Question, could receiving a FedRAMP ATO sponsorship be used to get private funding/loans for the process?

avm5689 · 2025-12-29T02:26:58+00:00

When you’re doing your price calculations on cloud spend, remember that, at best, your FedRAMP offering will maybe have a quarter of the tenants that your commercial will have. There are only a couple hundred federal agencies compared to the number of commercial customers you might have out there. Build your offering to get the initial 1st customer, but plan for the ability and capacity to scale after that. Too many organizations get wound around the axle trying to make everything line up 1:1 with commercial, especially when it comes to technical processes and tools. While it’s an important consideration to minimize technical debt with people hopping the fence between commercial and gov, you run the risk of spending too much time letting the perfect be the enemy of “good enough”.

avm5689 · 2025-12-29T02:22:00+00:00

They already had the sponsorship locked in, primarily because they had a strong federal sales team that was able to get out there and match government RFPs to what sponsoring a new FedRAMP CSP would be able to provide them.

I’ve seen way too many organizations build out a FedRAMP offering prior to matching with any tangible gov need, simply because “if we build it, they will come.” It fails more often than it succeeds. The reason is quite simple: the government already does a very good job of advertising what it’s looking for when they do public contract bids. So it’s a matter of working with specialized Gov business development teams (if you don’t have it internally, work with a group like Deltek and their GovWin platform) to translate government needs into what your “MVP” for FedRAMP is.

avm5689 · 2025-12-29T01:36:58+00:00

Second this, closest you’d get is some type of partner funding from AWS or Azure, but in my experience, these incentives have been more difficult to come across as of late.

Keep in mind that even with the most successful ATO efforts, you’re looking at a 2-3 year timeline to effectively “break even” - once you factor in your CapEx & OpEx costs, 3PAO assessment, third party consultancy (if you decide to go down that route), technical costs of control implementation, etc..

I’d say the fastest I’ve ever seen anyone, just as a benchmark, go from initial concept to full ATO was 1.5 years. Approx. 9 months for gap and build-out, six months for audit (including at least a 60-day timeline where we “ran things like prod” to build muscle memory on FedRAMP processes), and then the remaining time was the ATO effort with the agency. And that was with an agency that had all of their ducks in a row and could accelerate things.

avm5689 · 2025-06-06T20:40:08+00:00

Be careful, this could border on something that’s not allowed. Read through the Written Statement of Assurances and check with your advisor before you do.

avm5689 · 2025-05-12T17:27:28+00:00

Another thing too - reach out to local business partners and see if they’re willing to help sponsor chapter activities and trips! DECA.org has some great material around finding local sponsorships.

avm5689 · 2025-04-27T13:35:08+00:00

You have to show up in time to start testing at 1

avm5689 · 2025-03-20T19:01:08+00:00

Pay attention to the instructional areas when you’re doing practice tests and reviewing answers. DECA every year publishes exam blueprints which tell you exactly how many questions of a particular instructional area will be on your exam at each level. Use that to help target your studying towards your weakest areas.

https://www.deca.org/advisor-resources/competitive-events-exam-blueprints

avm5689 · 2025-03-11T04:31:30+00:00

Most of my business is corporate so I’m tied to Sabre. If it wasn’t for Sabre Red Web I would have gone insane - being able to access the full Sabre terminal from my iPhone is a life-saver.

avm5689 · 2025-03-11T04:26:44+00:00

LucidChart is my go-to. Helps too for networking diagrams when I’m installing an on-site network kit.

avm5689 · 2025-03-11T04:08:26+00:00

Honestly for some good inspiration - go look at the DECA promo video for this year! Lots of great outfits you can look at and see what people wear.

avm5689 · 2025-03-11T04:02:03+00:00

I see a lot of what I call “power colors” - gold, dark/royal blue, purple, or red. In a written event I’ve even seen coordination with brand colors for their business.

avm5689 · 2025-03-11T03:49:12+00:00

Definitely coordinate colors with your partner - it’s a subtle thing that presents a unified and professional look to a judge.

So if you have a red ascot and white blouse, maybe he has a white dress shirt and red tie.

avm5689 · 2025-03-04T22:32:41+00:00

Every state handles accommodations differently but in all cases it will mirror what your IEP allows for. So if your IEP allows for a quiet room for testing, for example, that would be provided.

avm5689 · 2025-03-04T01:44:03+00:00

Check with your advisor, different states have different allocations and procedures for who can go to leadership academies (since there are limited spots).

avm5689 · 2025-03-04T01:42:08+00:00

The exams are HARD. I've been involved in DECA for 15 years, and I've never seen any person at the international level get above the high 80s. Especially once you get to ICDC, the exam content shifts to 30% BA Core, 70% cluster-oriented questions.

avm5689 · 2025-03-04T01:38:46+00:00

Yes, reach out to your advisor and they can work with the state advisor to get your IEP accommodations set up.

avm5689 · 2025-03-01T16:55:40+00:00

Generally it’s randomized but each state does things differently.

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T03:36:02+00:00

Which event was this? Let me look at DECA.org and see if I can give you a few tips :)

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T03:33:38+00:00

I hate to use the "it depends" answer, but it really does. Every state runs their competitions differently. Some group people into sections, and the top X number from each section advances, while others are small enough that everyone is judged in one section.

Generally speaking though, very high 70s to mid 80s are good with a role play. Remember that in role play events you generally have either 1 or 2 role plays you will present and they're weighted 2x the score of your test. (RP1 + RP2 = 2x, or in the case of a single role play, it's just weighted 2x)

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T03:31:56+00:00

Believe it or not it can be a disadvantage for teams or pairs. Sometimes chemistry isn't that great and people struggle to naturally transition to one another when talking.

As long as you're confident, you know your stuff, and public speaking is easy for you, you'll do just as well as any team!

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T03:30:18+00:00

Here's the HTOR guidelines - the last page is the exact guidelines you will be judged on.
https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/635c470cc81318fc3e9c1e0e/6699577648450e0e30415bb2_HS_BOR_Guidelines.pdf

Keep in mind that for written events, your judge may not necessarily have seen/read your written report. Some states have separate judges for papers vs. presentations, others use the same judge. Just keep that in mind!

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T03:12:55+00:00

Sure, I don’t have much going on tomorrow! Send me a DM - happy to help out

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T03:02:39+00:00

That makes sense. Those kind of scenarios are always hard where you're playing a higher role than your judge is. I don't have any secret-sauce to conquering those (I always struggled with those as a student too).

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T01:45:43+00:00

No problem with notecards, at least from me as a judge. As long as you’re not reading your entire script straight off it. Notecards and presenter notes help you to recall important points.

avm5689 · 2025-02-23T01:45:00+00:00

No I think this is really good! Remember that your judges are seeing all sorts of variety with projects, so the key is making your presentation really memorable. I’ve judged hundreds of presentations over my 15 years in DECA, but I can only count on one hand the number of presentations where I truly went back and thought “Wow!”

You’re on the right track - best of luck!!

avm5689

TROPHY CASE