 Welcome, GovCon Giants community, GovCon Giants family. Your host, Eric Coffey here, talking to you today with a special guest, Pierce. Now, Pierce is one of our GovCon Giants students and I absolutely, absolutely had to feature him on the YouTube channel, on the platform, because why? Pierce is some genius whiz kid who knows how to take and introduce a new product into the government sector. Something that a lot of you guys out there have been hitting me up about. It's like, Eric, man, I've got this idea on my brain and I just, I know that the government needs it and I know that they want it, but how do I get to the decision makers and what do I say, what do I present? Today, we're talking about SBIR, STTRs, we're talking CSOs, OTA, SKIFs, all these acronyms that, again, I don't know anything about because it's not my forte, but that's why we have a community of resources and people out there that we can showcase. And so today, we are showcasing Pierce. So stay tuned for this video on how to introduce a new product to the government. One of the things that I wanted to touch on was a lot of people inquired about the SBIR program. And I know through our conversations that the SBIR program, yes, it may be more popular or widely recognized, but there are other programs out there for people who have new ideas or R&D or IT and they want to introduce it to the government. So that's kind of reason why I asked you to come on today because I know that that's your area of expertise and I want to bring you on to share with people out here about the types of programs that exist, what they look like, where they're at, how do they apply, and then even if you could, towards the end, let's walk us through an example of something that you submitted. It doesn't have to be that specific one because I know these things are proprietary, but if you could show us an example for someone like myself, if we had to submit an idea to the government what that would look like. And so that's basically just of the conversation today. Nothing that you haven't done already in the past, probably several hundred times over. Yes, a lot. You know, a lot. But if you could, tell us your name, tell us your background and we'll go from there. Thank you for the introduction, Eric. My name is Pierce or some people call me Rob. Prior to actually getting into the government contracting arena, I was an intelligence analyst stationed out here at StratCom and I started looking at new technologies that I was looking to integrate into the government to kind of improve our systems and just bring some innovation to the regular mundane operations that we do on the daily. And during this process, I started discovering that there was different programs and different ways to go about it. And somebody brought up like, have you ever looked at the SBIR? And one of the things that kind of hold people back when it comes to the SBIR is it looks like a daunting process if you're not used to it. So when you first originally look at it, the only thing that you look at is the dollar sign. So the dollar sign amount overall is normally in the one million in uprange but what they don't explain to you is, it's done in phases. So there's your initial phase, which is your phase one. Your phase one is basically your proof of concept. You basically go back, you validate your idea and you create a white paper and you would actually turn that in but that's not the one million dollar deal. But that's what most people think. They're like, hey, all right, I'm gonna get started. It's gonna be one million, it's gonna be these money I made. It's really not that simple of a process. You would actually complete your phase one, apply on completing the phase one. If they look at it and they accept it, they say, okay, all right, here's your phase two. And then they give you the money to actually go out and build your prototype. Once the prototype is built and they always have qualification that you have to meet no matter what SBIR it is, they'll have those qualifications. Upon meeting those qualifications, then they'll come back and say, hey, you know what? You've met all of our qualifications. Now let's start building you up to commercialize whatever product that you brought to the DoD or whatever federal agency that you're doing this SBIR with. What ends up happening is most of the people who come forward and they pursue these SBIR opportunities, they are not by nature business people. They're normally very smart, very smart scientists, very smart engineers, very smart doctors. So they're subject matter experts in their field, but when it comes to taking that technology and turning it into a business, they run into a lot of speed bumps or they just get stale mated or stone wall. And what you'll hear is if you ever talk to one of your PTAX or any one of those people about going into SBIR, they'll normally tell you about what happens between phase 2.5 and phase three. And then this- Hold on, I'm asking a question, if you don't mind. You said that they don't know how to turn their idea into a business, at what point do they have to turn it into a business? So once you complete your phase two and they start transitioning you into phase 2.5, they start looking at it like, you have to start taking it towards a commercial marketplace. And that's where I want to say 60% actually fall through because they don't know that commercial market. They don't start looking at it in advance. So some people will go through what they call gap funding. So as you're getting awarded your phases, venture capital firms are being notified that, hey, there's this new technology that might be coming out. So normally they'll hit 2.5, which is not really an official thing, but they'll hit 2.5 and upon reaching that point, the venture capitalists normally step in and say, hey, here's the funding that you need to make sure you guys can commercialize your product. But if you don't know how to go to market, then that funding is kind of pointless at that point because you really don't know how to scale and turn into a business. And this is one of the major things that they run into when it comes to the SBIR process. Now, so the SBIR, the intention is to take your idea and actually turn into a business. Correct. Okay, so they're not just looking for the technology. No, so that would be a technology transfer. So a tech transfer is you build it up and you give it to them. And then they say, all right, you've given us this, now you can go use it in the civilian sector and we're gonna use it as far as the government goes. But most people go for the SBIR because they want to be able to control that and they wanna be able to say, hey, I've sold my new business or my new technology or my new application or my new software to the federal government. And now I can go and take it to a venture capitalist so I can go to a commercial marketplace and say, hey, this is what I've done with the government and this is what we can do over here. And in certain examples, it pans out and in certain examples, it doesn't. And one of the new things that they're implementing because a lot of people are trying and people see that figure, that $1 million figure. So a lot of people just start throwing ideas at the SBIR that really don't match what they need. Now let me ask you, okay, let's, now you said that the $1 million figure. So how does that break down between phases? So phase one is normally between $100,000 to about $175,000, but it's all depending on who is doing it. So each entity and each agency has their own different levels but normally it's gonna be within the $100,000 range between $100,000 to $200,000 that you're gonna get for your phase one. Once you go and you complete your phase one, if they say, all right, we want you to move into a phase two, your phase two will normally be between about two to about $800,000. Again, it depends on what you're coming forward for and what you're actually funding. And then once you go through your phase two, depending on the need and the severity of the need, they'll give you more funding and that's when they start working you to go into your phase three once you actually complete that phase two. So they'll say, all right, you know what? Let's say, let's say we'll use EvanCoff construction as an example. So let's say they go, hey, we want you to can build us a bridge for your phase two. It's like, all right, well, he built us a bridge. He knows how to build bridges. All right, well, you're gonna go to market as a bridge builder and that's what EvanCoff is supposed to do. You're like, all right, cool. But you only know how to build one type of bridge. You don't know how to build the bridges. Every type of bridge, yeah. Yeah, but they're marketing, he goes, hey, this is what they know how to do. They know how to build bridges. So as you're going to market, you're like, I can build one type of bridge. And they're like, okay, let's say the bridge is wood. And you're like, hey, I can build