Mike Madrid and Donny Brazeal were shipmates on a Navy destroyer. Both of them were coffee aficionados and so were many of their friends on board. So they pooled their money, bought really good coffee from the top roasters of the world, and then shared each batch so everyone got to sample the best coffees and decide which ones they wanted to brew on a daily basis. Mike went to the Academy then served on destroyers and  was statopned in Spain when he and Donny met. Following his move to the states he took a job at the Pentagon which allowed him to do some nonprofit work including Operation Code, a military project near and dear to our show hosts’ hearts. The combination of his friendship with Donny, the experience of opening up the world of coffee and helping veterans build a life in the private sector led to founding Project Buna in 2019. Danny enlisted in the Navy to be an electronics technician and served on aircraft carriers before earning a commission in the Limited Duty Officers’ program. He went to Japan and then to Spain where he met Mike. Danny is currently a surface electronics LDO. He is serving in the DC area. “Buna” is an English translation for the word “coffee” in the Semitic language Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. They chose this word and its characters as their name and logo in order to reflect the ancient roots of this drink, while simultaneously looking ahead to coffee’s future throughout the world. The two started their business very wisely. They knew there was always the possibility of one or both being deployed to some corner of the world and so put in their plan to give themselves two years. At that point, if the business was not doing well, they would close it and consider they had a great two-year education. If it was going well, they’d figure out how to keep it going. Luckily, it is going well and they have figured out all the selling, packaging and ordering to stand out in the very crowded field of coffee roasting. They sell online and have created unique marketing approaches, including “crowd crafted coffee”, where they bring together a group of people and over time, walk them through crafting their own custom coffee. It’s thinking like that that will propel them to succeeding in a growing industry.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#109 Step Up Your Coffee Break - Donny & Mike, Project Buna

Armed with a master’s degree in engineering and a desire to be an astronaut, Elana Duffy’s first job was sitting in front of a ton of blueprints figuring out the cost of renovating a large building. A far cry from the space program, Elana went into her boss’ office and said she was going to call a military recruiter and possibly join the Reserves. After a huge laugh from her boss, that sealed it for Elana and she was ready to enlist. Since the Army was the only branch that allows you to choose your field if you enlist, it was Army all the way. Her boot camp experience was actually pretty fun compared to being frenetic and harassing. However, she did find that the women got rather cutthroat with other women, showing a “I’m tougher than you” attitude; it surprised her. And in fact, found working with other women in the military to be difficult especially if those women went into the military directly from high school. That seemed paradoxical to Elana, as it seemed obvious that as a minority in the military, women should naturally be supportive of each other. But she had to get on with her 10-year career in counterterrorism and counter-espionage. The combination of a vehicle accident and a roadside bomb that injured Elana sent her back to civilian life. She found she was not prepared at all to be tossed into that new theater and started networking all the veteran resources she could find. Realizing how byzantine the re-entry process was for all Vets, Elana made her new mission founding a company use AI to essentially make word-of-mouth referrals into a digital service to help guide Vets into a successful civilian career; Pathfinder.vet was born. Interestingly enough, the company is a “C” corp, not a non-profit organization. And that is to keep the mission pure, keep it accountable to itself and to keep from competing with other nonprofits. But the best explanation of the mission is from their website: The US Army began training military Pathfinders during WWII, building an elite force of airborne operators able to go behind enemy lines before missions in order to designate drop and landing zones  Their motto -- "first in, last out" -- represents the dedication towards leading the way for the mission, and ensuring everyone who comes after them is taken care of. They are trailblazers and leaders, and above all they are helpers.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#110 Every Path is Unique - Elana Duffy, Pathfinder Labs

