| If you’re solely in the defense contracting space for the money, there are easier paths to take. 1. Get job at a defense contractor, get a high level clearance 2. Be invaluable to your government client. Tech skills are good but also having a good relationship with the client and having an eye for business needs is even better. The bar is low here. 3. Once you’re invaluable become an independent sub-contractor. Can flip your job or find another gig and collect most of the bill rate. If you make 150k you could bill between between 120 and 180 per hour likely. 4. Get your prime contractor to sponsor your company for a facility clearance. 5. As vacancies on the contract come up, hire people in your network. On a straight time and material contract you can probably make around $40k-$60k per person. 6. When you have a big enough company you can bid on smaller contracts and become a prime. If you’re interested I wrote a book on the first phase of this plan (becoming an independent contractor). Currently have 6 employees and a business partner. Working on growing it so I don’t have to billable work anymore. 1099fedhub.com |
I would advise that startups team up with a larger player who can actually win contracts as a prime, and push out product together with them. It's sort of the middle ground between contracting and going alone. So I would suggest starting straight from #2 above up to #5. The biggest con is that you're completely dependent on the big company for survival, so you'll have to make them equally enamoured and dependent on your tech/product.