a wood bridge. Everybody's like, all right, well, our bridge is still in the concrete. That's what we do here. And you're like, but this wood bridge, so that's where the major disconnect comes in. You might be a subject matter expert at wooden bridges, but when it comes to the stuff that they actually need, they really don't have that piece. So why would they fund you at phase one and two if you, I guess they're gonna give you a chance? You're fulfilling a need that they have. So you're fulfilling a need that the federal government has. Okay, so the government puts out the need that they have and you fulfill that need in the first two phases. Correct, and then the third phase is where they kind of groom you so you can take it and go to market with it. Now, since a lot of companies aren't panning out what they've done, they've implemented two things. The first was now you have to submit a letter of intent. So the letter of intent is something that they have 30 days prior to the opening of the SBIR. And upon submitting that, they look at it, they look at your team, they look at the technology, they look at something that they want you to submit that phase one and four. And the reason being is because a lot of people were just throwing anything to see what sticks. They're just like, hey, it's the SBIR, I'm gonna apply to it, I'm gonna apply to it. And I think, go ahead. Now, okay, so the SBIR is like a grant or it is a grant? Correct, so there's two different versions. There's a grant and a contract. The majority of the time, if you're gonna get SBIR, it's going to be a grant. Okay, so it's a grant. Now, isn't there a way that you go on the website and you identify what the needs are? Yes, so those are put out. And if anybody's taking notes, what you wanna take notes for is broad agency announcements or BAAs. Okay. Broad agency announcements actually put out the requirements of the DOD or whatever entity it is for you to actually be able to go and look it up and see if the idea that you currently have actually matches the technology that they need or the currently technology that you have or application that you have actually matches a tech need or a need that they have. And upon matching those up, they'll have their requirements. Most of the time, they want you to submit the letter of intent first. That's pretty much what's first now. So you submit your letter of intent. Upon looking it over, they might call you back ask you a few questions and then they would walk you into your phase one. When it comes to SBIR, the thing that a lot of people run into is they don't get far enough ahead of it to actually be able to walk through it. So most people will see it and let's say the SBIR starts in 15 days. You're like, all right, we got 15 days, let's go. But you haven't done your due diligence research. You haven't submitted your LOI. You haven't done these things. And without doing those things, you're basically behind the power curve. When it comes to actually pursuing that SBIR because you don't have any real knowledge and stuff for what they're showing you. And they're always willing to help you, but you have to call them. It's like reaching out to your PTEC or anything else. So you have to do that. And another big thing that people don't really think about when it comes to doing SBIR, they think, okay, it's SBIR. So I don't have to be in Sam. You still have to register to the system for awards management, even if you're pursuing the SBIR. Because in order for them to pay you, you have to be in the system for award management. Interesting. Now, and I have looked at SBIRs before for a friend of mine. Sometimes their prime contractors are involved with SBIRs. How does that work? So what they'll normally do is... It's like they have to vet you or something. Yes. So sometimes they use it to intermediary agency. So they'll go through one of those to actually kind of do the legwork and kind of like you said, to vet them and make sure, okay, this is something we want to deal with. And when they do that, it takes some of that load off of the actual people who are doing the reviewing because now they don't have fire holes of applications coming in. Now they know those are the ones that are trickling through are actually of quality and it's something that won't end up hurting them in a long run. Okay, so we're not essentially competing with the prime? No, no, no, not at all. Okay, okay. So... Because when I looked at it, I'm like, wait, why am I submitting this to, I don't know, say Raytheon? It didn't make any sense to me. And in those situations, what they would do is they would work with you as a, as almost like a subcontractor in a sense, I guess. And they would work with you and then they would take it to the marketplace. So they'd be like, all right, well, we know we're working with these entities that need the solution and they would actually take your solution to them since they already have that rapport with these agencies and these departments to actually bring that technology forward. So that's where they go back and they say, okay, well, it might be easier for us because everybody is looking for innovation, which everybody wants it, but people don't know how to get it. So these BAAs and they also have commercial, they also have CSOs where it's pretty much like a BAA where they're just looking for commercial solutions. And if you can bring them that, those are their versions of crowdsource innovation. So the government actually does crowdsource innovation, we just don't know what it looks like. And they've even gotten to the point where they've streamlined the process. So before one of the big things people used to run into was they were like, A, I'm gonna do a SBIR, but I don't have a grant writer. And that used to be like the major roadblock. They'd be like, I don't have a grant writer, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do that. So the Air Force actually spearheaded this. The Air Force came back and was like, all right, we're gonna do a pitch day. And the pitch days work like this. You create a quad chart, which we'll cover those in a minute. So you create a quad chart, you create a PowerPoint deck, you create an info paper, and you bring it forward. And you send it to them. And if it's something that they like and it meets a requirement that they have, what they'll tell you to do is, all right, we want you to come and pitch us in person. Upon going and pitching them in person, if the pitch goes successful and they like what you're talking to them about, what they will do is in turn, they will award you a phase one right then and then on spot. So normally they take their government purchase card and they'll award it right then and on spot. And even if you don't know how to go through the SBIR process, you can go and look for one of these pitch competitions, or you can go through an OTA, it's called Other Transaction Authority. And that kind of covers grants and all that also. And you can go through one of these two and while going through one of these two, once you get to that point, you do your pitch, you can still get funding, which if you're a startup technology company or you're a startup application company or you have an idea, having the military backing you and giving you $100,000 when all you really did was went and registered in SAM and put together a team. That's pretty easy. Like that's pretty easy and it's a big payoff. Right, right, right. So the work is just looking through it. And based off of that, the Army has also gotten involved and they're also doing something like that themselves. So this is kind of like the new thing that's going on within the Department of Defense where they're trying to streamline the process to make it simpler for those who aren't really savvy on how the paperwork works for that SBIR process to be able to come forward and bring their technologies. Now you said it's called Air Force Pitch Day. Yes, so Air Force Pitch Day was the original one that they did. Okay. At this event they gave out, they gave out multiple contracts for $100,000. By the end of the day, they had given away $1.1 million in one day. Within 15 minutes of meeting you, they gave you your award for $100,000. Wow, I'm sure a lot of people love to hear that. Now you said that the three things that they're bringing, quad chart and full deck. So you need to have a quad chart and the quad chart, we'll cover that in a second. So your quad chart basically tells them about your technology, it tells them about your team, it tells them about where you would fit in and the greater scope of the DoD or whatever the agency is and what you're trying to fix. And then the very bottom quad is the cost and how scalable it is. Okay, but what I guess what I'm trying to do is what three things I need to bring. Quad chart, quad chart, quad chart, info paper. Info paper. And your pitch deck. I'm pitch deck, there you go. All right, pitch deck. Now depending on the event or depending on