Growing up a self-proclaimed “old school knucklehead” who loved the spectrum from cowboy John Wayne to the see-the-world “Stripes” movie, Keith Pape went into the military not really knowing what to expect. But he know all along he was not ready for more school after high school and wanted the military badly. He convinced his parents it would save them college tuition and whether they believed him or not, they signed the papers. He joined the Army delayed entry and served through the end of the cold war and one tour in Iraq during Desert Storm. Keith was a 19 Delta Cavalry Scout, a combination of armor and reconnaissance. Keith’s takeaway from the Army? “Everybody should do a little of it”. The maturity and learning to operate on your own with a fair amount of autonomy were lessons Keith feels would do every young person a world of good. He is absolutely convinced he never would have gone to college and finished, never stayed straight and would not own a business today if not for the discipline and confidence instilled in him by the military. The rough patches and the deployment were events that convinced him he could handle anything. Upon completing his duty, Keith had no idea what to study in college but he got great advice from relatives: Go to junior college first. It gave him a chance to survey a lot of subjects and it was cheap compared to a four-year degree so it did not use up all his GI Bill benefits. He got great guidance from a couple of his professors who wound up being his mentors. One in particular turned on the light for Keith. She told him the future was the fusion of business and computers. She urged him to take the business route with as much technology as he could grab along the way. Tech came easy for Keith and he loved the business side, especially the human interaction. At a consulting job where his boss got fired during the dotcom meltdown, the entrepreneurial jet kicked in. He saw the problems that people created and how short sighted they were and he knew he could do a better job. So he kept the people he had worked with together and started his own shop. Luckily, he had a supportive spouse who asked all the tough questions and that helped get his first business off on the right foot. Another dotcom stock crash put Keith out on the hunt for his next business and along the way being an employee and an owner, the lessons of success and failure have really rounded out his skills. Now with Yellow Pike Media, Keith and team deliver multiple angles of public relations, influencer introductions and production. It’s a dynamic team that reflects Keith’s love for people and an energy to build.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#111 It Took Six Companies to Figure it Out, but Now He's Got it - Keith Pape, Yellow Pike Media

Navy Veteran Chelsea Mandello actually came from an Air Force family, of course making her the black sheep of the family. There were two main reasons for her “defection”. First, Navy bases were on the coast and Air Force bases tended to be in the middle of nowhere. Second, she was a photo journalist and got sent to the pretty places to shoot pictures that made the Navy look good. Solid reasons for her choice. Her first station was Navy Public Affairs where she would be deployed on a ship but only for a couple of months, then jump to a new ship. So she got to take photos of all the cool stuff, then leave. She didn’t have to spend three years on the same ship. She made the phrase “see the world” come true, seeing 13 different countries and visiting nine different ships. She also got to work with Army, Marine and Air Force personnel and got to photograph their installations. The education was stimulating and fun, even though she had to take the occasional ribbing from the old guard as the newbie on the block. Chelsea’s Ball State degree in advertising was as great background for getting into Mass Communications, or MassCom or even shorter, MC in the first place and her pension for doing creative projects certainly helped her produce the engaging films and photoshoots. But all things must end, including Chelsea’s military service. Even though she was putting together her package for a second enlistment as a Public Affairs Officer and had tons of endorsements, she was playing around with an idea of a business. She has launched Toopster, her nonprofit company at the same time as putting in her packet, and Troopster was taking off. Troopster delivers unique care packages and messages of encouragement to deployed military, spouses and their families all over the world. The organization just hit their 30,000 mark, a phenomenal feat. Every morning they have a list of letters from military personnel having a tough time with their first deployment and parents concerned about their youngster in service. Spouses who have had a child and their military member is suddenly deployed also write their letters. So there is plenty of demand. However, there is a supply side to a nonprofit as well. Getting sponsors to fill the care packages was a tough task in the beginning. Chelsea had just started her command when she started Troopster, so she knew she had about a three year runway to get it off the ground if she wanted to have a career after transitioning to civilian life. It was rough. Even though she was able to find sponsors, she had no staff. So after a 24- and sometimes 48-hour watch, she would go home exhausted, sleep-deprived and still have to pack care packages. Dedication.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#112 Bringing Care to the Troops - Chelsea Mandello, Troopster

