Army veteran? Great training to be in a start up

One of my new year’s resolutions was to write a blog article almost every week – which unfortunately I’ve failed to live up to (a common occurence for such resolutions). My article for next week is written and is about a very exciting new development for us, but in the meantime I thought I’d write about something that is of particular interest to me.

As a former regular army officer (albeit now a reserve officer), a lot of my buddies talk to me about gettting out and what to do. Many inevitably end up in investment banking or a security-related job somewhere; however, I see that there is a real role for veterans in the start up community, and I know that there have been efforts particularly by groups such as the Federation of Small Businesses and even LinkedIn to assist with post-army life. There are many qualities that a military person can bring to an organisation – leadership and management skills, good work ethic, reliability etc. I think though that there are a couple that are particularly worth some focus.

In a war zone, life and death situations are something that you constantly deal with. Aside from the awesome burden of responsbility that this places on people, it also means that innovation and resourcefulness come to the fore, even if they aren’t the most moral or pleasant things to deal with. A great deal of technology advances happen in wartime, and even at an individual level, one learns to survive and succeed with what few resources they have at hand to do the job and win against their opponent (and this happens on both sides of the battlefield).

The author trying to think of innovative things to do with old weapon bits in western Iraq in 2004.

Not only the experience of dealing with this, but high pressure situations in which you are placed allow you to put things in perspective, so that when time get tough in a start up, you can recall situations that you or your buddies have been in that really are about being tough. Being undercapitalised in a startup or getting a lot of harsh questions in a room of potential investors isn’t particularly fun (or a bit of a roasting I got from Peter Jones in an enterprise competition shortly after I got back from Afghanistan), but it is not remotely as tough as being in a firefight or trying to save a comrade who’s been badly injured.

Start ups are a bit like being in a warzone; you never have all the resources you want to achieve what you need to do, there are loads of competing priorities and pressures that can make it tough to focus on the right things, and you’re potentially up against some pretty resouceful and innovative competitors. Military folk aren’t a silver bullet for a startup but things you train for are really suited for start up life. At least you get to go for a beer after work and go home!