who's holding it, they might add something like, sometimes they'll add a poster board or sometimes they'll subtract the poster board, sometimes they'll say, hey, we want you to include a special type of cover sheet. Sometimes they have special requirements, but for the most part, it's going to be a quad chart, an info paper and a pitch deck. All right, that's good. Or they'll want a technical paper. They'll be like, hey, we want the info paper and we want the technical paper. And which is just a white paper. And once you present that to them, they're fine. But in order to, I would say if you're asking me for up to about, I don't know, 15 sheets of paper and maybe a PowerPoint presentation and I know I'm gonna walk away with a contract, I'm gonna do that. Oh no, listen, listen, I mean, I got some ideas, I might want to sell the government. Well, they're always looking. So I actually just came from an event last month, the end of September. And at that event, they spoke about it and they said that they have 650, and this is the Air Force. They said they have 650 million to award annually for R&D and innovation. Now, now, I know everybody's like, that's a lot of money. You also have to keep in mind, the Air Force still buys aircraft, it's a supply missile. So it's other stuff that they're buying. It's not just- What about me, in terms of R&D though, they're figuring out how to make that stuff better as well. Yes, correct. So, but the money is there and they're willing to give it out if you have an idea that they know solves the issue. Okay, before we start discussing exactly how to fill out these forms and how to do this quad chart, info paper, pitch deck, going back to the broad agency announcements, where would I find those? And everybody's great friend, FBO. If you can go to FedBizObs. Oh, that's easy enough. Yeah, if you can go to FedBizObs, you can go in there and type in a broad agency announcement. Now, what they do is they do them quarterly. So you can actually go to the ACQ Department of Defense website. But for a lot of people, it's just easier to go to FBO. So if you go through FBO, just type in in the keywords area, type in BAA, and it will pull up every broad agency. And what I would say is don't do it for the last 90 days. Always do for a 180 or greater because they should come out twice a year. Well, they come out actually quarterly. Quarterly, right? So, yeah. But within that timeframe, you'll have two of them. Right, okay. So you should be able to look at them, kind of see what they're looking at and you can say, okay, my technology's good for this or it's not good for this. And it'll also notify you of when a pre-solicitation comes out. So when they do the pre-solicitation, it kind of gives you an idea because they're really broad, hence the name, broad agency announcement. So they're really broad in what they're looking for. They don't give you an exact detail of what they're looking for. So you might have something where you're like, you know what, it fits it, but it doesn't all the way fit, go for it. Because even though your situation and your technology might not fit exactly to what they're looking for, what you have might open their ideas, will open their mind up to ideas of things that they didn't think about or things that they didn't address when they originally came up with that criteria or that area of interest. The event that you went to recently, what type of people are there from the government? Are those like technical people? So they're tech scouts. So their whole job is to come and it's not an aggressive crowd. It's very conversational, very personal. So what they'll do is, prior to getting to the event, they evaluate your technology. They look at it as a technology readiness level to see how far along you are with your technology and where your technology ranks at. And you have to be a stage two or higher to be able to actually go and present a poster board. Do you have that chart we can show it on the screen? Yes, hold on one second. Let me see here. So here's a quad chart example right here. Okay, so you see it? Yep, you see it. Okay, so while we have it up, but we'll walk you through it. So up here in this top corner right here, there's just your name of the company, where you're located, if they have any questions who they need to contact, your phone number and your email. By the way, don't let me forget we were supposed to go over the technology readiness level. Okay, so actually once we get to the bottom corner, we'll touch on it because it's actually built into this chart. Perfect. So once you go there, you kind of take a look at that and they're gonna give you a technology or capability overview. And you're just kind of telling them about what your technology does. So we'll go back to Evan Koffman Woodbridge. So hey, this technology I have lays down wood fast and any other man on the plane again. So we'll say it does that. So that is your kind of overview. You want to make it kind of as short as possible because you have to keep in mind, you're not the only person that they're looking at. It's like applying for a job. The HR department is looking at hundreds of thousands of resumes. So they want to get the bottom line up front or the bluff and just say, okay, this is something we can work with or this is something we can't work with. So you kind of give them that and then you give them your bullet points of what makes you stand out? What makes your bridge building capabilities stand out? Is it low cost? Is it done faster? Is it sturdier? Can it resist and hold up longer than any other bridges currently out there? Like what makes you stand out? And all that goes in this bullet point of the area. Now it looks like you have an example on the screen here. It talks about, okay, so let's use that example instead of my bridge. Well, I mean, people might not see the wooden bridge. They're gonna see it. So with this one, it's just talking about minimizing waste. So it says the technology assists in minimizing the waste stream while simultaneously offsetting the cost by producing a combustible gas that can be utilized to generate electricity and heat. So what makes them stand out is it minimizes the waste stream and it offsets the cost. So they're telling you upfront, this is how we help you guys out with the savings, and this is what kind of propels us up to be something that you guys should be looking at because we produce a combustible gas that can be utilized to generate electricity and heat. So they're telling you upfront what the technology can do, how it works and the benefit of it to the DOD. And then underneath that, they just kind of have their bullet points or the things that make you stand out that you believe, hey, this is what I really stand behind when it comes to my product. Then you move over to the right, which is your subcategory. The subcategory is the combatant command or the need. Every combatant command has their own needs that they put out within the broad agency announcement. And when you're looking at the broad agency announcement, it'll say the combatant command or it'll say, hey, it falls underneath this area, be it C2, which is like your command control, C4I cyber, which is normally your defensive areas, your medical and your force protection being healthcare related items. So they all have items and categories that your technology can fall in. And then just to- What is combatant command? So the combatant command means- And layman's terms. Okay, so think of like a regional manager. So what's region? So think of like a regional manager for a business. So we have Northcom, which is northern command. We have Southcom, which is southern command. We have Stratcom, which is strategic command. We have Transcom, which is transportation command. There's commands, there's multiple commands, but depending on the command depends on the need. Okay, okay. Transcom is more for logistics-based things, fuel-based things, getting things from point A to point B. Your strategic command will be more of air defense, more making sure aircraft are gonna go more intelligence-based. And it just depends on the command and what they're looking for at that time. Okay. And think of it like this. So you know how you say go state and not go for the federal department and not state. The combatant command would be like the federal version of the department defense. So instead of going to like your company, your battalion or your reggae level, or to a base, you would go to the combatant command because they're over multiple bases. So same type of comparison. And then moving on, once you kind of tell them about it and you tell them in this category, like the details of the technology and the product, you move down to your bottom left hand corner. And in here you give them the past performance of your technology and company. And they actually do you a favor here. So they say technology and company because if it's the idea that you have, you might be in a space where