Olaseni Bello moved to the US from Nigeria at age 10. Calling his transition “challenging” to say the least, his assimilation into a radically different environment happened successfully over time. Enrolled in martial arts – Taekwondo specifically – by his mother, learning self-defense is evidence to the challenges Olaseni faced, but that which does no kill us… He went on to be a gold medal-winning Junior Olympian and found his second family with his martial arts community but it happened because he just missed a gold the year before. He was most unhappy, but his sensei (teacher) told him to just work harder. The time Olaseni spent training in the gym, visualizing winning the gold in his meditations, then having his vision come true taught him that anything is possible if you are willing to work hard enough. He then received an invitation to try out for the US Olympic team, but he was not a US citizen at the time and had to pass on what could have been a life-changing path. Undeterred, Olaseni started looking for his next move. He loved the outdoors  and adventure, and he loved discipline, in particular how the military marketed that pillar of their foundation; the refinements of their process and continuing march for perfection. Only 18 years old, he went back and forth with his mother about joining. Olaseni appreciated so much about America and was so appreciative of the opportunity to live in it that he wanted to give back. So, college satisfied his mother, and his sense of adventure dictated he study abroad also for one year, putting off military service. Then it was on to law school, where he graduated and passed the New York State Bar exam and suddenly the concept of being a JAG officer (Judge Advocate General’s Corp) became intensely intriguing. He got the military training and the opportunity to advise and direct in the field and stay on top of the law. The path was tough, as for all in the military, and “you don’t know what you don’t know” became his mantra. But Olaseni always remembered the people who had served before him and honored them by being the most polished version of himself possible. Transitioning out into civilian life, he decided a finance career would be exciting, even with no background. Again, his military training and background made him confident he could figure out anything he wanted badly enough, and wound up on Morgan Stanley’s foreign exchange department. Then the entrepreneurial affliction hit. Curiously when he was still in the Army, he wanted to have a positive impact on the world and decided he and his fiancé (now wife) gathered up clothes donations and headed to a small village in Tanzania for some do-good. They were bitten by mosquitoes and the short story is they saw doctor after doctor who misdiagnosed his fiancé’s condition (turned out to be Meningitis, a common virus for the area which all the doctors should have known) and rather than a week of therapy, she wound up taking two years to heal. So Olaseni set out to fix that with CarpeMed, an app that sets you up to deal with health issues in countries around the world, with connections to doctors, hospitals, even a “911” connection for an ambulance in the country in which you are located.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#113 Your Health Shouldn't be Foreign - Olaseni Bello, CarpeMed

