Sage Words For Vets Wanting To Start Up

You would have thought that following a career in the military, veterans would have little interest in becoming entrepreneurs and starting their own businesses. But according to the statistics, this is exactly what is happening. The data reveal that veterans are around 45 percent more likely to get involved in starting a business than people with no military service record.

The reasons for this are many, but some of this might have to do with the fearlessness of people who have served. Once you’ve been in the military and seen armed conflict, setting up and running a business seems like a small problem.

The data from the US Census says that veterans ran more than 2.4 million businesses in 2007 and those companies contributed more than $1.2 trillion to the economy - about 10 percent of total output at the time.

With Trump in the White House, there’s arguably never been a better time for veterans to set up their own businesses. He’s both pro business and pro vet.

So if you’re a vet, how should you approach starting a business?

Know Your Strengths And Weaknesses

As a veteran, you have strengths and weaknesses. If you’re on disability for veterans, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to set up a business that relies on brute strength: at least not immediately. Also, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to set up a “knowledge” business, especially if you’ve been out of education for a long time.

As a result, successful vet business owners usually outsource many of the tasks that they themselves can’t do. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to business development is essential. Often hiring the right people, or getting experts from elsewhere to do the job, is crucial if you want to produce a product that people will buy.

Find Out What People Lack

The job of veteran entrepreneurs, just like other people who run businesses, is to find out what it is that people are lacking and create a product to solve the problem. The product can be essentially anything, so long as it is something folks are missing from their lives. Even something as simple as inventing a pushcart so that people can transport their luggage across the airport terminal lobby can have a significant impact and be a sustainable business model.

Seek Out Veteran Financing

In the US there are a number of plans for veterans to start their own businesses and get back into the regular economy. For instance, microloan programs will often fund veteran startups with cash loans of up to $35,000. Even if you’re credit rating isn’t perfect, you’re often still able to find people willing to borrow at credit unions and community banks.

It turns out that veterans have a unique potential to start up their own businesses and make a lot of money. They have a very specific take on the world and their experience in armed conflict has taught them lessons which are valuable in the world of entrepreneurship.