My journey from being a humble immigrant to becoming a sailor and then a successful entrepreneur is a testament to the American dream in action.
According to the SBA, veterans are about 45% more likely to start their own business compared to people who have not served in the military. Veterans own nearly 2 million businesses and employ over 5 million Americans.
These statistics raise the following questions: Are veterans naturally bred for entrepreneurship, or is there a deep connection between their military service and business success? Is there a unique synergy between the discipline, adaptability, resourcefulness and leadership skills instilled in service members and the qualities required to be a successful startup founder?
The short answer: Yes. But fair warning to veteran readers – don’t let this inflate your ego and convince yourself you’re a supporter. My advice for aspiring veteran founders goes beyond appealing to the well-documented parallels between military service and entrepreneurship.
As a fintech founder, I leverage technology to help others find financial stability, something my family lacked for many years. I was born in Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan SSR, a former republic of the USSR. When the Soviet Union fell, my family was forced to flee to Moscow, narrowly escaping the ongoing ethnic war against the Armenians. After spending six years in Moscow as refugees, my family immigrated to the United States where I finished high school and then joined the Marines.
The Marines jump-started my trajectory of creating solutions to much bigger problems like access to banking in the cannabis industries and freelancers in the now building StellarFithe third fintech I’ve founded, designed to address a problem plaguing half of America’s population: bad credit.
Like many veterans, my enlistment was inspired in equal measure by a desire to gain access and opportunity to achieve that American Dream and a deep sense of gratitude to country. But my experience as a Marine helped me understand that, like the most critical missions, the path to business success depends on a combination of four vital elements: learning to disrupt the norm; Maintaining an unwavering, resilient mindset. seeking partners who resemble wartime allies; and tapping into the rich tapestry of veteran resources and networks.
Always have the audacity to challenge the status quo and create solutions to combat it
George S. Patton once said, “Take calculated risks. That’s very different from being a rash.”
During my deployment to Iraq, I encountered an inefficient supply chain on our base. We had water lines that were constantly being compromised, so we were throwing in water from somewhere else, then managing that infrastructure in a very inefficient way. We hired US contractors who had no idea what they were doing rather than locals who had been working on this base for years.
According to the SBA, veterans are about 45% more likely to start their own business than people who have not served in the military.
At the risk of cleaning the toilets for the rest of the deployment, I dropped the colonel running the base to fix it. He pulled me from my unit to implement my ideas and run the infrastructure for the 20,000 man facility. Finding gaps and optimizing processes became part of my daily thoughts and motivations.
Years later, as a federal bank regulator for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, I found myself again challenging the status quo in the way we supported and advised banks to optimize their operations.
In this setting, the status quo prevailed and I found myself frustrated. From this need to create solutions, my first startup, Tokken, was born.
Forget mission without fail. You will fail. Get up again.
Before you become an entrepreneur, ask yourself if there is anything else you could be doing for a living. If the answer is yes, then do yourself a huge favor and pursue that other thing. If the answer is that I can’t do anything but be an entrepreneur, then go ahead.
Tokken was featured on the front page of the New York Times DealBook while still in beta. The problem we solved was payments and banking for cannabis dispensaries. The solution we created was to create our own rails using cryptocurrencies that would completely bypass traditional financial rails.
We’ve had a meteoric rise in traction and growth. Then the political climate around the industry became volatile and we lost a lot of partners on the banking side. Token was dead in the water.
In the spirit of the Marine Corps’ unofficial slogan, I had to improvise, adapt, and overcome Tokken. Instead of ending my entrepreneurial journey and going back to the Treasury or some other financial services job, I decided to take the lessons from Tokken and start my second company, Joust, a startup bank for freelancers.
Find the investors to go to war with
After leaving the Marines, I served as a contractor for the Corps’ special operations command. My job was to facilitate unconventional warfare simulations.
During these role-playing exercises, I would lead small groups of “local insurgents” made up of volunteer marines. The specialist teams would then try to kiss us, train us, and develop a coalition of rebels to fight our common enemy. This strategy, otherwise known as asymmetric warfare, allowed us to reduce the number of actual Marines going into combat, optimizing US resources.
Through my experience building three companies, I’ve learned that being a founder and building disruptive solutions means being a revolutionary. And insurgents need wartime ally investors who support their mission with guidance and resources while respecting their autonomy.
They demonstrate loyalty and risk tolerance, especially in difficult circumstances. They have the same mentality as these special marines. They are eager and willing to “embed” with the founder and startup team and understand how the business is run and why it thrives.
When looking for investors, find those who value an authentic, collaborative arrangement based on mutual respect and tolerance.
Veterans before you have built a network to help you succeed. Use it.
My last piece of advice is realistic. Find programs and people to help you start and scale your business.
There are countless programs for veteran entrepreneurs that can connect you with information, resources, and large networks of investors and fellow founders. Here are some notable ones:
While statistics confirm the connection between military service and business success, it is imperative for aspiring veteran founders not to let this statistic inflate their egos, but rather to recognize that the entrepreneurial path, like military service, is fraught with formidable challenges.
These pillars not only support your journey as a founder, but empower you to overcome obstacles, adapt to change, and achieve remarkable results in the field of entrepreneurship, potentially impacting thousands of lives in the process.
