NEST Open Invitation

Opportunity

The Network for Enabling Small Business Teaming (NEST) is a new program hosted by San Diego State University College of Business Administration – Entrepreneurial Management Center (EMC). NEST is funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration to help small businesses to identify large federal procurement opportunities, form teams, and submit winning proposals.

NEST is comprised of partners from academia, industry, economic focused non-profits, and others. Its main objective is to support local small businesses to pursue large (at least $10 million) procurement opportunities in the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Justice, and others as appropriate to San Diego small business clusters.

As one of eleven awardees, NEST provides a set of services including training, mentoring, team building, bid and proposal support, and other services to assist teams of small businesses to compete for multi-million dollar federal contracts.

Services

Training: On November 29, 2011, NEST held a workshop to support small business teaming and success in competitive procurements. The following two presentations were given at that workshop:

Researching the Federal Market (pdf)
Developing Teaming Relationships (pdf)

Counseling: NEST offers individual team counseling on topics relating to federal contracting ranging from locating federal opportunities, marketing to federal customers, submitting bids/proposals, and pre/post award contract management and administration. NEST membership enrollment required.

Mentoring: NEST Small Business Teams that are ready to bid will be provided a Mentor/Coach once a viable opportunity is identified and accepted by the team for prosecution. NEST Mentors will provide as-needed consulting and guidance to support the teams in preparing competitive bids. NEST membership enrollment required.

Enrollment Process for Counseling and Mentoring

The enrollment process for counseling and mentoring is used as a means for small businesses in the San Diego region to define their business products and/or services for use by the NEST team to facilitate matchmaking of enrolled companies with complementary capabilities to a qualifying large federal procurement opportunity. It is also intended to be used to assist small businesses who have identified a qualified procurement opportunity and who are seeking partners. As opportunities are identified, companies in the database will be invited to become part of a procurement team and be eligible for NEST services. Only small companies (defined by the SBA as having 499 or fewer employees) are eligible to participate. The information in the enrollment process will help NEST in facilitating team formation and developing customized services tailored to the needs of the team.

Enrollment

To enroll for the NEST program, please download, complete, and submit the enrollment form following the instructions from the pdf documents below:

Submission

Enrollment shall remain open until further notice. Interested small businesses in the San Diego region should submit their completed enrollment form via email to:  ccat@foundation.sdsu.edu.

Questions

Questions concerning enrollment may be submitted via email to Thomas Sheffer, NEST Program Manager at tsheffer@foundation.sdsu.edu.