From Boots to Business-Ready

By Sharon Oswald and Mark Scott

Each year, more than 200,000 service members and their spouses transition from the military back into civilian life. Most seek employment with established businesses, but some of these veterans aspire to explore the challenge of becoming small business owners. An obstacle they often face is that, while their ideas may have outstanding potential, their busy military careers have left little time to learn the many facets of starting and sustaining a business. To provide interested veterans a basic overview of business ownership, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) launched its Boots to Business program in 2013.

But what happens to that ambitious entrepreneur who requires a deeper understanding in order to make business ownership a career?

The MSU College of Business is offering that next step with its Boots to Business Revenue Readiness program (B2B RR). Made possible by an $824,100 annual SBA grant, B2B RR is a six-week interactive virtual classroom course that adds the “meat on the bones” to the B2B overview course. B2B RR assists veterans and/or their spouses in taking an idea from concept to operational business plan in a relatively short time, focusing on practical application of business concepts. By pushing them toward tangible results and instilling a sense of self-motivated urgency, it helps them achieve full operation as efficiently as possible.

The program was developed by Eric Hill, MSU Director of Entrepreneurship, and Mike Pornovets, Counselor at the MSU Veterans Business Outreach Center. They based the curriculum on the prospectus for their 2016 SBA award in the “Lean for Main Street Challenge” that focused on business revitalization in Columbia, MS.

Upon completion of B2B RR, participants have developed a clear vision of their individual business models as well as multi-faceted business plans. SBA resource partners then step in for followup and, hopefully, the opening of viable businesses.

Small businesses are the cornerstone of the U.S. economy, and the ultimate goal of B2B RR is not only empowerment of veterans but also job creation and capital improvement.

Debbie Scott, former Director of the MSU Small Business Development Center (SBDC), is the Program Director.

“We have assembled a team of experienced entrepreneurs as instructors for the Boots to Business Revenue Readiness program,” says Scott. “Most of our team members are veterans themselves and have been through the transition from military to civilian small business life. Our team has ‘been there, done that’ in many cases, and throughout the course share their real-life experiences in practical terms to illustrate the concepts.”

Combined with the efforts of the MSU Veterans Business Outreach Center, Mississippi State and the College of Business are making a difference in the lives of our veterans. For more information about B2B RR, visit www.bootstobusiness.msstate.edu.