Great Week with Veterans in Orlando

Let me first say to everyone that I am sorry I have not been publishing as much here. I am in the Red Zone on the acquisition of a small business in the government contracting world and it has taken all my focus and taken much longer than I expected to close this deal. I hope to have it wrapped up in the next few weeks and then plan to be adding some “life as a business owner” posts to this newsletter.

Thanks for your patience.

This past week, I attended VETS 24 in Orlando, hosted by the National Veteran Small Business Coalition.

The conference was entirely focused on the government contracting industry with representatives from hundreds of veteran-owned small businesses, large prime contractors (like Booz Allen Hamilton and General Dynamics), government agencies looking to do business with veterans, and many others from the government contracting ecosystem.

It was a great week of meeting veteran business owners and learning more about an industry I am just getting started in. So I wanted to share some of the important lessons I took away from the event.

The Vet Net is real and it is powerful.

One of the speakers was George Dutile. George is the freaking man, let me tell you.

He enlisted in the Marines and served for 8 years before leaving and working as a bartender at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas for two years. He then decides he wants to dream bigger, goes back to join the Navy and spends another 8 years in Naval Special Warfare Development Group. George leaves NSWDG, gets an MBA from Wharton, works at Goldman Sachs and then JP Morgan before teaming with another veteran and a serial entrepreneur to start a private equity fund that has $100 million of committed capital. The dude is a legend.

(I will also add George is incredibly approachable and fun to talk to. If you see him in the wild, go up and introduce yourself).

Anyway….George commented on his experience working with veteran business owners:

“Nowhere else will you find a group of people who are ultra-competitive and achievement-oriented, but also legitimately want to help each other out like the veteran business community.”

He compared this to his time on Wall Street, where colleagues have “sharp elbows” and will push others aside on their way to the top.

We may all take off the uniform and may even end up competing in business or at work. But veterans find a way to do it while helping each other out.

No one owes you shit.

There is a misconception out there that if you have a veteran-owned business, the US government will just rain contract money down on top of you.

If there was a theme I kept hearing at this conference, it is that is NOT true.

Does the government have spending goals for veteran-owned businesses? Yes.

(And in the most recent National Defense Authorization Act, this amount actually went from 3% to 5% for service-disable veteran-owned small businesses).

Does that mean they just hand you the money? No.

You still have to show value. You still have to show you can get the work done well.

No one is just going to give it to you.

Knowledge is power

Look, the answers are out there.

Whether you are trying to find a job, start a business, or grow an existing business, there are people out there that can help and provide the information to do so.

You just have to go find it.

Thanks for tuning in and I appreciate your patience as I make this deal happen.

Go crush it.

Mark