From Service to Startups: Building Veteran-Led Businesses with Courtney Zaugg

I think when you are an entrepreneur, you're upset. There's obsession. And without obsession, you won't be successful. And that means that I'm always, to the extreme, trying to connect the dots and solve problems. In order to be successful in entrepreneurship, you have to be laser-focused and clear out the noise. my mentality is it might take me a little bit longer to get to where I'm going but I'm going to solve these other problems along the way so that the people that come after us will get there faster welcome back to the spotlight podcast my name is Tim Brandon I'm excited for the show today because I have a friend of mine Courtney Zogg who's joining me and excited to just unpack the conversation and highlight you as the support leader that you are so thanks for making the drive and you probably had to get up pretty early to make it down here so thanks for for doing that um quick intro about courtney she is an indiana-based entrepreneur and innovation strategist she's the founder of placa and associates she's the co-founder of a organization that's amazing called venture vets and builds support systems that help founders and communities grow by focusing on capital, talent, and community. She also leads veterans-focused accelerators and work that advocates for making entrepreneurship a priority in both policy and practice. You're doing amazing things. You've been doing amazing things. So thank you for your service as a veteran. And, you know, I know I just gave that quick intro, but I want to highlight your story. Go back as far as you want just to sort of tell us where you've been and sort of where you're at now sure um and it certainly leads into the work that we're doing now with venture vets in particular but um born in chicago raised in indianapolis and um played softball at the university of indianapolis nice but my last year i really needed to get away and so i ended up finishing school at their athens Greece campus and my family my father's side is um of Greek origin so I did that real quick what position in softball I was a catcher but I was a pitcher up until my senior year in high school okay um so yeah but I loved catching more than I loved pitching that's tough my knees would never yeah tell me about it to this day um and then uh did a brief stint uh in New York City and then I went to grad school in Brussels. And the goal in Brussels was I wanted to, my master's is in international political economy. So I wanted to work for NATO, you know, in Brussels or the UN or USAID. And over there, you know, I paid for school myself and I ran out of money. And so I had to come back a little bit early. And I met my husband a month after I got back. He had, was an undergrad. finishing school was going to go into federal law enforcement meanwhile i'm applying for jobs in afghanistan so that was 2000 this was 2008 right he got out in 2005 and did two tours in iraq and uh was waitressing i was like you know we're trying to figure out our next steps we're newly dating and i came home one day and i was like hey um i applied for this job in afghanistan what do you think about that and he pauses he's like well i think i'll give you a pistol and a flak jacket and tell you good luck because I'm not going back to a war zone. And that was certainly a game changer because that was my dream, right? Like I really wanted that work. I love that work. But I ended up my first real job out of grad school. I worked for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and it was to attract foreign direct investment. So I thought, okay, great. There's this intersection between international economic development and I could be here. he finishes school and um is in the middle of the fbi application process and then he comes home one day and he goes i don't want to do it i'm like what do you mean i don't you don't want to do it and he didn't want to be away from home and certainly in those types of jobs you're you could be gone for months at a time and we spun our wheels for a while we had to figure out how to be together same place same time but build a career and a dream together and that was entrepreneurship so he framed houses before going the marine corps and um so on the side he started doing some remodeling projects just for friends and um to get out there and he would come home happy i'm like you know you can't you can't do this work on the side we should make this the the thing. And it took him a little bit, but finally he launched Zinc Contractors, together we did, in 2017. At that time, I was consulting across the country and, you know, working with mayors and city councilors, they always would say that entrepreneurship was a part of their economic development strategy. So that was still, right, 2017, 2018. And it was not true. It was untrue. And so their response was, you know, when I would ask, well, what does that look like? Like, well, you know, there's some community college classes and there's an SBDC rep, but, you know, in those areas, they would come like once a month and have office hours. I'm like, that's not a real strategy. You're not really supporting the entrepreneurs in your community. So when I launched Plaka, it was to focus and help communities support entrepreneurship truly and innovation in their communities in various ways related to talent, capital, things of that sort. So that intersection, you know, we're building the business, trying to figure out how to build a business. I came from a line of entrepreneurs, food entrepreneurs, but actually growing up, my parents lost the businesses, so they were third generation and ended up losing the businesses. So the idea of starting a business was, you know, pretty risky. and not certainly risky, but I think even from a family perspective, they'd be like, what are you doing? Did you not learn the lessons from your parents? But when we started, too, we went to the SBDCs. They gave us some resources and some support. But it also was clear that there wasn't any type of community or specialized infrastructure for the military entrepreneurs, right? And so that plus we kept getting phone calls, mainly from Marines that knew Nathan that said, hey, we heard you guys started. I have this idea, but I don't even know where to go. Like, you know, I need an attorney. How do I get customers? You know, who do you bank with? And so we just started doing that concierge style flexing, you know, taking people to lunch and dinner and making introductions in our network. and that really was the unofficial launch of VentureVets. Certainly very different than what it is today but that was the evolution of it. That's so awesome. So literally going through it you went the way to learn the way and now you're serving and supporting in in that way and it's probably