Other than for style points, why play the game on the most difficult level?

An interesting question on yesterday’s post got me thinking, what would my ideal defense business look like? Now there are many ways to interpret that question, so let me be specific to caveat my answer. This is a business I think would be the easiest, fastest, and most likely to be make sales or be awarded contracts to the DoD over a multi-year span. This isn’t what would make the most money, garner the most customers, or be the next “big thing”. It’s simply my opinion of a business with the best chance of success at a given scale within the defense industry.

So my pick would be a small hardware manufacturing business with commercial products that are dual use. Starting with sales of commercial products as major components in large programs to major defense primes to establish reputation and capitalize on the fastest path to paid sales within the industry. Attend DoD focused events where the company could interact with military personnel to start defining a potential fully integrated military-spec product that company could provide. Create a product concept over time that serves Military need(s), has dual commercial function, and could be pursued as a SBIR. Use the SBIR to develop the product, then focus on commercial sales while playing the long game on military sustainment through a phase 3 contract. Use the phase 3 as the basis of past performance to compete for future contract awards with partners or through sole source. The long term goal being to keep make sales consistently, not grow sales maximally.

Every step of that growth is achievable and intertwined with the commercial sector as the primary focus of sales sustainability. Defense is a long term slow growth side project, with the goal of evolving it into a major sales channel that is sustainable over time. Hardware manufacturing is something that has all kinds of advantages from a logistics perspective, as well as the ability to find applicable skilled labor that is less likely to turn over, and easier to hirer in many lower cost of living areas in the USA. Examples of these kinds of businesses would be manufacturers of boots, knives, small arms, radios, small vehicles, and almost anything smaller than a truck and under $50k per unit that could be sold as a complete end product.

This is all just my personal preference given my knowledge and experience. I would be very interested to read everyone else’s choices and opinions as well. This is one of those really fun thought experiments.