A practical guide to building a modern export compliance program for startups and small businesses — covering EAR, ITAR, and OFAC in plain English for founders and operators.
Compliance is no longer a back-office function for defense technology companies. Done well, it becomes a competitive moat. This playbook shows you how to build one in ninety days.
Instant PDF download — no credit card required.
Whether you are a founder writing the first policy, a COO scaling operations, or a compliance lead benchmarking maturity — the playbook meets you where you are.
Build a defensible program from day one — investors and government customers both diligence it.
Stand up governance, roles, and documentation without hiring a full compliance department.
Benchmark against a maturity model and prioritize the highest-leverage improvements.
Written for defense technology categories under active review
Each pillar is a decision surface. Together they form the decision spine that turns compliance intent into compliance operation.
Structured checks against embargoes, sanctions, and end-use restrictions before commitment.
Determining EAR vs ITAR jurisdiction and identifying the correct ECCN or USML category.
Screening every party — customers, distributors, forwarders, banks — against restricted-party lists.
Identifying the individuals who ultimately own or control an entity beyond the invoice name.
Documenting how the item will actually be used and by whom after delivery.
A structured process for identifying, investigating, and resolving diversion indicators.
A defensible decision on whether a license, exception, or no license is required.
Thirteen pages of executive-grade guidance, structured so you can read it end-to-end in an evening or jump straight to the section your team needs on Monday.
EAR, ITAR, and OFAC translated into plain English for operators.
The decision spine every defensible program depends on.
How an export decision travels from innovation to shipment.
How to make policy operational without over-engineering it.
Five case studies drawn from real defense-tech scenarios.
Five levels from ad hoc to integrated — with the next concrete step.
A day-by-day roadmap to a defensible Level 3 program in one quarter.
The assumptions that quietly break early-stage compliance programs.
A defensible program in a single quarter. The roadmap has been used successfully by early-stage defense technology companies to move from ad hoc compliance to a Level 3 program.
Inventory controlled items, name an accountable owner and function liaisons, map every export touchpoint, and begin classification of top revenue-generating products.
Deploy restricted-party and country screening across sales, procurement, and hiring. Write plain-English procedures, train employees by role, build repeatable workflows.
Run the first internal audit, test escalations with a controlled red-flag exercise, implement automation where volume justifies it, and begin reporting program metrics.
Know where you sit today, what Level 5 looks like, and what the next concrete step is. The playbook walks through each level with practical indicators.
Get the full 13-page executive whitepaper — including the seven pillars, five case studies, the maturity model, and the 90-day roadmap.
Instant PDF download — no credit card required.
Book a working session with the BITE Data team to benchmark your compliance program against the maturity model and design a 90-day plan tailored to your business.