CEO transforms her business as SBIR transforms its culture

Photo By Marcus A Morton | Srujal Sheth, CEO and co-founder of Vana. Photo courtesy of Srujal Sheth, Vana  

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, OH, UNITED STATES

04.28.2021

Story by Marcus A Morton 

Air Force Research Laboratory

Article written by Jim Ingram - Starting up your own business presents its own specialized set of challenges and unexpected headaches. In the past, doing business with the federal government proved to be an intimidating and daunting task to some. Those hurdles were even higher for minorities – a problem the Air Force Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program has been placing increased focus on recently. Ultimately, those efforts are proving fruitful, allowing the Air Force Research Laboratory to better serve the warfighter.
These efforts have been noticed by Srujal Sheth, CEO and co-founder of Vana, a technological integration firm based in Beavercreek, Ohio.
“In the last few years, the SBIR/STTR program has given women a real opportunity to be on equal footing to innovate and present capabilities to support the Air Force and Department of Defense (DoD),” Sheth, who prefers to go by Srujal, said.
Vana’s SBIR technology rocketed from Phase I to Phase III, resulting in the development of vKesi™. This technology is a low-code Digital Framework that is designed to accelerate business transformation, enterprise architecture, and technological innovation for Business Process Management.
But Srujal said she was never focused on her status as a woman – or as someone from another country. She focused on the mission, believing the rest would eventually take care of itself…but it wasn’t easy even before she set out to build her business.
“I came to the U.S. (from India) in high school without understanding any English. So I had other challenges,” she said “But I feel like an American dream success story. I am a woman-owned small business. But I think some of the challenges are for all small businesses. As a woman, I can tell you the starting point is way back. I think the issue is getting the opportunity.”
Vana started in 2005 with a healthy list of banking and manufacturing customers. But, like so many other businesses, they were blindsided by the recession of 2008.
“Everything was just gone. I could’ve closed and moved on at that point. But I continued to figure out how to evolve and diversify. At that time, we decided it was better to be diversified in more than just commercial. That’s when I started working with the state, local and federal governments,” Srujal said.
The only problem was she didn’t know how to pivot to this new client base. Srujal’s journey to working with the Air Force started by contacting the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers and Local Small Business Administration office, who helped introduce Vana to the process. Still, Srujal found obstacles because her business was a virtual unknown, offering outside-the-box technology in an arena that seemed to be looking for solutions from different fields.
“One of the biggest challenges at that time was they had these contracting vehicles, that if anyone wanted to deviate from those, they had to go all the way up to the Pentagon and prove why they needed to deviate,” Srujal said.
Then came the defense budget concerns of 2012, which forced potential government clients to be more conservative with their spending. That meant fewer opportunities for Vana.
Srujal decided her organization would weather the storm and continue to focus on what they did best -- digital transformation to help automate operational efficiency – adding more clients along the way. Vana gradually added clients from both the commercial and federal sectors. In fact, the business has gone from one that once struggled to find a government client to work with, to one that boasts 70 percent of its clientele as federal contracts.
While Srujal never looked upon herself as a minority, she’s grateful for the help she’s had along the way. She’s also pleased to see SBIR/STTR’s efforts to change the culture of working with the government.
“I look at me, what my capabilities are, who my team is and what we can do. I think the landscape around us has changed. When I first started doing business (at the federal level), I would see all these different organizations at events and maybe only five percent of the attendees were women,” she said “There’s been definite improvements. The SBIR/STTR program with Dr. Will Roper (former Asst. Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition) and the culture of innovation -- moving fast and trying things – is being communicated. That has been great for us because that’s what I was doing all this time.”
"I want to also acknowledge my incredible team here at Vana. We wouldn't be where we are today without each of them," Srujal added.

Learn how you can receive funding to develop your technology solutions to our warfighter by visiting Air Force Tech Connect at https://airforcetechconnect.org/ and Air Force SBIRSTTR at https://www.afsbirsttr.af.mil/!

• Date Taken: 04.28.2021
• Date Posted: 04.28.2021 12:48
• Story ID: 395023
• Location: WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, OH, US