A champion is an internal advocate who wants your capability; a problem sponsor is the program office or organization that owns the requirement, the money, and the authority to field it. Champions open doors, but sponsors carry the requirement through JCIDS and the budget process. Without a sponsor tied to color-of-money and a program of record, a pilot has no transition path and dies at demo.
AFWERX is the Air Force's innovation arm, with Spark (airman-led problems), Prime (commercial markets like agility prime), and Ventures pathways, often tied to SBIR/STTR funding. DIU is a DoD-wide unit that fields commercial technology across services, primarily through its Commercial Solutions Opening using OTAs. AFWERX is service-specific and SBIR-heavy; DIU is joint and prototype-OTA-driven. Choose based on where your end user and transition sponsor sit.
Pricing depends on contract type. Firm-fixed-price (FFP) puts cost risk on you but rewards efficiency; time-and-materials (T&M) bills labor hours plus materials; cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) reimburses allowable costs plus a set fee and demands robust accounting. Prototype OTAs often allow more commercial-style pricing. Match the structure to your cost certainty and the contracting vehicle, and account for color-of-money: RDT&E, procurement, and O&M funds aren't interchangeable.