How to Build and Sell Military Planning Software

TL;DR

Onebrief accelerates military planning by replacing disconnected Word documents and PowerPoint slides with reusable data cards that update plans, maps, matrices, and presentations together. The company entered the defense market through a small government purchase-card sale, then stayed close to users through extensive interviews and realistic planning exercises, eventually reaching military headquarters worldwide and a $650 million valuation.

Transcript

Grant Demory is a former US Army officer and the co-founder of One Brief from YC Summer 21 batch. They're creating software to help dramatically speed up military planning. What we're doing is on a on a per dollar basis the most important thing happening in defense tech in the world. Today, we're going to talk with him about what he's learned selli... Read More

Key Insights

• Military operational planning traditionally relies heavily on Word and PowerPoint, with contributors across multiple headquarters exchanging hundreds of slides and ultimately producing large documents such as operations orders or base plans. This fragmented workflow makes coordination, version management, and major revisions slow.
• Onebrief is built around reusable cards representing information such as situational facts, military units, and tasks. The same cards generate maps, synchronization matrices, written plans, and slides, so changing one underlying item automatically updates every connected output that uses it.
• Synchronized planning data can compress major revisions from weeks into hours. In one cited case, planners replaced a rejected course of action, updated its map overlays, synchronization matrix, written base plan, and slides, then gained the commander's approval within three hours.
• The idea for Onebrief emerged from Grant Demaree's military experience during the 2014 Ebola epidemic in Liberia. He watched headquarters personnel exchange PowerPoint files and reach decisions months later than he believed possible, then observed a similar planning pattern at another headquarters covering Iraq and Syria.
• The US military is composed of many organizations that control their own substantial budgets, rather than operating solely as one purchasing unit. Onebrief estimated that about 1,200 US commands needed its product, allowing the company to approach individual commands with urgent needs.
• A government purchase card enabled Onebrief's first small sale with very little contracting. Some military personnel can use these cards for purchases up to $25,000, depending on the organization, giving an early defense startup a faster route into a headquarters and direct exposure to users.
• About 200 stakeholder interviews showed the founders that their initial assumptions were incomplete. Although Demaree had military-planning experience and began by building clickable mockups and a MATLAB prototype, broad conversations with participants in operational planning proved essential for understanding what the product needed.
• Realistic Saturday exercises gave Onebrief access to early users before it held a military contract. The company recruited planners through cold LinkedIn messages, paid them for eight-hour sessions, and compared teams using Word and PowerPoint with teams using an early Onebrief prototype.

Questions & Answers

Q: How does Onebrief make military planning faster?

Onebrief represents planning information as reusable cards, including facts about a situation, military units, and assigned tasks. Teams use those shared cards to create maps, synchronization matrices, written operations orders, base plans, and slides. When a card changes, every connected output updates with it, reducing the repeated manual editing required across separate Word documents and PowerPoint presentations.

Q: What problem does Onebrief solve for military headquarters?

Onebrief addresses the fragmented workflow used to create operational military plans. Headquarters may coordinate hundreds of slides by email across as many as 12 contributing commands before producing a large operations order or base plan. Because information is duplicated across documents, maps, matrices, and presentations, even one major change can otherwise generate weeks of revision work.

Q: How much time can Onebrief save when revising a military plan?

The transcript provides one example in which a chief of staff rejected a proposed course of action that normally would have required several weeks of rework. Using Onebrief, the planners changed the course of action, map overlays, synchronization matrix, written base plan, and slides in three hours. They then presented the revision, and the commander approved it without further changes.

Q: How did Grant Demaree identify the need for Onebrief?

Grant Demaree first noticed the problem as a junior US Army officer during the 2014 Ebola epidemic in Liberia. While working with data from the Ministry of Health and observing a headquarters planning section, he saw personnel passing PowerPoint files around and making decisions months later than he thought necessary. Later service in a headquarters covering Iraq and Syria confirmed that the pattern was widespread.

Q: How did Onebrief make its first sale to the military?

Onebrief closed its initial sale through a government purchase card held by military personnel, rather than beginning with a large and complicated contract. Depending on the organization, these cards can support purchases up to $25,000 with relatively little process. The small transaction let the company enter a headquarters, validate that someone would pay, and gain direct access to working users.

Q: Why can defense startups sell to individual military commands?

The US military contains many separate organizations that control their own budgets, including individual headquarters with eight, nine, and sometimes 10 figure budgets. Onebrief estimated that roughly 1,200 US commands needed its planning product. An early company can therefore approach a command with an immediate problem instead of trying to sell to the entire Department of Defense as one customer.

Q: How did Onebrief research what military planners needed?

The founders contacted stakeholders throughout military operational planning and completed about 200 interviews. Demaree acknowledged that the team initially took the wrong approach by beginning to build immediately, using clickable mockups and an early MATLAB implementation based on internal assumptions. The interviews revealed that those assumptions were incomplete and helped the team understand the actual planning workflow and user requirements.

Q: How did Onebrief test its early product without a military contract?

Onebrief recruited military planners, generally majors through colonels, through cold messages on LinkedIn. The company paid them to attend eight-hour Saturday exercises based on detailed military scenarios. One team solved the scenario using Word and PowerPoint, while another used an early Onebrief prototype. The founders observed both groups closely and used their behavior and feedback to improve the software.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Onebrief addresses the slow, fragmented process of operational military planning. Headquarters traditionally exchange hundreds of PowerPoint slides and produce large Word documents, making coordinated revisions laborious. Onebrief instead represents facts, units, and tasks as reusable cards that feed synchronized maps, planning matrices, written orders, and presentations across multiple commands.

• Grant Demaree recognized the problem while serving as a US Army officer during the 2014 Ebola response in Liberia, then saw the same pattern at a theater headquarters covering Iraq and Syria. After initially building mockups and a MATLAB prototype, the founding team conducted about 200 interviews with military-planning stakeholders to refine its assumptions.

• Onebrief entered the military through an individual command rather than treating the Department of Defense as one monolithic customer. Its first purchase used a government purchase card, avoiding a lengthy initial contracting process. Early product testing involved paid military planners completing realistic Saturday exercises with either legacy tools or Onebrief while the team observed their work.