Invest in Veterans: Q&A with Bunker Labs CEO Blake Hogan

Veteran entrepreneurs are frequently perceived as an underrepresented group in the startup community. Bunker Labs, a national accelerator program for veterans and military spouse entrepreneurs, is attempting to bridge that gap. We spoke with Bunker Labs CEO Blake Hogan about why this is the case and how his background in the United States Marine Corps prepared him for the life of an entrepreneur and startup founder.

Blake discussed why investors should give veterans more consideration, as well as valuable advice for any veteran looking to enter the world of entrepreneurship.

How did your time in the Marines best prepare you to start your own company?

Fred Smith, who’s the founder of FedEx, wrote this article that was something along the lines of, “everything I ever needed to learn to build and grow FedEx, I learned in the Marine Corps”, and you know, I feel like that best summarizes it. 

I had a very odd career in the Marines. The short story is I busted my hip and foot in training, so I was in this weird medical hold status, and so I had to be an entrepreneur within the Marines to try to find interesting jobs so I could make an impact.

The Marines are all about small-unit leadership. It’s about taking care of people to your left and right. The idea of servant leadership—that’s what you do as an officer in the Marine Corps. Your job is to take care of others first. The reason I joined the Marines was that I came from very little and I had every opportunity because I was born on this dirt. 

When I left the Marines, I felt like my job was unfinished. I felt like I had more to give. Bunker Labs has been the manifestation of all of that, and the ability to serve in a way where we can build up the American economy through military leaders and military spouses is, frankly, the gift of a lifetime.

What was the defining moment in your decision to start Bunker Labs?

Todd Connor is the original founder. I was involved very early on and we started the first chapter outside of Chicago, which was Austin, Texas. That was just an incredible experience. Why? It was really simple. We had our own businesses and our networks were not good. And so we said, “Well, why don’t we just start connecting dots for each other and get smart people in a room to help grow our businesses?” So that’s what we did and kept it really simple.

Through that same kind of circuitous path, I got connected to the founder of Bunker. My brother and his brother met each other in Chicago, and they said, “You guys need to get to know each other.” So when I was in Austin, I got a phone call from this guy. He called me up and said, “Hey, we’re going to launch the next greatest generation. Are you in or are you out?” And like any good Marine, I immediately said “yes,” and I asked zero clarifying questions. He was like, “That’s great. We’re going to start a nonprofit. We’re going to help people all over the country.” His plan worked out, and now Bunker Labs has 40 cities around the country and we have a very clean, cohort-based model where we run programs to help early-stage entrepreneurs, late-stage entrepreneurs, and volunteer servant leaders on the ground.

What do you think are the biggest challenges veteran founders face in the startup world?

It’s two things. Number one, it’s professional networks—knowing people outside of your military network can help you grow. And then it’s financial networks and capital networks. If you think back to World War II, there were 16 million veterans when they came home. Almost half of them went on to own or operate a business. This number will increase, but prior to the end of the war in Afghanistan, there were about 250,000 military members transitioning every year, of which about a quarter wanted to start a business. I believe the number is now closer to four or five percent of those who actually go out and start a business. It’s super solvable because it comes down to social networks. Do you have a strong professional network and can you access the right money at the right time?

What’s the best advice you can give to veterans aspiring to start their own company?

Get started. Talk to people you don’t know.

Failure is not an option in the military. And failure is very much the process of entrepreneurship, but it has to be done in a controlled environment.

In my case in Austin, Texas, I started a really bad tech startup and spent a lot of my own money, and exhausted a ton of time, resources, and relationships.

What changes, if any, need to be made in the fundraising world to make capital more accessible to veterans?

Number one is for those with capital to understand that military entrepreneurs and military spouses are a wise investment because they’re ready and willing to go to the gas. Typically, veterans are considered an underserved group. I heard Tom Meredith, the former CO of Dell, say that “If you’re an investor, you should do this [invest in veterans] because the numbers show that these entrepreneurs outperform other entrepreneurs.” Don’t do it because you think it’s the right thing to do. Do it because it’s the prudent financial thing to do. 

You get to feel really good about it because it’s also an interesting community of people who are going to give back to their country and who are going to continue to serve and use entrepreneurship as a second form of service. If we’re going to rebuild this economy then we need to deploy capital and we need to do it in all forms. So, you know, venture capital is going to be a small part of it but private equity needs to be a much bigger part of it. I think that needs to be unleashed in a big way to fund the next evolution of our economy.

What other resources are available for veteran founders/entrepreneurs?

I’d recommend going to BunkerLabs.org and applying to join one of our cohort-based programs or getting involved in the digital community, online courses, and then an active online community. As far as resources outside, Stanford has an incredible program called Stanford Ignite, which is specifically for military entrepreneurs. The Institute for Veterans and Military Family at Syracuse University has a whole array of resources. Patriot Boot Camp which is a veteran’s and military spouses that are growing tech companies.

What do you hope Bunker Labs accomplishes in the next 5 years?

In five years, I hope we can look back and see how many billion-dollar startups have emerged from Bunker Labs, or how many local leaders have gone on to run for office. That the ambassador program is a highly sought-after experience for which people are clamoring, and that we are beginning to make a difference.

About Kennedy Nuñez: Kennedy is a Business Development Associate for Swyft, which is a tech PR firm in Austin and Houston and a top digital marketing and PR agency in Denver since its founding in 2011. Swyft also has a small satellite office where it offers tech PR in San Francisco. Swyft has been listed as one of the top tech PR agencies in Texas for two years running by the B2B services review site, Clutch.co.