you've never actually utilized the technology yet because it's still in the idea phase. So at that point, then you'd refer to your company saying, well, what have I done in the past where I've accomplished something showing that I have a technical savvy or that I know how to execute this. So you talk about what you've done in the past and your past performance, be it you worked on somebody else's project, be it you helped somebody with the project, be it you came up with an idea with the project that was scaled out. You'd put that in there just to kind of give them an idea of okay, he knows what he's doing or he has an idea of what he needs to do to be able to give us a product and to be able to deliver. Then once that's filled out, you go to your maturity, your scalability, your cost, and your shuttle. If you notice at the various top, it says TRL8. So the TRL8 is actually where you wanna look at to see the technology ready in this level. And your TRL8 lets them know that, okay, this guy's done everything that he needs to do, he's ready to go. A TRL2 means I'm kind of still in the idea phase, I need to build out. Once you get to a TRL5, it's like, okay, they have a prototype, they're kind of playing with it. They almost there, a TRL6 means, hey, they've executed this in a relevant environment. A TRL7 says, hey, I'm a little bit... Basically, I'm not gonna confuse you guys with all the TRLs, but anything. I'm like, hold on. But I've seen that chart before, so I think it would be better if we could show them the chart. I don't have the chart right now in my polls. And the reason being is because there's two different types. So there is the standard type. Let's see if we could grab one of them. So we could, so at least the one that I've seen before shows the different levels and steps. Okay, so do you have that currently right now? So let me just do a switch to it. If not, I can look it up on my end. I can't, I don't know how to go to the screen. Let me see, stop here. Hold on one second, and I will try to... Okay, there you go, exit full screen. All right, good. So now let me see if I can... I have it, I should have it here. Okay, I'll let you share it. And I'll kind of talk you through it. So there's two different versions while you're looking it up. There is the one that the Department of Defense uses, and then there's one that the Tech Scouts use. And depending on who you're engaging with depends on which version they want you to use. They're similar, where in a sense where on the Department of Defense scale you might have a seven on the Tech Scouts scale, you might have a six. But it all goes back to knowing your audience and knowing who you're dealing with. And depending on who you're dealing with they'll let you know in advance, okay, this is the chart that we use or this is the one that we use. And from there, you can kind of infer where you rank at on the chart. But if for just purposes of right now, if you're in the idea phase, you're lower than a six. And if you've already executed your technology and you've already walked through it, you should be at a six or higher. And that's kind of how they look at the line of where you should be at and where you should be at in your funding. Ah, here we go. Okay, so this is the actual Department of Defense one. And if you look over to the side, each number is actually telling you where they should be at. And we will make this information available to everybody watching. So if you, there should be a link inside the show notes. If not, we can send us an email. We'll be able to make all this information available to everyone. All right, so there you go. So that's what you were talking about from one to nine, technology readiness level. And then here is the combat and command needs. Now with this, it gets updated quite often. So if you look, so we'll use for example, if you look across the top, that's every combat and command that actually has a need. And if you look to the far left hand side underneath the roll look category, it tells you under what category it falls. Be it C2, yep, C4I or cyber. From there, let's say we're looking to bring a technology in, right? So this is what we do. We'd go and since we have it on the board, we'll look at, let's say counterterrorism of crime. So what you do is you go, okay, operations and muscle support is where counterterrorism of crime is at. All right, let's see what meets whatever I'm trying to work on. So let's say you're doing a facial recognition technology. So you start looking across and the first thing that will catch your eye would be identity activities, which is, oh, we're already here. If you look, it says biometrics, forensics, documentation and media explanation, exploitation, my apologies, denial of anonymity and coalition interoperability. I'm a grainy on my screen, but I can read it because I sent you this. I know what it says. So if you actually look at that, so you automatically know, okay, this facial recognition technology that we have, it falls underneath this category. So you'd say, okay, well, who's the combatant command that can benefit the most from this? You look up and you see Africa. So you know, okay, well, US Africa comments who I need to go and present this to. Ironically, I just submitted something to US Africa earlier today, like two hours ago, so. Oh, nice, good example. Yeah, perfect timing. But so you'd actually go through there and you'd say, okay, well, this is where we fit in at and you've submitted for them. Now, even though you're doing facial recognition technology in this example, it still qualifies because it falls into the realm of what they're looking for. So they might look at it and say, okay, well, if we have facial recognition technology, then the people that are coming through and utilizing the technology or being scanned, they are no longer anonymous. So you still follow underneath that category, even though it doesn't directly say facial recognition technology. All right, to now anonymity. Okay, so that's how you have to kind of look at it. So it's not as simple as a control F for a keyword. You actually have to look at it and once you look at it, you can say, okay, well, this works here, this doesn't work here. And that's kind of how you proceed forward. So if you- I think he was talking about me. No, of course not. I just happened to see it pop up. I didn't even say that you did it. Yeah, okay. So once you see that, you go from there and when going from that point, you'd put together, I'll go back to the, I'll pull up my quad chart if you allow me to share. Yeah. All right, so let's see. I cannot share what he's sharing. I stopped sharing. I know, but I'm a little faster on the trigger than you are, so. All right, I did something. All right, so now that we're back, let's look at this bottom corner here. And we know what the TRL is because we just look at the chart, which would be available. So if you guys want to take a look at it, you can. And then right here, you have the maturity or scalability, your cost, your shuttle. And what they're telling you right now is, hey, we've done on a small scale, it's been proven, and they want to know your scalability. So you see how it says keyword can be scaled for large municipal systems. So you want to let them know how big it can be scaled to, how many patients it can hold, how many war fighters it can support. You want to give them that information. They want to know if it can be scaled, like if you're working with a battery, they want to know can you scale it down smaller to fit in a smart watch? Can you scale it up larger to fit in a Humvee? These are the questions that they ask because they want to know what they're going to get back off of their investment. And if you look underneath it, it says individual units cost 500K with the senior service life. So they know how much they'll be able to get out of this investment once they invest into it. And then they come to the final question, which is the most important question when it comes to the quality chart. How long will it take you to get to market? So they ask you, if we don't help you right now, how long would it take for you to have this technology ready for us? And it says small qualities currently in production and currently available, okay? So they're saying they can do it, but they can't do it on a large scale because they don't have the funding or the backing. And this is what the Department of Defense likes to see. They like to see that you've already taken the initiative and you're not just waiting for DOD money to be able to scale and you're taking some steps to actually make sure you're good to go. And then they have timeline with financial assistance and it says ability ramp production quickly with an additional funding of one million. Now, well, the thing that's missing here is they normally want a timeframe. So if you're saying, hey, even if it's a, as long as not like a wild guess, but if you're like, hey, six months from now, we can