FedRAMP authorization takes 14 months and $2M for cloud products that the DoD urgently needs now

Defense startups building cloud-based software must obtain FedRAMP authorization before any DoD customer can use the product in production, even for unclassified workloads. The FedRAMP process requires 14-18 months and $1.5-2.5M in third-party assessment, documentation, and remediation costs. A startup with a working product that a combatant command wants to deploy today must tell them to wait over a year for paperwork. This persists because FedRAMP's control baseline (800+ controls for High Impact) was designed for general-purpose cloud infrastructure, not purpose-built SaaS applications, and the process has no proportional pathway that right-sizes assessment to actual risk.