The Quiet Edge: Why Veterans Build Small Businesses That Don’t Quit

The federal government now targets 5% of contracts for service-disabled vets. That’s $31 billion a year. Here’s why veterans are built to earn it.

TL;DR

  • The SDVOSB goal jumped from 3% to 5% in the FY2024 NDAA — the biggest structural opportunity for veteran small business in a generation.
  • Agencies awarded ~$31.9B to SDVOSBs in FY2023 and ~$28.6B in FY2025 across ~52,000 actions.
  • Since August 2024, self-certification no longer counts. You must be certified through SBA VetCert — now processing in ~12 days.
  • Veterans have three advantages most MBAs never learn: rejection tolerance, self-sufficiency, mission-first decision speed.
  • The one thing most vet founders get wrong: they wait for work to find them.

The number you haven’t heard yet

Most veterans who start a business have heard “three percent.” They’ve heard it for twenty years. That number is no longer current. The FY2024 NDAA raised the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business goal to 5% — a 67% increase in targeted opportunity, from roughly $19B to closer to $31B in annual addressable federal contract dollars. Agencies have already exceeded the old 3% goal every year since 2012. The SBA’s veteran contracting page is where the official rules live.

A rising tide. But it doesn’t lift boats that never left the dock.

Why do veteran-owned small businesses outperform their peers?

I’ve spent two years building an SDVOSB in defense tech, after twenty years flying Air Force aircraft and working policy at OSD. I’ve watched dozens of vet-founders start companies. The ones who make it share three traits I almost never see elsewhere.

1. They can take a “no” without flinching.

Sales is rejection management. Jeb Blount’s Fanatical Prospecting has one line every vet-founder should tattoo somewhere visible: prospecting is a numbers game, not a magic trick. The veteran who has been yelled at by a flight lead, written up by a first sergeant, told “no” by a Class-A board, and ejected from an aircraft is not going to cry because a contracting officer returned a capability statement unread.

Non-veteran founders who lose their first three deals often quit or pivot. The veteran makes another twenty calls. That’s not a personality quirk. It’s training.

2. They can run a business with no adult supervision.

Matthew Dixon’s The Challenger Sale calls it the “Lone Wolf” — the seller who hits quota in spite of the organization. Big companies treat Lone Wolves as a problem. A small business treats them as a miracle. A veteran knows how to build a checklist, hold themselves to it, and audit their own performance with no one watching. That’s what a one-person SDVOSB is.

3. They decide fast and they decide for the mission.

Civilian founders optimize for comfort, ego, then mission. Veterans default to the reverse: mission first, ego never, comfort last. In a contract-cycle-driven federal market, that’s the decisive edge. You’ll win bids you had no business winning because you were willing to be the small partner for 18 months until you became the prime.

The advantage isn’t that veterans are smarter. It’s that they’re harder to stop.

The one thing most vet-founders still get wrong

They wait. They get the SDVOSB certification, stand up a website, list on SAM.gov — and wait for the government to notice them. The government will not notice you.

Contracting officers award to companies they already know. Program managers team with companies that already showed up. If you’re not on the phone, at the industry day, on the capability statement a prime needs at 4:47 p.m. on a Thursday — you don’t exist.

Blount again: “If you work for a start-up, you are almost always at a disadvantage. You must actively participate in getting the word out.” Twice as true in government work, where your brand equity is the number of meetings you showed up to last quarter.

What to do this week

  • If eligible and not yet certified, start your SBA VetCert application. Processing is ~12 days now. No reason to still be “working on it.”
  • Write a one-page capability statement. Not a brochure. One page. NAICS, past performance, differentiators, contact info.
  • Identify three primes in your NAICS space. Not thirty. Three. Find the small-business liaison officer. Email them this week.
  • Register for one industry day this month. Ask two questions. Get one card.

That’s the entire opening move. Most people won’t do it. The ones who do will still be standing when the 5% starts flowing harder.

If you’re a veteran building a company — or thinking about it — forward this to one friend in the same fight. The strongest thing about this community has always been that we hand each other the rope.

Subscribe to Voice for Valor for weekly field notes from one veteran founder to another.

Sources

  • SDVOSB contracting goal raised from 3% to 5% — FY2024 NDAA, Public Law 118-31. Congressional Research Service IN12313 and R47226.
  • FY2023 SDVOSB awards ~$31.9B (~5% achieved) and FY2025 ~$28.6B across ~52,000 actions — CRS reports; SBA Procurement Scorecard summaries.
  • Self-certification eliminated August 5, 2024; certification required via SBA VetCert — SBA direct final rule; CRS IN12313.
  • VetCert backlog cleared late 2025; current processing ~12 days — USFCR / SBA public announcements.
  • Agencies have met the old 3% SDVOSB goal every year since FY2012 — CRS R47226; SBA Procurement Scorecards.
  • SBA veteran contracting landing page — sba.gov.

About the Author

Michael Komorous is the host of Voice for Valor, a podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of military veterans, first responders, and their families. A combat-rated Air Force officer, Mike served as a nuclear missile operator, C-17 pilot, and MQ-1 Predator pilot before managing rated personnel across the Air National Guard. His policy career spans legislative affairs, defense acquisitions, and geopolitical strategy at OSD Policy, including analysis of the war in Ukraine.

Today Mike builds AI systems and leads Alpha Zulu Solutions, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business focused on defense technology and government contracting. He holds advanced analytics training from George Mason University’s Innovation Lab.

Watch the podcast on YouTube | Visit voiceforvalor.com | Connect on Facebook