Lauren Gilmartin ⋅ New York, NY The Mission Continues ⋅ 4 years experience

Hi Troy,

Thank you for posting a question to the Community! I have a few suggestions I hope are helpful:

1. SCORE provides a massive network, tools, mentorship and guidance to individuals looking to start their own businesses, all completely free of charge. This is not veteran specific, but I recommend browsing their site and looking into some of what they have to offer here: https://www.score.org/

2. I've seen a lot of similar, past questions to yours on AdvisorNet that have received a number of helpful responses. While you wait for some additional answers here, you can actually search through those questions and answers for additional insight here: https://acp-advisornet.org/search?q=small+business

3. Feel free to utilize the "Community" page on here where you can actually filter for Advisors with expertise in small business and send direct messages to individuals who have that direct experience to offer.

4. This article from Fundera has been updated for 2018 and provides extensive guidance and additional resources for locating veteran-owned business funding. Have a look here: https://www.fundera.com/business-loans/guides/veteran-business-loans

5. Lastly, you can search for your local veteran's business outreach center through the SBA website here and get in touch with a representative for some information on additional resources that are available: https://www.sba.gov/tools/local-assistance/vboc

I hope the above information is helpful and wish you the best of luck!

Best,
Lauren

Elliot Young ⋅ Brooklyn, NY Uniworld International Associates Inc ⋅ 25 years experience

Hi Troy. Thank you for your service first of all. I provide discounts for Veterans. Building a mobile app for your business gets you a free website. Or if you build a website we will cut the price in half. I am a certified Apple IOS and Google Android Developer and have over 25yrs experience working with and helping small businesses. Let me know if I can help you even with a free consultation. Good luck.

Elliot Young
eyoung@uniworldbusiness.com

Michael Mitchell ⋅ Nashville, TN EMF Telecom Inc ⋅ 25 years experience

Troy,

Lauren and Justin both gave really good answers/comments so definetly take their advice.

If I could send you some advice,,,

Being an entrepreneur myself plus having been in the corporate world I’ve seen a lot of start-ups do really well but I’ve seen many fail too. Over the years I’ve notice a few things that seperate the successful ones from the unsuccessful. Here is a very short list of what many smart and successful business owners do every day.

1) Work hard every day. Obvious but you’d be surprised how many fail at this.
2) Inspect what you expect. It’s your business and you’re only as good as your last job.
3) Doing something is always better than doing nothing. Don’t let a problem stall you.
4) Don’t interupt progress. If your people are working and moving forward, let them.
5) You don’t know everything. Listen to your people, listen to your client, ask questions, learn.
6) Don’t try to be more than what you are. Stick to the core business that got you successful.
7) Sell Sell Sell the WAY not the WHAT. Manage, Market and Maintain.
8) Don’t muscle your people, manage them.
9) Be deadline driven not excuse driven
10) WORK HARD every single day. (did I say that already,,,,)

Regardless of the business you start I pretty sure all of these apply. I respect anyone who starts their own business, its really hard and stressful but when you find success, it’ll really be worth it.

Best of luck and I hope you find success and happiness.
MjM

Justin Moodley ⋅ Columbus, OH LASANAN ⋅ 12 years experience

Troy,

Thank you for your service.

Lauren really gave an outstanding answer, and the only thing that I would add is:

- SBA will normally have smaller, local offices in your area so that you can meet, speak, and work with people in the local area who are concerned with economic development.
- Because there is a lot of public money that feeds into private projects because of economic development concerns, there have been many consultants to pop up over the past decade who specialize in state and federal grant acquisition. Some will work for a flat fee while others will charge a percentage based on what they're able to acquire for you. Most of these types of organizations are looking for companies that are already in business and working to go from 2-4 employees to 5-50.

Hope that's helpful.

Thanks!