evolved right since. Every year. That's super cool. So and the thing that really stood out me is like you're you have these common thoughts that everyone has when they're getting into something new especially in business but you took action right you went to the coffees you went to the lunch you've you googled the sbdc you found the people you reached out and like just that alone like that showing up piece oftentimes is like i'd say 60 of what i'm advising like new folks it's like man get in the game go get in go go to the meeting book the like register for the event just go be there yes and be prepared to make a friend like just just that and ask questions and be okay to raise your hand or yes you know come prepared to ask and absorb so that that's what really stood out to me is that you guys together both decided okay we're gonna go figure this out and you learn with the intent to serve that's super cool too so tell me let's dive into to venture vets specifically and then we'll unpack um zinc and the construction so i'm curious i've got questions about that too but let's let's dive into venture vets give sort of the 30 000 foot view of what it is who it's serving and kind of how it's evolved to today yeah uh well yeah work our way backwards so we are a 501c3 that mainly has done pre-accelerators so we've done cohort-based training, either now it's sector-specific or it's skills-specific. That's not how it started out. When we started out, it was connecting people to the various resources, right? Mentors or capital or talent, whatever that could look like in community. So we would hold, when we still do, we would hold monthly meetup events for anyone in the military community that was interested or were existing entrepreneurs. And that was meant to be a support system, and that grew which was great and then bunker labs came to town in 2020 2021 and we led that chapter it was fantastic i loved the you know the bunker labs community um still do but we knew that you know they were looking to be acquired and so um we led those cohorts from 2020 into about 2022 we decided to incorporate venture vets because with them you know shifting over to Syracuse University the Institute for Veteran and Military Families we wanted to make sure that our work here and our community here was protected and supported so when we did that we continued with the cohorts but we wanted to also we wanted to fill gaps and not duplicate existing programs and resources So much to, you know, when we started in 2017 to 2022, even the ecosystem in Indiana evolved. More programming and resources and people were available to help. And so we wanted to evolve the program. So with that, you know, initially it was ideation stage, industry agnostic. If you have an idea, it will help you get your plan together and connect you to the next step. Now, we really wanted to be sector focused. Typically, the last two cohorts, cohort and a half have been construction or skill specific. So now we're doing a couple different digital skills accelerators. So things about learning about cybersecurity or AI tools for business optimization, digital marketing, data analytics, things of that sort, which just amplifies any type of new company. Right. And then in addition, we've launched our fund. So we're doing a five million dollar fund. It is specifically it's industry agnostic, but it's specifically for veterans, military spouses or military connected. meaning if you're a child of a veteran or a sibling of a veteran. And that is filling a gap. So most of the accelerators and most of the funds that exist are just for the veteran or it's mainly targeted to defense tech dual use, which is great. But there's a whole spectrum of entrepreneurs out there that don't have access to resources that we're providing. That's awesome. And like, I want to know about who some of those veterans are, right? Like who's hitting your website, who's attending those events. Talk to me about some of those people, because I'm sure there's going to be listeners that are maybe interested, right? And finding a community, looking for others that are builders or they're considering a new mission forefront, right? They've got the idea. They just don't necessarily know where to go. Tell me a little bit about who's in the community now and who's... Yeah, I think so it varies because, which is wonderful. We do have folks in the construction industry, everyone from, you could be a roofer to you're doing drones for site evaluation, right? So really tech focused or tech enabled, that will show up and want to get connected to others in the ecosystem from a supplier perspective, talent perspective. Hey, there's, you know, banks and various types of capital resources folks that attend but I think people come just for the just for community more than anything else right there is something as an as a non-practicing economic developer I've seen so many communities that put a lot of time and effort into manufacturing with great intent, manufacturing both the built environment and the sense of community development, but also spaces, right? And that's great. But I think, and it should be that way. I think every community should really think about crafting spaces and programming for the entrepreneurs in their specific community. But what's special about the military community is that you walk in and there's this automatic layer of trust because of the shared experience that you can't manufacture. And it's a faster way to, I think it's a faster way to, from my perspective, having an entrepreneur get to the next yes or no, when in other communities, both affinity communities and I think geographically, it'll take them longer because that shared experience and level of trust takes more time to build up. Yeah, absolutely right. We'd go into a room, the veterans and typically know who's, who's one, two. Shout out to Ian Ramsdale real quick. Instant bromance when he and I connected. And he's, he's funny. So he's like, it's a trauma bond. That's what it is. It's like explain this whole reason why we have this deep seated connection. It's kind of like, well, yeah, I mean, a little bit, man, you know, we both had boots in the sand. and yeah i got a chance to meet your husband quick and it's just yeah he's a giant right like just just tell he's a leader and been through stuff and um it's really cool i guess my my question that i have is you know you've built all these different things you've been an integral part of you know kicking down these silos that exist and different entrepreneur supporting organizations your catalyst to making things grow and happen and you're seeing these gaps that need to be filled and and uh or improved what drives you to keep improving or building like what's the thing like what's your i think i don't know i i do think that um i think when you are an