have this to you, 12 months from now, we can have this to you, 18 months from now. Once you start getting 18, you're kind of out there, but depending on the technology and depending on what you're bringing forward, they might be willing to wait. But normally they want it between probably 12 to 14 months. If they're going to invest in something, they want a pretty quick turnaround. That way they can start rolling it out because just because you created it, they still have to go through the process of training the warfighter that's going to utilize it, training the team that's going to work on it, getting it out there and fielding it. So they have to add that in. And a lot of people don't think about that when they're making their quiet charts. So you might say, hey, realistically, it's going to take us 18 months. Okay, so it's 18 months and now you have it to them. But for them to field it, you have to add on another six months. So now they had 24 months before it even touches the hands of the warfighter. And that's something that a lot of people don't think about. So it's something just to kind of keep in mind. Like whatever I'm developing, it's going to be a fielding time that I have to add on to this. And once I add this fielding time on to this, will this still be a valid solution for whatever problem the military is currently facing? Or the Department of Defense or this federal agency is facing? So just something to think about why I have the screen up, I will pull up, I'll pull up the pitch deck, just kind of show everybody the walkthrough process because I know I mentioned it earlier. So here's the pitch deck. Let's see, share. And let's go to the presentation mode. All right, so if you look, it's the title slide, the date, the person presenting, whatever event you're at. And then you include like a graphic of your company or whatever logo you have or a photo of whatever you created. And then this is kind of like an overview. So what we discussed in the top left corner, you just kind of throw that up there. You tell them what it does and what problem to solve. No details on technology, just hey, blah, blah, this is how we kind of work, this is how we help you. You're gonna give them that information, but it's on a further slide. So they're gonna ask about your system performance. And when it comes to your system performance, that's your company history. And if you don't have any technology, then you just kind of talk about your history. You say, hey, this is what we did in the past. You talk about the background, your expertise and where you kind of fall into the grand scheme of things because you wanna show them like, hey, we can perform this, hey, we have the team for this. And then you'd say, let's say this isn't your first SBIR. Let's say you've done something on the local level where you've helped out the city or you've done something where you've competed in one on a war. You put that information in there just to say like, hey, we've worked and somebody's already validated us. Somebody else already wants to back us. And this is how we plan to move forward with that information. And you're just kind of showing we are a valid company, a valid team of people. We actually have the credentials and the qualifications to perform the actual job. And the why does this company deserve to work with the DOD? That is not something that you really need to focus on. That very last bullet is not something you need to focus on. Like don't jump all the other stuff and say, if I tell them why does it deserve to work with the DOD? That's not gonna work. They're gonna ask you about those other bullets. And then they have the relevance to the DOD. So when it comes here, it's just asking about the details. Remember how in that very first slide says, don't mention your details. So you focus on your details here and you state which capability or area of interest the DOD was looking at that your technology meets or that your idea for a technology meets. And you'd fill in in that information. As you're filling in that information, you'd say, this is what you're asking for. This is where our technology comes in. Telling them the end state of using your technology. And outside of that, if there are competitors, how was technology different or better? When it comes to stuff like that, they ask about it. But it's one of those things where if you're going to speak about your competitors, make sure you have knowledge of them. So don't say there are no competitors and you didn't do any research. Because if you didn't do your research and one of the tech sales is sitting there or one of the contracting officers can tell you, well, there's five other companies that do the same thing you've done or you're working on. At that point, the rest of your pitch or the rest of your presentation goes downhill because they know you're not doing the due diligence that you need to do to make sure that's successful. Your technology maturity, this is your TRL. So that TRL list that Eric pulled up a few moments ago, this is where that comes in. So you look at it, you say, okay, based off of what I know, we're at this TRL level and you just kind of explain why you feel that you're at that TRL level. Make sure that your TRL level is correct. Because there are companies out there that really didn't understand this piece and said, hey, we've done this technology before or somebody else has done this technology and they tried to say, since somebody else had did the technology that it works for them when it doesn't, you still have to do it for yourself because you're selling them technology, not the other company. Now, if you wanna sell for the other company, put what the other company has done, but at that point, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Right, right, makes sense. And then your scalability is how fast you can ramp up and what value you can deliver. And that's pretty much all this slide is. It's a lot of words, but in layman's terms, that's all it boils down to. Your cost in your shuttle, you tell them how much you'd be able to, with this, the best thing to focus on, you're gonna tell them how much it costs, but you also want to let them know, and this is something that they kind of gloss over if you look at the quotation that says, does this product, well, does this replace the product? Yeah, across the product, but what you wanna look at is how much less expensive will this be? And what they look at is, okay, how much manpower can we save if we use the technology? And how much can we save with spending if we use the technology? So if you can touch on one of those two points when bringing that technology forward, you automatically put yourself in a better position because it helps them to justify the amount of money that they're spending up front. Because they'll look at it and say, okay, yeah, I'm spending a million dollars now, but over the next five years, we can save 10 million. So it automatically justifies the amount of money that's being spent. Makes sense. And then they have your summary slide really simple. Make sure you say thank you. I know it's second to the bottom, but say thank you. Always use some sort of professionalism, even if it's just going around, shaking hands. If I'm giving a presentation like this, normally what I'll do is I'll go around and I shake everyone's hand in the room that I pitch to or that I present it to, even the scribe. So they have scribes in there that take notes on the information that they give you and the feedback that they give you for you to go and improve upon. I even take their hands. You just wanna show that, hey, I'm a professional and I'm just not here to go through the motions. And once you do that, that's it for the actual presentation itself. Wow, nice. Good job. So clapping. And we also have a word document that we can bring forward. I'll kind of give you guys an overview of it. Let's see, let me share. Now what's the word document? Oh, I didn't tell you about the word document, though, let's keep going. No, but what it is, it's the pitch deck recommendation. So I'll share it real quick so people can kind of get a quick view. So we talked about the quad chart. We talked about the pitch deck. What about the info paper? So yeah, so we're gonna pull that up next. So here we go. I'm gonna show you the pitch deck. So this is a quick rundown of your pitch deck. And if you're pitching, how much time you should take. So it kind of gives you a quick rundown. I'll send this over to you. That way you can include it also if people want to take a second and kind of look at it. And it gives you how much time you should spend on each slide. Like that's the minute that you spend on each slide. So you don't really have an excuse to go over. They're like, hey, this is how much time you have. Make sure you stay within these limits if you want to actually deal with them. So let's see, info paper instructions. Let me make sure, info paper. All right, so here's the info