Open Innovation Lab website … You would actually fill out a vendor profile. When you fill out that vendor profile, it’s passed to our Open Innovation Lab team. And they’re able to make sure that your profile is complete. They’re able to get you a one-on-one interview with the government team for PNT, and also other stakeholders.” — Chad Nash, PM PNT, Deputy & Technical Director (27:34)
- “How we develop it, how we test it, how we certify it, make sure it’s safe for soldiers is a big challenge we have in the program and we’re constantly thinking about it.” — Christopher Orlowski, US Army PEO Ground Combat Systems, Product Manager (35:10)
- “Cross communication — open, honest, and transparent communication — between all of us actually helps us get the job done. And that job being to solve the soldier problem and bring in the rest of the solver community, the non-traditional solver community, to the party.” — Art Trevethan, AAL, Champion of Industry Opportunities (41:14)
Who you’ll hear from
Art Trevethan, AAL, Champion of Industry Opportunities
Brance Hudzietz, AAL, Entrepreneur in Residence
Christopher Orlowski, US Army PEO Ground Combat Systems, Product Manager
Chad Nash, PM PNT, Deputy & Technical Director
About Fed Supernova
Fed Supernova is a two-day annual conference highlighting defense innovation in Texas. This first-of-its-kind interactive experience draws national attention and connects leading entrepreneurs, investors, thought leaders, corporations, and decision makers from around the world.About Capital Factory
Capital Factory is the center of gravity for entrepreneurs in Texas, the number one startup state in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, programmers and designers gather day and night, in-person and online for meetups, classes and coworking. With boots on the ground in Austin, Dallas and Houston, we meet the best entrepreneurs in Texas and introduce them to their first investors, employees, mentors and customers. According to Pitchbook, Capital Factory has been the most active investor in Texas since 2013.
