How AFWERX transitions tech with Chris Benson, Steve Lauver, and Jason Rathje

Three of the co-founders of the Air Force Ventures program at AFWERX joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss how they transition startups and new technologies across the valley of death and into major programs of record. While AFWERX is only approaching its third birthday, they've had some tremendous success. Over the past 18 months, they've contracted with 1,000 companies -- many of which were new to doing business with the DoD. They brought in over $1 billion in matching venture capital dollars in 2019, more than the past 15 years combined.

And yet, one of the often head complaints is that the DoD spreads small dollars far-and-wide rather than making big bets on non-traditional firms. The process for changing that narrative was the focus of our conversation, including:

- The Strategic Finance (STRATFI) program and "pitch-bowls"
- How to create a vibrant industrial base without creating new defense primes
- Reducing time to first program dollar from 6 years to a matter of months
- Lofty goals of repeatedly creating new dual-use unicorns
- How to line up funding that isn't tied to specific solutions or vendors

A lot of people perhaps imagine the people at AFWERX having coffee on Sand Hill road with VCs and startups, but in reality almost all of their time is spent refining the back end of the acquisition process. For example, AFWERX worked with organic software developers at Hill Air Force Base to automate several parts of the contract administration process, so less time is spent copying information from PDFs. As a result, AFWERX has been able to reduce time to contract to about one month, a target many contracting offices have been unable to achieve.

This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.