paper right here. Let me share info paper. So the info paper is pretty simple. Your info paper is here. Your info paper itself is coming from, it says from your application, but the info paper, I'll send this over also. The info paper is basically just telling them about the technology. And most of this can be pulled from your quad chart. If you've done your quad chart correctly, it's plug and play at that point. All this stuff right here is just telling you to give them the bottom line up front. Don't beat around the bush. Be very direct with what you're doing. So that's that first paragraph. This is what we do. This is how it works. This is what we can save you. Then this is just your formatting. It's the government. Anybody who's done a contract with the government knows they want stuff in a certain format. I just talked about that today with Simone on the phone. In fact, we won't touch on it here. But I literally, I just used that as an example. You know what? Forget it. We are going to touch on it here. Because it's relevant to the matter at hand, which is, so I was telling about someone who had an opportunity for a contract. And so the government person said, send me over a capability statement. And the government person said, your capability statement must contain these items. If it does not, or if you do not send a capability statement, I will delete the email. Wow. Wow. But you know, and some people might say that, oh, that's bad and why are they so hard and they're an a-hole and all this kind of stuff. But to me, I like it because they tell them you the rules of engagement. So you know how to play the game. So for me, I'm cool with that. As opposed to, you know, when we're dealing with local inspectors, one inspector say, if you do these three items, you're done. Another inspector says, oh, no, I don't care what he says. Do something different. There's all these inconsistencies, at least in this regard. If you give them times, do Roman 16, or the rest is times in Roman 12, but one is more in a single space, you should be OK. Yeah. Well, they look at it like, if you can't follow simple directions, do I really want to deal with the headache of giving you money? And then having to make you follow the directions. Exactly. So they just kind of use that to have you self-disqualify. So if you don't follow the directions, they'll look at it and they'll say, all right, you didn't do what we asked you to do. OK, well, we're not going to. Or depending, if you have a pretty good rapport with the tech scouts or whoever you're sending it to, they might give you another chance. But let's say it goes dependent. It's all dependent on that person. And when it comes to most of these things, you really don't know the people that you're engaging with because your paper or your product has to sell itself. It's like writing a proposal. They don't know that Eric Coffey's here. You're not standing there talking about the proposal. No, no, no. But it has to sell itself. And then once you put in your information, you just kind of put in your POC. And the key thing to remember about this is whoever your POC is, they have to have knowledge of your company. And the reason being is because that's the only person they're going to call. So if you put your name on that POC line and let's say you're the CEO of the company and you're like, hey, I own this company. I'm the CEO. I want them to call me for everything. All right. So if it's a technical question that you don't know, guess who's on the hook when they call? Oh yeah. If you are. They're not going to wait for you to say, hey, let me call my tech guy. No. All right. Hang up. You're wasting time at that point. They're like, you need to get this to us fast. And I think when I was talking to the tech scout, they said they get 80 emails a day from people saying, hey, this is the technology that I have. This is what I want to do. So since they receive these emails daily, if you actually do come forward with the email and when you do come forward with your email, it doesn't contain what it needs to contain or they tell you need to fix something and you don't fix it, you automatically go to the bottom of the pile. So let's say they tell you, hey, I need this on Friday and it's Thursday and you don't get it to them till Tuesday. Everybody that emailed them on Friday and Monday are now in front of you. Wow. It's like going to the DMV. If you don't got what you need, you're gonna be there for a while. That's a very good analogy, going to the DMV. So okay. And I think at this point, let me see if there's anything else that I have for you. So we went over QuadChart. We went over the pitch deck. We went on the information paper. And oh, let me clarify. So this information that we just went over for anybody that might be watching or tuning in. This information is actually for, and you can go look these up also if you're on FBO. Again, if you go in and you type in OTA, these documents are normally included in that also. So they're other transaction authorities where they're able to cut you the check and it's almost like skipping the line. But that means, again, you have something or some innovation that they need and they will actually give you the funding to get everything going. So when we discussed earlier with that 1.1 million being given out where he met you and within 15 minutes, hey, here's $100,000. Those were for OTAs. Those were for things where they're like, hey, we need this technology. Let's go, let's bring this forward. And the thing that I submitted for earlier for one of my clients for the AFRICOM submission for the CSO, that was also falling underneath that category. So if they are selected, they're gonna call them, say, hey, of course they're not going to Africa. But they're gonna say, hey, we want you to do a virtual pitch. So you just set up an office space. You complete just pitch and at the completion of your pitch, if they like it, they'll cut you the check right then and there, they'll swipe the card and they'll send you the money. But you gotta be insane. You gotta be registered. I think we all have that at this point. You'd be surprised. So the event I went to, it was people sitting there like, oh man, yeah, I'm so happy to, yeah. And once the tech scout told me, they're like, you guys are insane right now. Like what? Like you're not insane. They're like, I didn't think we needed to be. And they were like, well, what's the government gonna pay you? But again, remember what I said in the very beginning, they're subject matter experts in their field. They're very smart scientists. They're very smart doctors. They're very smart engineers. Sam's is kind of like business stuff. If you're doing business with the government because you do business with the government, you know, you know what I'm saying. So they don't make sense. That makes a lot of sense. So they don't know these things. One of the areas that, and again, I've been taking notes the whole time during the conversation. One of the things that you've mentioned, you said that there's sort of things called technology transfer. Yes. So the technology transfer is something that I, I personally don't see too many people pursue. And I think that's because they know once it's built up, they're giving it to the government. Like there is no follow on contract for your technology with the government. So most people try to avoid it. Yeah. So if you do technology transfer, you're giving it to whatever agency is funding you. Like, hey, all right, you help me build this, here you go. And in turn, they allow you to take it to the commercial marketplace. So they're funding you to build it for them and they can keep it. So most people, I mean, STTRs are out there. So if you go and you look up STTR, you'll see it. But most people look at SBIRs, which is a small business innovation and research. Most people tend to lean towards that because they know, okay, not only am I getting the funding from the government, I'm also getting my creation, whatever I created for the government, whatever technology, whatever software I created for the government and I can also leave with that. And for, okay, I'll go ahead. I was gonna- Go ahead, not finish your point. So what I was gonna say is for people that are watching and they might think, well, I don't have a technology. Just because we're talking about technology does not mean it needs to be a technology. The event that I actually went to just last, to what, two weeks ago? At that event, we had people that were there and somebody had a garment holster for guns and she was at the event and she was pitching it. And she actually had people that were interested in it and they're like, you know, this is great. We had people there that, they had stabilizers for your ankles for when you're walking around in your boots. We were like, hey, this is great. They had people who had time pill dispensers for if you are taking medication to make sure that you don't get addicted to