Practice · Dual-Use
Selling to the government is one company. Selling to everyone else is another.
Most dual-use companies I work with already have a real government business and no commercial one. The capability works, and somebody is already paying for it. What is missing is the answer to who else buys it, why now, what they will pay, and how you reach the next hundred of them. I am four years into an advisory role at BMNT, and have worked with more than 15 companies through it.
NASA Alta X, FireSense · NASA ARC/Milan Loiacono
The government business is not the problem. The commercial company beside it is a separate discipline.
A company that has sold to the government for years is usually excellent at the things that market rewards: the capability, the compliance, the program of record, the relationship with a contracting officer. None of that is how a commercial buyer decides. They have budget cycles instead of appropriations, competitors instead of requirements, and no obligation to talk to you at all. The gap is not the technology. It is a second commercial motion that nobody has built yet, standing beside the government one rather than replacing it.
I close it as an operator, not an advisor with a deck. To be plain about what I am not: I am not a banker or a placement agent, I do not open a rolodex, and I do not run your raise. What I do is find the commercial opening, get the company running lean enough to reach it, turn the motion into machinery, and get the story and the numbers to the point where raising is the consequence of a working company rather than a substitute for one.
§ 01 – The engagement
Four areas, in that order.
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01 / Commercial opportunity
Who has budget, who has urgency, and which beachhead comes first.
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02 / Lean operating discipline
Evidence before expenditure, on a weekly cadence.
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03 / Repeatability
The second deal should not cost what the first one did.
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04 / Fundraise readiness
A narrative that matches the numbers, and a model that holds up.
01 / Commercial opportunity
Find the market that will actually pay
A company with a government business usually has more possible commercial markets than it can serve and no ranking between them, which looks like optionality and behaves like paralysis. I work the demand side: who has budget, who has urgency, which beachhead is winnable now, and what it opens next. The output is a sequence rather than a list, and a defensible reason for the order.
02 / Lean operating discipline
Run it like a world-class lean startup
Long build cycles and hardware costs make guessing expensive, which is why lean discipline matters more here than in software, not less. We name the assumptions the company is actually betting on, rank them by what a wrong answer costs, and design the cheapest test that could change your mind. Evidence before expenditure, on a weekly cadence.
03 / Repeatability
Make it run without heroics
Most early traction is one or two people doing everything personally. That works until it doesn't, and it cannot be handed to anyone. I turn the motion into machinery: a written sales playbook from first call to pilot to contract, a collateral library the team can sell from, a pipeline review that separates real from noise, and marketing that runs to a calendar instead of to whoever has time. The second deal should not cost what the first one did.
04 / Fundraise readiness
Ready before you walk in the room
When it is time to raise, I make sure the company withstands the scrutiny: a narrative that matches the numbers, a model that holds up under questioning, a data room assembled before diligence starts, and a clear answer to what the money buys and why now. I do not source investors and I do not run your process – those are yours. My job finishes before the first meeting starts.
The order matters. Raising before you know which market pays, or scaling a motion that only works with a principal in the room, is how good companies burn a round. Fundraising is last on this list because it should be the consequence of the first three, not a replacement for them.
§ 02 – What you get
Working machinery, not a stack of advice
- Beachhead market assessmentRanked and sequenced, with the reason for the order
- Positioning & narrativeWhy you, why now, in the buyer's own words
- Assumption & evidence planThe riskiest bets, and the cheapest test for each
- Operating cadenceWeekly rhythm, the metrics that matter, a decision log
- Sales playbookFirst call to pilot to contract, written down
- Collateral libraryOne-pagers, competitive matrix, proof slides
- Investor-ready deck & modelOne narrative spine, one source of numbers
- Diligence packData room assembled before you need it, not during
§ 03 – In practice
What this looks like
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DoD accelerator cohort
Military tech, commercial market
Worked across a cohort of dual-use companies repositioning defense-grade technology for commercial buyers: which civilian markets actually had budget and urgency, and then rebuilding the story and the revenue model around the one worth pursuing first.
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Deep-tech data startup
Unstuck, then moving
Co-founders deadlocked on direction and development thrashing behind them. I installed a decision process with binding escalation and a weekly cadence, and put the contested assumptions on an evidence plan instead of a debate calendar. The arguments stopped repeating and the roadmap held.
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Operating company
A sales motion that does not need the leadership team
Pipeline discipline plus a living collateral library, so a lean team could pursue larger contracts without the leadership team authoring every deck and answering every objection personally. The second deal took a fraction of the effort of the first.
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Grant-stage hardware company
Ready before the room
Tightened the investor and agency narrative to the funding environment as it actually was, and got the model and its backup to the point where every likely question had an answer behind it. The pitch stopped talking past the room.
A government business, and no commercial one beside it?
A short conversation to map where you stand across the four – market, operating discipline, repeatability, readiness – and which one is actually holding you back.