Why Starting a Veteran Owned Business Is the Best Career Move After Service

Here is something I noticed after 100 episodes of The Strategic Veteran podcast: about 75% of the veterans I talk to are building something for themselves.

Not working for someone else. Not waiting for a promotion from a boss who has never seen a field op. They are running a lawn care company, a tactical training company, a real estate portfolio, a consulting firm. They are a veteran owned business, even if they would not call it that.

That is not an accident. That is a pattern.

The Military Doesn't Prepare You for Corporate Life — But It Does Prepare You for Business

I started this show with a theory: the path back to purpose for veterans is through entrepreneurship.

After 100+ conversations, I believe it more than ever.

Here is why: the military trains you to lead under pressure, execute with unclear information, hold people accountable, and serve something bigger than yourself. Those are not resume bullet points. They are the exact skills that determine whether a business survives its first three years.

Brian Moss, who transitioned from the military into running a wildlife management company, put it plainly: "The military doesn't prepare you for civilian life." He is right about that. The gap between military structure and corporate ambiguity is brutal. But the gap between military training and entrepreneurship? Much smaller than people think.

A good veteran owned business does not feel like a job. It feels like a mission with a P&L.

What Most Veterans Get Wrong About Starting a Business

The fear is the part nobody talks about honestly.

Rachel Spekman, who made the jump from corporate America to entrepreneurship, said what I hear from veterans constantly: "It's already hard enough to transition into something new, to bet on yourself. For me, becoming an entrepreneur — saying corporate America, I never want to do this again — the pushback I get is: I'm scared. I know what I know. It's a lot of risk."

That fear is real. And it is also, in my experience, completely disconnected from actual capability.

I have talked to veterans who are terrified to start a business, and those same veterans have made life-or-death decisions, managed million-dollar equipment, and trained teams that could not afford to fail. The skill was never the problem. The permission to apply it to themselves was.

William Holsten, who now runs his own business after the military, said it clearly: "Veterans who are doing the best on the other side of the military are running their own businesses."

Not the ones who found the right employer. The ones who stopped looking for one.

Why Veteran Entrepreneurs Have an Unfair Advantage

Darren Palatina, who went from Combat Engineer to running a design company, talked about something I come back to constantly: the instinct to serve.

Every veteran who has ever served knows that feeling — doing something that matters beyond your own interests. That is not a soft skill. That is a brand differentiator.

In a market full of businesses optimized for margin, a veteran owned business built on genuine service and operational accountability stands out immediately. Customers feel the difference.

The specific advantages:

1. You already know how to operate without perfect information. Civilian entrepreneurs often freeze at ambiguity. Veterans have been trained to make a decision, execute, and adjust. That is the startup loop.

2. You know how to build teams. Not just hiring — actually building a team with shared standards, accountability, and mission focus. Most small businesses fail at this. Veterans do it instinctively.

3. You have credibility that money cannot buy. A veteran owned business carries trust signals that take civilian entrepreneurs years to earn. Especially in industries that value integrity, reliability, and execution.

4. You know how to take risk. Calculated, informed, mission-driven risk. Not reckless. Not paralyzed. Calibrated. That is the operating mode of a good special operations unit. It is also the operating mode of a thriving small business.

The Federal Contracting Advantage: SDVOSB

If you are a service-disabled veteran — and for SDVOSB purposes, even a 10% disability rating qualifies — you have access to a procurement channel that most businesses cannot compete in.

The federal government has a 3% contracting goal for SDVOSBs. On a federal budget of $6 trillion, that is a significant number. There are set-aside contracts specifically for veteran owned businesses that non-veterans simply cannot bid on.

Getting SDVOSB certified through the SBA is free. The registration process takes weeks, not months. And the contracts available range from IT services to construction to consulting — almost every industry has veteran-accessible contract vehicles.

Most veterans with even a partial disability rating have no idea this exists. Now you do.

What the Research Actually Shows

Veteran entrepreneurs are not just anecdotally successful — the data supports it. According to the SBA's research on veteran entrepreneurship, veteran owned businesses:

• Employ more workers on average than non-veteran-owned businesses
• Have higher survival rates in the first five years
• Are more likely to be in industries with high barriers to entry (where discipline and execution matter most)

This is not surprising to anyone who understands how the military builds operators. The same habits that keep a FOB running — accountability, standard operating procedures, after-action reviews — are the habits that keep a business running.

How to Get Started

If you are thinking about starting a veteran owned business and you are not sure where to begin, the IVMF Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Veterans is free and designed specifically for this. Boots to Business (also free through the SBA) runs on military installations. The VA's local Veteran Business Outreach Centers provide one-on-one business coaching at no cost.

But honestly? The best first step is to talk to veterans who have done it. That is the entire premise of this show.

Not because they have all the answers. Because they made the decision to bet on themselves — and they are still standing.

The Bottom Line

The transition is hard. I am not going to pretend otherwise. The military builds operators for the military, and civilian life requires a different kind of navigation.

But here is what I have seen in 100+ conversations with veterans on the other side: the ones who are genuinely thriving are the ones who took their operational skill set and built something with it.

A veteran owned business is not just a business category. It is a mission continuation. Different terrain. Same instinct.

If you are ready to start building, let's talk.

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Sources: The Strategic Veteran Podcast episodes featuring Brent Bowers, William Holsten, Darren Palatina, Rachel Spekman, Brian Moss, and Russell Torgerson. All quotes drawn directly from episode transcripts.