For commercial companies — and for startups especially — the path into defense is a maze of acronyms, authorities, and decision-makers that look nothing like the buyers you have ever sold to before.
Build for Defense is the operating manual for that path. Drawing on years inside the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), where Eric Alborg evaluated the companies trying to break into national security, the book maps the market, the money, and the moves that separate the companies that win contracts from the ones that burn out trying.
Whether you are a founder pivoting toward national security, an investor underwriting dual-use deals, or a corporate-development team weighing your first defense play — this is the system the winners use.
It is the book the author wishes had existed when he started.
How the defense market actually buys — the org chart that matters, the players who decide, and how dollars flow once they do.
The three paths into defense — commercial-first, dual-use, and pure-play — and how to choose the one that fits your company.
The procurement pathways that move fastest — OTAs, SBIRs, and the ones that quietly bury startups for years.
How “colors of money” decide everything — and why a contract on paper does not mean a dollar in the bank.
How to find the one person in the room who can actually say yes — and how to earn the meeting.
How to price for impact, not for what you assume the government will pay.
The compliance architecture you need before you win — not after the contract is signed and the clock has started.
Where startups crash in defense, and the patterns behind nearly every failure you will hear about.
How to find and access defense-aligned capital — the funds, grants, and strategic investors who actually move in this space.
The trillion-dollar opportunity in ally markets — and the playbook for going global with defense tech.
Eric Alborg works at the seam between Silicon Valley and the national security enterprise — translating between two worlds that rarely speak the same language, and helping commercial technology find its mission in defense.
At the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Eric served as commercial executive, bridging technology companies to the defense and intelligence communities. He led due diligence across verticals — assessing founders, financing, market position, and product fit against real operational problems — and helped guide companies through the maze of authority, funding, and process that decides who wins a defense contract and who does not.
Two decades across commercial and public sectors built that understanding: product strategy, investment deployment, corporate development, and earlier, a gubernatorial appointment under Arnold Schwarzenegger during California's 2008 financial crisis.
The throughline is the same one that runs through Build for Defense: a working understanding of how large institutions actually buy, fund, and decide — and how a commercial product becomes a mission-ready business.
He holds a BA from UC Davis and an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas. Today he advises founders, investors, and companies navigating the defense market, with deep expertise in non-traditional procurement, go-to-market strategy, and corporate development.
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