Retired Army Colonel Rob Campbell really preferred basketball over the military, but getting cut from the college team his freshman year – he says not having a “left hand” finally caught up with him – plus the fact he ran out of money nudged him toward the Massachusetts National Guard, which had some education financial packages. Rob’s father having been a Reservist was some familiarity, so Rob decided to give it a try. In 1987 he went off to boot camp and decided he really liked what he experienced. It was the challenge and the opportunity to lead that really got Rob’s interest and his excitement going. He had found a part of his life that he hadn’t really explored but had always yearned for: Leadership. He jumped right in, went to ROTC, got his commission and by 1990 he was off and running. Infantry was his area of choice and the challenges he knocked down one by one made him stronger for it. Rob never intended to make the Army a career, but the process of facing and winning challenge after challenge was so interesting and stimulating he wound up with a 27-year career. And that career gave Rob his definition of being a professional. It’s meeting one challenge after another, climbing up the ladder of your chosen field and understanding the greater picture. And Rob got that picture of the “greater Army”, sacrificing for the team and the mission. Obviously, Rob interacted with tons of people, but the military is working with people knowing that lives were at stake. Transferring that leadership skill to the civilian world is different. One huge difference is the large amount of responsibility that is put on the shoulders of a 20-year old military personnel versus a 20-year old civilian. Another huge difference is resources. The Army can afford to pull someone out of their job for a year and send them to leadership school or to a foreign country for an intensive education that increases their worth exponentially, while a private sector company cannot. Rob’s big awakening was 9/11. Before fighting in the middle east, the battlefield in the Cold-War linear; Rob is not a linear thinker, he’s an artist. But Afghanistan changed all that because the battlefield became very murky and fluid. Rob’s command as a Lieutenant Colonel leading the counter-insurgency effort gave him a chance to flourish as a creative problem solver and make him an even stronger leader. And an entrepreneur, even in while in the military. So when he retired, he had the entrepreneur and artist skills and the time to enhance them. It started with book writing. He decided to take a year off after getting out of the Army. His wife was working and it was just Rob, the cat and his computer. He was surrounded by a great team and got out Book One about, of course, leadership. The books led to blogging, which he still does, more books, then speaking, then consulting. Companies need that leadership element desperately, and Rob’s demand has grown considerably. His company is himself, his background and his inspiration, all in high demand right now.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#114 Motivating and Inspiring Entrepreneurs - Rob Campbell, Author and speaker

Charles E. Gaudett II started his entrepreneurship journey early – at age four to be exact. Never one to take on a traditional “job”, Charles was always fascinated by building and growing companies. After college he founded a company voted one of the most successful seed companies by Ernst and Young CPAs and he was just getting rolling. He continued his start-build routine until 2010 when someone offered to pay him to help them build their company and the consulting career began organically. He named the company Predictable Profits because in his mind, the basic building blocks for every business were so established that earning a profit was very predictable. The International Business Times even did a featured story on him call him the “Go to guy for 7 and 8-figure companies”. Charles sees a difference between Veteran CEOs and non-Veteran. Charles was selected to attend the US Army War College during a training session for Colonels. They wanted to have a dialog with business leaders and Charles’ humble awakening was he had no doubt that any of the officers in that meeting could run his company better than he could! He decided that because of a couple of things: Military personnel were not afraid of hard work. On top of that, they were not afraid to do the hard things either, and that’s a trait that separates the entrepreneur from the rest of the pack that tends to look for the “easy button” and do things by the traditional formula. The key to success, in Charles’ view, is doing the stuff that most people don’t want to do; it’s the hard stuff that often produces the best results. The other big AHA was the analysis the Colonels would do thinking through a situation. Charles was stunned by how emotion was completely missing from the analysis so as not to cloud their judgement. He has since morphed this discipline into one of his pieces of advice: A good entrepreneur lets the data do the talking. They look at the problem and not ask how they feel, but ask “what is the data telling us?”; that is the trait of a leader. And leadership is the other trait that military Veterans bring to the business world, mainly the ability to remain calm. As an example, Charles points to the initial pandemic lockdown. When it hit, employees look to their leaders to see how they are reacting and react accordingly. When the leaders are calm, resolute and stay focused on solving the problem, the rest of the organization falls in line. Again, the discipline, the work ethic, the attitude of completing the mission is the military background that makes Veteran business founders the most successful group business people.

Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao

We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland.

Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil

Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main

Website was designed by Cameron Grimes

Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster

Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records

10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes

#115 He Likes Coaching Veteran Business Owners - Charles E. Gaudet II, Predictable Profits

