When soldiers come back from service, they come equipped with a number of skills and experiences that set them up well for entrepreneurial careers. However, they often lack the formal training necessary to start a small business.
Thanks to a recent grant, a startup incubator focused on veterans wants to create a training program that would equip former members of the military to create and operate their own business in their life after service.
The Bunker is a program run by veterans that seeks to aid other former servicemen in their entrepreneurial ventures. With a $127,000 grant from the Bob Woodruff Foundation, CEO Todd Connor, a Navy veteran, wants to design a program called Bunker in a Box that will help train veterans who may never have imagined starting their own business, the Chicago Tribune reported.
According to the Tribune, Connor's idea is for the program to be a 14-week course that former servicemembers can go through with other veterans in their community. The group would meet once a week for about three hours and go through activities, videos and self-assessments that would equip them with the vocabulary and concepts to start their own entrepreneurial venture. Some of the grant will be used to create a website for the program and possibly a mobile app.
There are a number of resources available to veterans who want to start their own business.
"What I hope the real output is that whole populations of people that were not otherwise considering the idea of self-employment actually have confidence to pursue entrepreneurship as a course of action," Connor told the Tribune.
Connor expects Bunker in a Box to launch in November, the Tribune reported.