it, it dispenses at a certain time. We were like, hey, this is great. There was a woman there and she had developed like a durable cortex for people during deployments. So don't think just because your idea or whatever you're trying to bring to the government is not technology-based, you can't bring that forward. You can, you just have to figure out where it's applicable. And once you have that idea, you can move forward with no problems. But all those things that we've discussed throughout this conversation still apply, even if you're not doing the technology. But go ahead, Eric, my apologies. Okay, no, no, no, no, no. Now, and again, I'm privy to some of this information, so that's why I know the questions. But what about places like Incutail? Let's talk about some of those types of places where people can also go to seek help from the government. So depending on where you're at, you can go through what Incutail is kind of hard to get into. I've tried Incutail, like Incutail's hard to get into. All right, well, I made some other examples of what it is. So what is Incutail? So Incutail is actually a venture, it's almost basically the CIA's venture capital firm. So what they do is they look at technologies, and if you have a technology that's innovative and they actually want to work with you, they will invest in you to actually help you bring that technology forward. One of the biggest things that people probably remember that they don't know that Incutail invested in is Boxer. So the little walkie-talkie app that came out, what was that like, or like 2013, 2012, around that time frame where everybody was sitting like a little walkie-talkie to each other. I remember that. That is actually something that Incutail invested in. And that was actually created by a warfighter. He was in combat and he was trying to figure out how to keep calm and going. So he came up with this idea and he brought it to Incutail. Incutail was like, hey, you know, well actually I think he brought to the DOD first. The DOD started working with it when he was trying to commercialize it. Incutail stepped in and was like, okay, we still want to utilize this and Boxer still utilized it this day. And we just don't utilize it in the commercial space. I don't really know how we ended up getting away from it, but I guess it's technology. But North Carolina were there. They ended up investing in it and that was one of their investments. So Incutail makes these investments, but that's more CIA based. And then every department has their own people that actually go out and they look for these things. So you can go on FBO and you can search for something and it might not say a department or agency. It might say like the Millennium Corporation or it might say something like a DIUX. I've seen that before. Well, the reason being is because those people are, they're normally like agency intermediary partners. So what they'll do is they'll go and they'll find the technology, they'll vet it and then they'll say, you know what? We want to help you, we want to back you. And we also know, hey, this is where the technology will kind of fit in at. So once you start working with them, you're good to go. So the biggest thing that you'll probably see now is a DIU. It used to be DIUX because it was kind of like experimental but now the Defense Innovation Unit, those are one of the major people that are out there looking for those technologies to actually bring it forward. Okay. And there's a few other companies. That's not the only one. There's multiple companies. It's just the visibility of them. So you actually have to go looking for them. They actually don't come looking for you. And if you really don't know where to start, I would say going through FBO or just going through acquisitions and trying to go that route. Because again, they get so many people coming towards them and their whole job is to go out and look at the technology. They really don't focus on trying to find Eric or trying to find Pierce. They just focus on getting the technology or dealing with the people that they know that have the technology. Wow. No, this is great. No, this is mouthful. Yes. And I apologize for anybody that's listening if I kind of gave it to you fast, but you can always pause and rewind. So there's that. And again, and we'll have all of the documents and the paperwork and everything that you need. I'm gonna, in fact, I'll put it into a Dropbox folder and put a link in the show notes. So then that way you can click the link. I suspect there are gonna be a bunch of people that are interested in this type of information. Anything else Pierce, did you like to say before we sign off? Yeah, don't defeat yourself. I know back when I first found out about GoCon Giants and Score Contracts, one of the things that I used to look at was, well, can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this? Because I used to look at it as I'm a tech guy. And I've said this on numerous occasions when talking to people, I'm like, hey, I don't do this. I focus mainly on tech. But same rules apply. Just get out there and do it. The worst they can tell you is no. And even if they tell you no, I have in my experience, I've never heard somebody say no and I give constructive criticism or feedback to help you improve your product or whatever you're trying to bring forward as innovation. One of the things that you didn't mention and I definitely want to touch on this because again, I think it's really relevant. We had a student came to us and the organization that you help, I matched her up with you because she had a university education and a technology and you help her facilitate working with that university, identifying a technology that, was the Navy wanted it? No, NASA. NASA, I keep saying Navy. I know you do that a lot. I know, I apologize. But either way, so you told her who to reach out to at NASA, right, and then she reached out to them and then expressed an interest in that technology, correct? Correct, so the way that that process worked was upon meeting her, we sat down, we went over everything and again, that uncertainty and she kind of had that level of uncertainty but I'm like, your technology is something that they need. Like I knew this was a need because I had already talked to the tech coaches before. So it was literally, hey, you just gotta show up. Something that you say in the military is like right place, right time, right uniform. Like you just show up with the stuff that you need and if you're there, we'll make it happen. So she was like, hey, everything's good on our end. I was like, okay, cool, let's reach out and during the outreach, I think we took, it took us some time. So we did a phone conference, I think it was like maybe two hours. I helped her go through all the different technologies because she had like four different batteries that were eligible to be presented to NASA. So we went through, we looked at them, looked at the patents, looked at the way that they should be written up. I helped her write it all up and we sent it out to them and they ended up reaching back and saying, hey, we like what you have, we want you to come out and we want you to work with us. And one of the things that she had that was an advantage and I noticed this when I went to the event at the end of September. One of the people who actually went forward the year prior for the NASA opportunity, they went the year before. So I just saw them while I was there and I was talking to them and I was like, hey, you know, NASA's doing this thing, it should have already happened right now because it's the 10th. So it should either be getting ready to happen or it should have already happened. I know the submission deadline for this NASA thing was October 4th. But we were talking about it and while we were discussing it, the guy goes, yeah, I went last year. And I was like, oh, okay, great, wow. So what did you come away with? Like how did the battery work out or whatever? And keep in mind when we were talking, I said, they're really smart engineers, they're really smart scientists, but they don't have that business aspect. What ended up happening was he said they made it all the way to the top three and they didn't get selected in the top three because they didn't have a commercial go-to-market plan. So they had everything else. Wait, wait, wait, you said that really fast. They didn't have a commercial go-to-market plan. So they had everything else but they didn't have their business side planned out to figure out what they were gonna do business-wise. So having some idea of what you wanna do business-wise is always important when coming up with technologies. Or you'll get people who are stalemated. So I was talking to somebody earlier today and they have a complete technology. Everything is already built. And they're talking to me and they're like, yeah, we're struggling to get off the ground. Like our money's tight and we don't have anything. I'm like, you have a whole