Definition
Non-Traditional Defense Contractor
A company without a history of federal contracts, increasingly being courted by the government as it pushes for faster, cheaper innovation through OTAs and rapid prototyping programs.
From the episode “The B2G Playbook Nobody Talks About (And It's Printing Money)”Hear it on the podcast1 episode
Learn the language of AI-native founders
Every week: the new terms, tools, and workflows founders are using, straight from the podcast.
Related terms in Startups & Fundraising
MoatA durable competitive advantage that protects your margin.MRRMonthly recurring revenue.MVP (Minimum Viable Product)The simplest version of a product used to test demand. Bonds' MVP was a couples app.Negative Selection Bias (Fund Design)A structural risk in investment funds where the participants most likely to enter are those most worried about their position - creating a pool that is systematically skewed toward higher-risk or lower-quality holdings. In an exchange fund context, if any private company shareholder can contribute their shares, the people most motivated to exchange are those who have the worst information about their company's prospects. Collective Liquidity solves this by reversing the process: rather than accepting any shares offered, it pre-defines the universe of eligible companies using objective financial criteria (market cap, revenue, growth trajectory). Anyone contributing to the fund can see the quality bar applied to every other company in the pool, and the fund's investment committee maintains it actively. The pre-approval structure converts a potential adverse selection problem into a quality signal for participants.Painkiller vs. Vitamin ProductA product positioning framework distinguishing between products that solve acute, immediate pain (painkillers) and products that provide incremental improvement without addressing a crisis (vitamins). Painkillers generate inbound demand because buyers are actively searching for relief; vitamins require outbound education because buyers do not feel the absence acutely. The distinction has major implications for sales motion, pricing power, and customer urgency. Dan Bladen's pivot example: wireless charging infrastructure in offices was a vitamin - nice to have, but the office functioned without it. Desk booking software during COVID was a painkiller - companies were actively searching for a solution to an urgent, expensive problem and would close quickly.Pattern RecognitionInvestor shorthand for the wisdom that comes from sitting on dozens of boards and seeing thousands of deals — the ability to recognize what tends to work.PBC, Public Benefit CorporationA for-profit structure with a legally stated public mission. Althea's form.PE backedPrivate equity backed. Ownership sits with a fund rather than founders or venture investors, which typically changes the reporting cadence and the exit clock.