Your runway isn't measured in dollars; it's measured in pivots. And in defense, every pivot takes forever.

Geoff Orazem has spent 15 years inside the defense innovation machine as a Marine, a McKinsey alum, a founder of the Eastern Foundry incubator, a J2 Ventures advisor, and a current DARPA contractor working on acquisitions reform. In this new episode of GovCon Unscripted, he sits down with Chelsea Roberts to unpack why so many promising startups stall when they try to sell to DOD first, why a commercial revenue stream is almost always the smarter on-ramp, and what's actually changing (and what isn't) in software acquisition, OTs, IDIQs, CMMC, and the ATO process. Geoff also previews a Day Zero angel fund concept aimed at the part of the market he says is most underserved: the founders who haven't even hit seed yet.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Cold open

00:30 — Meet Geoff: Marine, McKinsey, Eastern Foundry, J2, DARPA

02:30 — What an incubator actually is (and the Sam's Club model)

04:30 — Competitor or teammate? Inside the incubator dynamic

07:50 — Dual-use vs. defense-only: where the bright line lives

10:30 — Why commercial revenue is the better door into GovCon

14:30 — Software acquisition: what's improving, what's still broken

17:00 — The CMMC perception problem and the cheat sheet DOD should write

22:00 — 670 FAR clauses and the "first contract in a box" idea

25:30 — How venture got into defense, and why J2 is different

29:30 — Where J2 is investing: comms, cyber, medical, HR tech

34:30 — The Day Zero angel fund thesis

37:30 — Final thoughts and how to reach Geoff

Resource Links:

🔗 Geoff Orazem on LinkedIn

🔗 J2 Ventures

🔗 DARPA

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