> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://guide.usul.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://guide.usul.com/how-to-sell-to-the-dow/readme.md).

# Overview

Author: Oliver Gomez, Co-Founder at Usul

The Department of War is the biggest customer on earth. It buys software, hardware, services, and frontier technology at enormous scale, and it is forecasted to spend $1.5 trillion in 2027, with roughly $780 billion flowing directly to companies.

For decades that market was built to keep founders out. Contracts ran through a handful of legacy primes, and the regulatory load sent most builders back to the commercial sector. That has changed. The current administration made commercial-first procurement a real priority and cut regulatory layers that had sat untouched for decades. Record venture investment, political will, and aggressive reform are all landing at the same moment, and contracts that were inaccessible to a startup five years ago are now winnable.

The U.S. is actively searching for new, innovative companies to replace legacy solutions and tackle problems the world has never seen before. If you have a hunch the government could use your tech, this guide is for you. It is written for founders who have built something real and want to know whether the government should be a customer, and if so, how to find, engage, and close it.

### How to use this guide

Your path depends on one question: **does demand for your capability already exist inside the government, or are you creating something genuinely new?** The answer sits in public documents, and the pages below walk you through finding it and acting on it.

* [How the Government Spends Money](/how-to-sell-to-the-dow/how-the-government-spends-money.md): The three colors of money (RDT\&E, Procurement, O\&M) and how each maps to a different pitch.
* [How to Validate Demand](/how-to-sell-to-the-dow/how-to-validate-demand.md): Check the budget request and SAM.gov to see whether the government already funds or buys what you build.
* [If Demand Already Exists](/how-to-sell-to-the-dow/if-demand-already-exists.md): Map buyers before applying, use the fast on-ramps, and let an end user champion you up the chain.
* [If Demand Does Not Exist Yet](/how-to-sell-to-the-dow/if-demand-does-not-exist-yet.md): Create your own market from the bottom up and top down.

### Choose your path

**If demand exists**, the path is hard but learnable. Map your buyers before applying to anything on SAM.gov, because the contracts asking for exactly your product were usually shaped by someone else and are effectively already won. Use the on-ramps built for commercial companies: SBIR grants to get in the room and prototype, then CSOs and OTAs to start generating real revenue directly from an end user's program office.

**If demand does not exist**, you are creating your own market, which takes more time and capital. You bridge the two-year valley of death on venture or research dollars (DARPA, DIU) and run two plays at once: bottom up, arming end users to document the capability gap, and top down, working Congress and policy toward a budget line item. A congressional line item is the most defensible position in the market, because once it's yours, the recurring revenue is written for you.

Both paths are real. Both have produced billion-dollar outcomes.

### Go deeper

Once you have worked through the four pages above, read Steve Blank's [2026 Department of War Directory](https://sites.google.com/lookleft.com/index/home) to go deeper. It maps the new PAE/CPE acquisition structure and is the most robust resource in the industry for the offices, commands, and investors that matter most to startups.