technology complete. Like you have everything. They have an app, they have a software, they have everything. And I was like, yeah, we can't get it off the ground. I was like, have you guys run a campaign? Have you guys done any marketing? Have you guys tried to generate any traffic for your solution? And they're like, no, no, because our customer is this. And I was like, well, you can look up your customer. You just have to do the outreach. But again, it comes back to they're really smart scientists. They're really smart engineers, but that business side of it is like, they thought, all right, I'm gonna come create it. I got something great here and people are gonna come to me. It's like, no, you have to make people aware of what you have, what you're doing. Same thing with Score Contracts and Go Con Giants. Like if nobody knew that you were giving out this service or you're providing all this valuable information, nobody would be able to work with you. But now they know that you have it. I'm pretty sure your inbox probably stays full if people are reaching out. Same thing. You know, what's interesting is that when I, back, back, back many moons ago, a friend of mine who was a PhD computer science electrical engineer, and he was like a PhD, I mean, he was a guy who was a genius. He recognized that even though he was really smart and he knew that he could not communicate to the people. So he needed a business person to partner with. So I think that's great what you said because anyone out here listening may see this and say, hey, you know, I could qualify and I have a great technology, but be mindful that if you don't connect with or work with someone who has the business acumen to be able to help you leverage that idea, it's gonna essentially go nowhere at the end of the day. Yeah. And they've kind of gotten to the point where they don't, if they, and that was the first time that I've ever heard somebody say, hey, we didn't make it because of this. And I was like, wow. But I think there's time to crack down on it because over the summer, I went to an event out here, well, it wasn't out here, but fine. I went to an event in Iowa. Yes, I went to an event in Iowa. I know my tears. I'm sure this could buy her listening to that around Iowa along with you. So I went to this event in Iowa and when they're up there talking, I want to say it was the USDA. When they're up there talking, they're saying one of the major things they run into is people dropping off before they can actually commercialize their product. So they'll get through the phase two as they're getting ready to transition into like, hey, it's time to commercialize your product. They don't know how to do it. And I was talking to somebody. I was like, you know, if there was a service where somebody can actually just focus on doing that, helping them commercialize their product, helping them generate the momentum that they need to reach that tipping point to actually go commercial with the product. I think that would make everybody's job a little bit easier. So if I'm the SBIR awardee or if I'm the contracting officer, I don't have to worry about how am I gonna get to market? If I'm the one that's giving you the money, I don't have to worry about are they gonna keep coming back? Because something that happens quite often is people will just continue to apply for SBIRs. They won't try to go to market. They'll just keep going back and getting the money. Yeah, so people will continue to just apply. So now there's limits on SBIRs if you're getting the grant. I think the limits are fairly high though, depending on the agency, sometimes it's like seven or eight. Like if you won seven or eight, you can't win another one because you've never taken anything to market. But most people, especially people within the, I wouldn't say sport contracts are good for our giants. I'm pretty sure they're gonna act upon it. I'd be like, okay, I got this money, like what's my next step? Oh, I mean, to me, you need an exit strategy, right? You're not doing just like grant money. Exactly, and that's where they try to help you at. So they try to help you to that point. And if you do do a good job scaling, let's say you scale for, we're talking about Avacom with facial recognition technology. So let's say you scale for Avacom and Avacom's like, hey, I like this, you know what? Okay, we just helped him build this technology. All right, we're gonna work with him on this technology. Boom, now you got your contract from Avacom. That does not mean that the Department of Homeland Security can't come back and say, hey, we wanna use the same thing because that's a whole different agency. You can actually go, well, hold in for department. You can actually go to that department with that same technology and say, hey, this is what I created for them. I can also create this for you. Or you can also utilize the same thing. So you can still leverage it within the fellow arena, even if you've already sold it to one entity. It's like building, it's like building construction. Just because you did construction for the Air Force doesn't mean like, okay, I did construction on this one base, can't do anything else for the Air Force. Yeah, it's like, you know, it doesn't work like that. And I'm actually very good, but I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't consider that. And I'm sure someone out there listening to this right now had that question as we were getting ready to exit today. And they were like, I wonder if I could do it for two locations. So that was a great question. You can do it for multiple, you can do it for multiple. One of them. So I think it's all dependent on your limitations. And again, I know we just talked about technology, but if you have an invention of some sort, bring it forward. There was a guy at the event, I would just say he had invented self-healing metal. So after a certain amount of time, it kind of, if you shoot it after a certain amount of time, it heals and goes back to its original shape. So, but it's not instantaneous. So anybody at home, it's not within like five minutes. Hey, I know, we already knew. They already think he's super hero stuff. Yeah, I was like, this is not Terminator type stuff. It takes some time. Yeah, they like super hero. But it goes back to normal. And that's one of the things that he brought forward. But keep in mind that involves no software, involves nothing. The individual that brought forward the garments, all these were garments that she sawing at home to be able to hold a gun. And she was able to come forward with that. And it's not software-based. The young lady that actually brought forward the durable codex for women combat, that is not a software-based thing. Was it you that talked to me about the person that had some kind of blanket or something that they made that was for the packaging of bombs? Yes, it wasn't for bombs. It was a blanket that they made for some screws for the actual Air Force. So they were made to hold screws from the Air Force to avoid them being scratched up by the regular blanks in packaging. The reason why it was considered an innovation is because this blanket was actually lighter than what they were currently using and it actually cradled the screws better. So it was lighter and they saved money on shipping and it also didn't scratch up or scrape up the screws so when they needed to bolt it in, everything worked like it was supposed to. And that's somebody that was making blankets and they were able to come forward with that as an innovation. So don't think just because you're not working on some software or you're not working on some technology or you're not working on some app that you don't have something to bring forward. It's just finding the person to present it to. You have to, again, know your audience. You know your audience, you're good to go. And now I have heard horror stories where somebody was presenting something and I think we talked about this a while back, Eric. The guy that was presenting the technology that he had for submarines to the Air Force. And it's like, their technology was great. The guys at the Air Force, like we love the technology but it doesn't apply to the Air Force. Like we can't do anything with this. We can tell you who to go to but other than that, we can really can't help you and that's why you wanna make sure you know your audience. So the same way that you research a government contract that you're gonna go and bid on, you need to research that command, research what they're working on if you can and try to figure out where you fit in prior to approaching them. Don't just say, hey, I have this good idea. Look at me. Here's, listen, thank you so much. You gave us a lot to swallow. Like they said, drink out of a fire hose. I'm sure there's gonna be a lot more questions and some follow up conversation to have to discuss this. Looking forward to talking to you soon and with that I said we're out. All right, have a great one. Thanks.