Launch of Bunker Labs NY at NYU Tandon, NYC’s home of veteran startup activity
On behalf of the Incubators at NYU Tandon, we are excited to announce the launch of Bunker Labs New York, to continue our support of military veterans in NYC through programs, space and events. We’ve partnered with Bunker Labs, a national leader in veteran incubation and entrepreneurship support services in an effort to expand our current programs and deliver a greater impact. Bunker Labs New York, an initiative of NYU Tandon and Bunker Labs, will operate within the Digital Future Lab and as of today, we are accepting applications for the highly acclaimed Veteran Entrepreneur Training (VET) program.
A bit of background, just over a year ago, the Incubators at NYU Tandon were approached by Assemblymember Joseph Lentol to support an underserved group of entrepreneurs in New York City: military veterans. Assemblymember Lentol determined that while there were many support services established for veterans returning from service, there was a gap between veterans’ propensity to pursue new ventures and the availability of dedicated startup support resources. He wanted us to change that — and we were happy to accept the mission.
Veteran Entrepreneurship Training (VET) Program
We knew that a training programs for veteran entrepreneurs was a natural progression of our incubator activities. Using our prior experience in supporting and training entrepreneurs in NYC tech ecosystem, Craig Wilson from our Digital Future Lab, and I developed the Veteran Entrepreneurship Training, or VET, a semester long experiential skills training program for military veterans. The program offered a unique approach to teaching vital entrepreneurial skills in the context of venture creation. This dual purpose course immersed participants in weekly trainings while they were tasked with solving a real world problem with a novel and scalable solution.
While we anticipated VET to be well received, we did not foresee the extraordinary passion with which the veteran trainees would pursue their ventures. General George Patton famously said,
“It is a proud privilege to be a soldier — a good soldier with discipline, self-respect, pride in his unit and his country, a high sense of duty and obligation to comrades and to his superiors, and a self confidence born of demonstrated ability.”
That self-confidence to which General Patton referred was abundantly evident to us in the trainees: they were natural entrepreneurs. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this inherent confidence among veterans leads them to gravitate toward entrepreneurship:
- 25% of post-9/11 veterans want to start a business
- Veterans are at least 45% more likely to take the plunge into entrepreneurship than people with no military experience
- Veterans own 2.4 million businesses, or 9% of all businesses nationwide, generating $1.2 trillion and employing nearly 5.8 million people
In spite of these data supporting veterans’ affinity for entrepreneurship, evidence suggests that they need help getting started, much like the NYC ecosystem did when we started the Incubators seven years ago. While 25% of post-9/11 vets want to start a business, only 6% actually do. This is the problem that VET and Bunker Labs New York will work hard to solve.
Veteran Incubator
After two iterations of VET, the 25 graduates developed a total of nine ventures. To help those ventures take succeed, we launched a six-month pilot veteran incubator in DUMBO to make a support structure available to companies at a critical time of their development. During those six months, we reviewed milestones, mentored companies and several of those ventures began to see tangible success. We quickly realized that the program must be continued and the reach expanded to capture many more veteran startup ventures.
Bunker Labs partnership
To increase our veteran outreach and impact, we chose to partner with Bunker Labs, which stood out for several reasons. First, Bunker’s CEO, Todd Connor, is an exceptional individual with the passion and managerial talent to make veteran entrepreneurship a national priority. Second, while we have deep knowledge of incubator management and the startup scene in NYC, Bunker Labs has built a brand name among veteran entrepreneurs as a vital resource. We believed that together, we could create a much larger impact in. Our vision for the partnership was to share best practices and resources to develop a scalable model for veteran startup support, from inception to scale.
Looking to the Future
We’re pleased to announce that Assemblymember Joseph Lentol generously extended our grant for the third cohort of our VET program. Applications are now open and FREE to all veterans accepted into the program. The 14-week program will run in the evenings to accommodate more participants and will include Bunker Labs’ nationwide support structure of services to supplement the incubator’s network of resources.
All this cannot be done without a team. We’ve expanded that team with Chris Shaw, an entrepreneur, NYU Stern MBA and US Army veteran. In 2015, Chris founded a leadership development company called CORE Leader and shortly thereafter was accepted into the VET program. Chris developed CORE to help Human Resource departments in the tristate area build better teams and problem solvers using military leadership lessons. CORE Leader continues to be a profitable business. In May, Chris Shaw joined the team as the Director of Bunker Labs NY and to lead NYU Tandon’s veteran initiatives.
New York City is a network ecosystem so we ask you to help us generate a greater impact. There’s more information below on our various program; If you are a veteran, let us know how we can help, if you know a veteran, send them the information below so we can be a resource if you’d like to mentor, support, sponsor or attend one of our events, we encourage you to join us on our mission to make a tangible impact on the veteran startup ecosystem in New York City.
Email Chris Shaw to get involved, to support our efforts or to learn more: Christopher.Shaw@nyu.edu