There are two ways for aspiring veterans to start their business ownership journey. The first requires coming up with a good idea, researching the market, raising the necessary funds, buying everything they need to get started and then marketing their product or service to potential customers. It’s an uncertain future, but many entrepreneurs have made a great living by starting their own businesses from the ground up.
Then there’s the private equity way: Buy an existing business and then optimize it to make it more profitable and create more value. Both paths involve a lot of hard work and come with a certain amount of risk, but buying into business ownership streamlines the process and comes with an existing business model and established customer base.
Houston-based Owners In Honor is a nonprofit dedicated to supporting American veterans through business ownership and entrepreneurship as they transition to civilian life, and it’s teaming with Chicago’s Cold Bore Capital to facilitate the private equity model of acquisition and management by veterans. “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition” uses the expertise and resources of both to grow the number of veteran business owners while growing their businesses.
Jerry Arteaga is an operating partner at Cold Bore Capital. He also happens to be a 23-year Army veteran who spent the bulk of his military career in special forces. He is on the board of directors for Owners In Honor and will soon join Cold Bore’s board of advisers.
“We deploy a ‘buy and build’ strategy,” Arteaga told Military.com. “We buy existing companies within the same industry, and we roll them up, if you will. So we buy a bunch of them, aggregate them, integrate them, streamline and optimize their processes, ultimately creating more value.”
The goal is to grow those companies, then put them together and sell them to a larger investor. It’s the private equity way of doing business. The Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition partnership wants to teach aspiring veteran business owners the same mindset, but on a smaller scale.
“The program offers a pathway for veterans to get support while they become entrepreneurs,” said Arteaga. “Generally, you have to be able to qualify for a [Small Business Administration] loan, you have to want to be a business owner and you have to want to go through our program, which is a year long, and we help guide you through the entire process.”
Owners In Honor will help qualified (and aspiring) veterans apply for an SBA loan, which requires the applicant to raise 10% of the required capital. The nonprofit also helps the applicant find gap funding -- finance partners to help raise that 10% of the loan value. Cold Bore Capital brings its experience in areas such as pre-acquisition, operational due diligence, post-acquisition integration and long-term value creation planning to mentor the new veteran owners as they take over an existing business.
“This is something we do every day,” Arteaga said. “We play a very active role in the success of the veterans, and it's at no cost to them.”
Why just veterans? Because veteran business ownership is a big deal to both partners. Owners In Honor and Cold Bore Capital were both founded by U.S. military special operations veterans. Army Special Forces veteran Patrick Flood founded Owners In Honor with the goal of giving back to the veteran community. Since he and Arteaga met a long time ago, the two bounced around the idea that would become Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition.
“[Flood] looked at the organizations out there and noticed that there was a gap in one area that we specifically term ‘entrepreneurship via acquisition,’” said Arteaga. “He didn't have a private equity background, but he came to me maybe six months after he started the program, and we went back and forth to refine the program.”
If you’re a veteran and wannabe entrepreneur and know what industry you want to acquire a business, go to the Owners In Honor website to learn more or click on the “buy a business” link on their site to fill out the intake form and get started.
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