Zachary Green is living the American dream. As a boy, he had three “sparks” as he calls them. First, to be a Marine. He had to wait until he was 18 to do that because his parents didn’t want him to join. Second, he wanted to be a firefighter. He did that. Third, to be an entrepreneur. He has done that one to the max, building a company that saves firefighters’ lives, and now inspiring others with speaking and his book. The military dream started early. Zachary was G.I. Joe every Halloween. While his friends were out riding their bikes, he was in the woods practicing his own maneuvers. When he was finally old enough to join, Zachary directed fire control first for artillery, then mortars in the European theatre. He then applied for Officer Candidate School but when it came time for graduation, he decided he did not want to serve any longer and resigned. It was the Clinton years, lots of attrition and no deployments, so he was frustrated his combat skills were unused. Two years after leaving, 911 happened and Zachary has regretted that his talents couldn’t be used to help his brother and sister warriors. He felt he absolutely had to give back and around 2002 he joined a volunteer firefighting group while still in sales and marketing for Eli Lilly. So that covers spark numbers one and two, but how did he get that far? Zachary credits the Marine Corps. As he says, you don’t join the Marines, you become a Marine. It’s a brotherhood, a family that one is a member of forever and it happens because everyone has to go through the crucible. The crucible, as defined by Zachary, is where you have faced challenge after challenge but come to a challenge for which you are not prepared and you must fight your way through. That is what you must face and defeat, but after that you are undefeatable. This is the crux of his book, but we are skipping ahead. Spark number three: Zachary has become a firefighter and gets lost during a fire. He eventually found his group, but the experience made him determined to invent a material that would make firefighters visible to each other and help firefighters keep their orientation under the worst conditions. He invented it and started selling to the fighters in his station. The word got out and he began selling to other locations out the back of his car (Phil Knight of Nike fame did the same thing).  The first six months, Zachary had $5,000 in sales, not enough to quit his day job. After time, his fire chief sat down with Zachary and told him he was sitting on a gold mine and should make his business full time. After a heart-to-heart with his wife, Zachary went to the biggest firefighting trade show of the year. In three days, he sold over $100,000 worth of product. But how do you fill the orders? That’s where the can-do Marine came out; adapt, improvise. So the family mortgaged the house, maxed out the credit cards and began shipping. However, bravado doesn’t guarantee success, and the company was three days from running out of money and closing the doors at one point. This was Zachary’s crucible. And his transformation was to recognize he was a founder and an idea person, not the day-to-day operations person. They hired a CEO from the outside and sales last year were $30Million. And continuing with spark number three, Zachary has shared his experience and provided inspiration to many more with his speaking engagements and now his book, “Warrior Entrepreneur”.

#116 Where There's a Spark, There's a Fire - Zachary Green, Marine, Firefighter, Entrepreneur

Navy Veteran Sean Bonner started his military career a little later than most. At 28 years of age, he was the “old man” as he began. Growing up in the Philadelphia area, he was an athlete through high school and college. He had a friend who had joined the Marines and Sean had an interest in the military, but it was the 90s, nothing much going on and he had an opportunity to join a stock exchange, so he went to work with them. With the financial markets taking off, Sean did well and started his own business in the financial markets in 1997. During those times, trading was done person to person and Sean saw the day coming when electronic trading would replace him. As with many of our military, 911 was a big turning point for Sean. When the planes hit, Sean was married, and their first child had been born. Wanting to serve and with a background in complex industries because of his financial experience, Sean found out that the Navy offered a commission path in the Intelligence Department. A program left over from World War II; the Navy was the only branch offering this opportunity. It was a very competitive program, tailor made for our competitive man. Sean was even turned down the first time, which made him even more determined to qualify, which he did on his second try. Commissioned in August of 2003, he was then sent to Direct Commissioning Officers School. Iraq had just been invaded by the US and instead of the more “country club” training, his group was thrown right into the OCS school along with the other candidates, so the D.I. hard core routine was the program of the day. After training, Sean went to a couple of other specialist intelligence schools. Although never placed in combat, Sean did experience operations in the Reserves and was part of the group always ready to be called up. Sean served 13 years in his Reserve status before leaving. A legacy neck injury had to be nursed along and in 2016 it was time for Sean to transition out. The entrepreneurial streak plus the financial experience made Sean look at the funds-to-broker-to-client relationship and he decided he could come up with a better model. Then, as with many entrepreneurs, it dawned on him he could help Veterans just getting out of their service to begin building their financial future right away by investing and not spending that money they had coming out of the military. The huge, unmet need for solid financial advice for these new private sector citizens made Sean realize there was a big business for doing good things for our Veterans. He founded Guild in 2018 to not only help individual Veterans but also to help find investment for Veteran-founded startups as well. Venture capital was a new area for Sean, and he interviewed many VCs who cautioned him that the consumer market was very expensive to crack, but Sean knew his market of Veterans was right in front of him and incredibly accessible because of his own service. Sean has found, to his surprise, how uneducated the young Veterans are as consumers. So, the basics of saving as well of investing are very important to Guild. Sean feels that the ease of moving money around and the method of digital management has diluted the appreciation of money to the younger generation and caused them to spend it unwisely. Therefore, besides allowing users to invest and bank on their platform, Guild also offers many videos that train their clients on handling their money responsibly.

