YC: Requests for Startups

There is an unfulfilled niche for rapid defense applications. If you have ever used a military information system you are already fully aware of the many constraints imposed for security. I have always bypassed these limitations by writing my own applications in JavaScript because they simply execute in the browser.

I have always found it interesting that JavaScript is one of the most consumed programming languages in the world and nobody can write in it, especially in the browser. When I say write in it I mean without abstraction libraries (React, Angular, jQuery, and so on) and doing something other than CRUD apps. Until last year I was writing JS full time and met only 3 or 4 other people who do this and of them had security clearances.

There is a huge opportunity there that nobody is filling. While the talent for it is completely absent the surprising thing is that it’s ridiculously easy to train for provided the candidates are smart enough to follow simple instructions and write original code.

Writing your own programs in the browser can be great fun, I enjoy loitering in the Javascript console as much as the next guy (did?). I’m surprised to hear that’s not common anymore.

But it doesn’t sound like bypassing the “constraints imposed for security” is the desired outcome for the bosses, so who are you selling to?

Who are you selling to? Anybody with a budget. That could be other contractors. Any enduring units. Any commands.

A JavaScript application could be anything that loads in a webpage but not necessarily from a server or domain. That could mean pasted into the console as you suggested, a SharePoint utility, any web page that does not sending data to the server, as well as pages opened from the local file system.

The primary considerations for success are high portability, data saved in the browser’s localStorage, applications that execute in the browser as opposed to on a server, no dependencies, and high performance.

The primary requirement outside of the necessary JS skills would be a security clearance I assume, correct?

That is certainly helpful when working in the defense sector and in some will absolutely be required.

As a follow up comment I would say let the business requirements of a given client dictate the need for clearance. However, it takes so long to achieve a clearance it costs less to simply hired cleared people or pay for the clearance as a part of employee on-boarding.

If I were to do this as a real business I would always impose formal language training in the JavaScript language, so prior JavaScript experience is a largely irrelevant indicator of compatibility. That is because experiences writing the language professionally vary wildly in the market place and quality of code authorship is exceedingly rare. Producing high quality output is not challenging, but most people doing this for a job completely lack proper guidance or shouldn't be there in the first place.

Therefore the most ideal candidates are people who can be trained to a very high standard. I would filter for that first and then optionally filter for clearance secondly. You will be investing in these people so be choosy by potential, intelligence, writing skills, and organizational capacity.