Americans look forward to the day when men and women serving in combat far from home return safe and secure to their families, friends and communities around the nation.
For as long as this nation has existed, it has been defended by citizen-soldiers, the first of whom appeared on a small gathering spot in Lexington, Massachusetts nearly 230 years ago. “Minutemen,” they dubbed themselves, for they vowed to be “ready in a minute” to take up arms against an oppressing enemy. As soon as the threats were repelled, America’s first entrepreneurs put down their muskets, picked up their tools and went back to work as farmers, craftsmen and shopkeepers.
Like their risk-taking forebears, today’s veterans have a strong entrepreneurial spirit. According to a study recently released by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, who has been charged with developing programs to assist veterans, nearly one-quarter of the veterans polled said they were either purchasing or starting a new business, or giving it some serious consideration. True to their Minutemen roots, nearly two-thirds of those classified as “new-veteran entrepreneurs” planned to initially open their businesses entirely from their homes and 67 percent foresaw expanding beyond their residences in the near future. Almost two-fifths of current-veteran business owners surveyed indicated their operations were entirely home-based small businesses. Of these, nearly 36 percent had plans to grow their enterprises outside of their homes.
Of course, today’s armed forces are the most organizationally and technologically sophisticated our the nation’s history-applying their skills to meet the needs and challenges of modern combat. Those men and women who have returned and are starting new businesses are making good use of the training they received during their military service. For example, the SBA study found that 11 percent of the new-veteran entrepreneurs plan to be entirely Internet-dependent, while nearly one-third said their business would be 50 percent or more tied to the Internet. Almost a quarter of current-veteran business owners reported that their enterprises were 50 percent or more Internet-dependent.
Overall, the study determined that military service appeared to have provided a significant proportion of both new-veteran entrepreneurs and current-veteran business owners with skills necessary to operate a business. More than one-third of those queried in the study (both new-veteran entrepreneurs and current-veteran business owners) confirmed that they had gained skills while in military service that were directly relevant to business ownership.
It is comforting and re-assuring that after more than two centuries of answering the call to defend their nation, America’s veterans retain the citizen-soldier tradition. That’s the good news; the better news will come when those men and women bravely serving the nation throughout the world return-many of them to pursue the American Dream of small-business ownership.
To learn more about services available to veterans interested in beginning a business, visit www.sba.gov/vets.
–Jack Faris is president of the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s largest small-business advocacy group. A non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views of its 600,000 members in Washington, D.C., and all 50 state capitals.
