[captainoats]

Ronnie Barrett’s story might interest you, he was working as a photographer when he began development on what would become the M82 rifle. His company is now well known in both the commercial and .gov small arms world.

At a federal level in the US, licensing for traditional weapons development (outside of nuke/chem/bio) is pretty accessible and relatively cheap. Dual use tech and services work mostly just like any other consumer startup. The marketing and sales/RFP process for the government is what’s unique.