We’re Guessing What the Government Actually Wants
by Kristian Mueller - Chief Grants Officer
If you’ve ever read a federal solicitation-especially a DoD SBIR/STTR topic-and thought “I can follow every instruction here and still miss the mark,” you’re not wrong.
One of the least talked-about realities of federal proposal writing is this: the solicitation is necessary, but rarely sufficient. The strongest proposals don’t just comply-they anticipate what the government actually wants, even when they can’t say it outright.
After years of writing and reviewing proposals for technology startups, and working directly with engineering teams and government stakeholders, we’ve learned that winning proposals live in the space between strict compliance and educated interpretation.
Let’s talk about what that really means.
Yes, You Must Follow the Solicitation-But That’s the Floor, Not the Ceiling
Let’s get this out of the way first:
You must follow the solicitation requirements exactly.
Page limits, formatting rules, evaluation criteria, topic scope, cost caps-these are non-negotiable. Noncompliance can get you rejected before anyone reads your brilliant technical approach.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Hundreds of proposals follow the rules. Very few get funded.
Reviewers aren’t scoring you on whether you can read instructions. They’re scoring you on whether your solution aligns with a mission need that often isn’t fully spelled out.
That’s where reading between the lines comes in.
Especially for DoD: Some of the Real Requirements Aren’t Written Down
DoD solicitations are a special case. Many topics are intentionally vague, constrained, or abstracted-sometimes because of classification, sometimes because the program office itself is still refining the requirement.
When a topic says something like:
“Innovative approaches for resilient, next-generation sensing in contested environments”
What it might mean is:
They’ve had a system fail in the field
A prime contractor solution is too expensive or fragile
They need something deployable in 18–36 months
They want optionality, not a single locked-in architecture
None of that will appear explicitly in the solicitation.
Your job-and ours-is to infer those drivers without inventing things that aren’t defensible.
How Do You Figure Out What’s Not in the Solicitation?
This is where many small companies struggle, especially first-time proposers. The good news: there are ways to reduce uncertainty and make informed guesses instead of blind ones.
1. Talk to the Humans Behind the Topic (Yes, You’re Allowed To)
For most SBIR/STTR and BAA opportunities, you can-and should-reach out to:
Topic Authors
Technical Points of Contact (TPOCs)
Program Managers or Directors
These conversations won’t give you proprietary information, but they can clarify:
What success looks like at the end of Phase I or II
Whether the topic is exploratory or transition-driven
What applications they care about most
What approaches they’ve already seen (and aren’t excited about)
A short, well-prepared email or call can save months of misaligned proposal work.
2. Read the Agency’s Funding History Like a Signal, Not a Spreadsheet
Past awards are one of the most underused sources of insight.
Looking at what an agency or program office has funded before can tell you:
Technology maturity they’re comfortable with
Typical Phase II award sizes
Whether projects routinely transition-or stall
Which primes or end users show up repeatedly
For recurring BAAs or long-running programs, funding patterns often reveal strategy. Are they doubling down on a capability area? Spreading bets? Letting one domain quietly sunset?
Those patterns should influence how you position your technology.
3. Understand the Money Reality (Not Just the Maximum Award)
Solicitations often list a maximum award amount. That does not mean:
That amount is fully available
Every topic will be funded equally
The program isn’t already partially allocated
Experienced proposal teams pay attention to:
Number of awards anticipated
Typical funding per award in prior years
Whether this is a new call or a continuation
Signals of constrained or expanding budgets
This matters not just for pricing, but for scope credibility. Over-promising in a constrained funding environment is a fast way to lose reviewer confidence.
What Reviewers Are Actually Asking When They Read Your Proposal
Even when they’re scoring against formal criteria, reviewers are often implicitly asking:
Does this team understand our problem, not just the topic text?
Is this a real solution, or a research project looking for a use case?
Can this company execute, or will we be managing them?
Does this scale beyond Phase I/II?
Would I want to champion this internally?
Great proposals answer these questions without ever stating them explicitly.
So… Are We Guessing?
Yes-but not randomly.
Winning federal proposals are built on informed inference:
Grounded in the solicitation
Reinforced by agency behavior
Clarified through direct engagement
Shaped by real engineering constraints
At BW&CO, this is where our background in both technology development and proposal review matters. We don’t just translate your technology into government language-we help position it in the context of what the government is quietly trying to accomplish.
Because the truth is, the government often can’t say exactly what it wants.
But with the right approach, you can still give it to them.
Contact us to learn more.