#117 Don't Spend That Military Money. Invest - Sean Bonner, Guild

A Veteran of the Marine Corps, Josh Emison is another Vet from a military family. With an Army Aircorps veteran grandfather and a Navy Veteran for a father, Josh grew up all over the world. In the mainland US, England, Puerto Rico…well, you get the idea. Josh knew early on he wanted to have a military career, and his father’s advice was, not surprisingly, go to the Naval Academy. Not really knowing what to expect, Josh applied and was accepted and met a bunch of terrific Marine officers. That directed him to the Marine Corps where he spent five years as an infantry officer. He had two non-combat deployments. First to Spain where he got to work with the Spanish military, then to Okinawa, where he trained with the Korean Marines. In Okinawa, he also got to do a lot of scuba diving, so not all work! He then went to Jordan for 13 months working at the embassy in charge of administration and logistics. Josh worked with the Jordanian military, but also got to interact with a lot of the civilians. The Jordanian culture and the people really appealed to Josh and remains one of his fondest memories. The biggest takeaway from all that travel? At the basic level, all people are the same. Yes, we may dress differently and eat different foods, but we are all going through the human experience together. And if you can embody that philosophy, you can be comfortable almost anywhere. As rich as his Marine experience was, Josh was wanting to do other things besides a military career. 

Interestingly enough, Josh also had a fascination with Jackie Chan Kung Fu movies, so spent 6 months in China once he got out of the Marine Corps so he could learn Mandarin and Kung Fu. After returning to the states, he still had 6 months before starting his teaching job so he decided he wanted to start a business. Not knowing what kind of business to start, he eventually landed as a franchise consultant, which meant if nobody bought a franchise, he didn't get paid. 
Despite starting the business during the period of strict Covid restrictions, he was able to make it work and successfully placed over a dozen people into franchise ownership.
During this time, he began learning more and more about real estate investing and realized many of the best investment opportunities were reserved for non-accredited investors. He also was learning about block chain at the time and wondering how this world-changing technology could work. So how could he help the non-accredited investor world participate in building wealth? Josh came up with the idea to use blockchain to offer fractional real estate ownership and own real estate debt. This gave high, stable returns to “regular” people, and that was the beginning of Sansbank. For as little as $100, many people can participate in real estate investments. You can sign up for early access to the app at sansbank.io or follow them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sansbank

#118 Power to the Little Investor - Josh Emison, Sans Bank

911 Was the catalyst for Donald, as for many Americans.  For Griff, it was a foregone conclusion being from a military family.  As their website says, "through persistence, respect, and creativity, we empower the mindful consumer to manufacture peace through trade".  By encouraging consumers to buy products manufactured in a conflict zone, they create entrepreneurs in those conflict zones, and create peace through trade.

#25 Join the Unarmed Forces - Matthew "Griff" Griffin and Donald "Lee" Lee, Combat Flip Flops

Veteran Founder Podcast

Related tracks