More good proposals are lost to portal mechanics than to bad ideas. The Defense SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal, known as DSIP, is the single front door for AFWERX, SpaceWERX, and every other DoD component. Learn it once and it stops being scary.
DSIP authenticates through Login.gov, so create that account first. Then register your small business concern inside DSIP. You will also need active registrations elsewhere in the federal ecosystem — a Unique Entity ID and SAM.gov registration — so start those early because they can take days to weeks to clear.
Browse open opportunities under the Funding Opportunities area. Each topic has a Q&A window; use it. The topic text is the rubric — if it asks for a specific deliverable or a customer memo, that is not a suggestion.
A DoD proposal is assembled as separate volumes: a cover sheet, the technical volume, the cost volume, company commercialization information, and any component-specific forms (AFWERX Direct-to-Phase-II proposals, for example, require a customer memorandum). Save often. You can edit any volume right up until the announcement closes.
The cost volume is where evaluators check that your plan is real. If part of your Phase I is a modeling or simulation effort, name the tool and the runs you will do — specificity reads as competence. Ansys evaluation and startup licensing can put that capability in your cost narrative before you submit.
See if you qualify for an Ansys eval The MVP playbook →Here is the single most common failure: you finish the volumes, the system shows green checks, and you assume you are done. You are not. You must click Submit Proposal. Until you do, the status reads In Progress and the government never receives it. Submit at least a day early — portals slow to a crawl in the final hours before a deadline, and there are no extensions for a page that would not load.
After submitting, verify the status changed and save the confirmation. If you need to fix something before the deadline, you can typically reopen, edit, and re-submit — but re-submitting resets nothing except your own peace of mind. Screenshot the confirmation and the timestamp; if a dispute ever arises, that record is your evidence that you filed on time.
Beyond forgetting to click submit, watch for the usual killers: a page-limit or font violation in the technical volume, a cost volume whose totals do not match the cover sheet, an expired SAM.gov registration, or a required form (like the customer memo) left out. Any one of these can make an otherwise strong proposal non-compliant before a human reads a word of your science. Build a checklist against the topic instructions and tick every box the night before you submit.
DSIP publishes training materials worth an hour of your time. Once the mechanics are muscle memory, you can spend your energy where it matters: the pitch. If a pitch day invitation follows, our pitch day guide covers what happens next, and our overview of how to apply to an Open Topic covers the strategy behind the submission.
Official sources: DSIP submission login · DSIP training and support materials · Login.gov. Figures change; confirm on the official page before relying on them.