entrepreneur you're upset there's obsession and without obsession you won't be successful Um, and that means that I'm always, um, to the extreme trying to connect the dots and solve problems. The problem, of course, with that is you, in order to be successful in entrepreneurship, you have to be laser focused and clear out the noise. But my, um, my mentality is it might take me a little bit longer to get to where I'm going, but I'm going to solve these other problems along the way so that the people that come after us will get there faster. So I don't know. I think that the obsession of making things smoother for others means I'm also learning as I go and in all the iterations of our businesses that the next step in the next year will also be faster and better and more successful and that's been true that's been very true but I don't know it's upset it's obsession there's an obsession that I can't stop your service you're you're addicted to service get the results it's maybe fulfilling yeah I love that it does require a certain level of obsession right to see something especially in the nature of how complex it is to to do you're doing to get people together to rally things and move things towards enhancement yeah my question is what how has it been you know just being a woman in business and a woman in in political space how have you how have you triumphed maybe in areas where people have fallen short um as a woman yeah i know it's different wow i've shown up in the rooms i've observed it I've been in a room where somebody has the ability, capability, intent, good heart, good mind, totally awesome, right? But they're maybe looked over or not given the stage in some cases solely because of that. That's such an interesting question. I think it's been actually both a benefit and sometimes a roadblock. I think the benefit is, and maybe, and I don't know if it's, actually I rewind, I don't know if it's because of being a woman, but I do think there is some sense of the way that I can relate to people and build relationships. I think I can easily, more easily maybe than some others, create a sense of ease and trust. and I don't maybe that's partly because I'm a woman and I'm and a mother but I think it's also part of my personality I think the roadblocks have typically been I think the roadblocks have been where I think I have challenged men and that hasn't gone over well so that that means I get shut out but I just I get angry but then I just like you'll see you'll see that you've made a mistake I think the challenge part though is like being married to a marine there's there there's two things one I think because of and I'm biased of course of the Marines but the service that you guys have done you walk around with an air of not really caring what other people think because you have done these amazing things and you're not there to prove anything else right and that air is contagious in our household that's cool and that's been great for me as a woman in business and certainly how how things have evolved um but i think also there's just this lack of uh i credit my husband both in his personality and because of his his experience in the marine corps of um like you can't there's why you can't be intimidated like there's just you show up and take you just do it and know your value and yeah i love that for especially for you know some of our female entrepreneurs that are going to be listening in or already you know looking up to you what you've been able to accomplish so like I hope they hear that that they they belong at the table right and you're gonna run into adversity you're gonna run into obstacles but show up anyway yeah or kick the door down yeah and keep going yeah you've got a mission so eyes on the prize eyes on the mission don't get distracted by even the psychological obstacles that will be there yes and the emotional obstacles that will be there just be prepared for them right just know that they're coming you're not this isn't safe right you get an entrepreneurship you get into building something all right you're going to be attacked right at some point and so I just love that and love that you're a role model for others right that are that are watching and that you've got a large LinkedIn following and I know that there's people that that are yeah I think inspired and you're encouraged. So thanks for sharing that. Let's talk about, let's talk about what you're excited about in 2026. What's going on that maybe SBDC should know about or listeners, entrepreneurs, support organizations that are watching this, what's going on that we need to just know about? 2026 is crazy in a very, very good way. Feels like a buildup over the last almost like two and a half, three years. So with our shift in focus, we are going to launch a construction tech accelerator, our first truly venture-backable accelerator that will go beyond Indiana, that will be focused on the Midwest and include some folks nationally. But we're very excited about that because it builds upon the other construction cohorts that we've had. It also personally is, It fulfills a mission where in our work we see, in our construction company, we see the lack of tech adoption in the industry as a whole. And so we're looking to fill those gaps. And I think, you know, being partial to the military community, I think the, you know, veterans and spouse entrepreneurs in construction can be the ones to fill that. So there are very few construction tech accelerators, period. Really, I only know of two nationally, but the fact that we'll be doing that here in Indiana is pretty special. SBDCs in general, so having partnerships with SBDC, the SBDCs around the state, is important because we do get referrals and we refer people to you guys. And that's gone over very well. We've especially, you know, if there is a military connected entrepreneur that is in your region, like I'll make an introduction. Right. And I know that they're in very, very good hands where in other, you know, sometimes in other ESOs or resource partners, there's extra handholding to make sure that person is taken care of. And I don't I don't have to worry about that when I refer them to you. Right. But the other thing is we are launching our first fund, our first venture fund, which is scary and wonderful and it's going to be great. And so that's the new evolution of what we're doing. Now, with that, we are a small business. Our construction company is the small business model. We've worked with a ton of small businesses. And so we will continue to take care of them. and we're figuring out other ways to help them with their capital stack outside of the fund. But that's really exciting too. So it's not as if we're just, you know, leaving, you know, the next iteration means we're not taking care of the small businesses. We are just in a different way. Just adding to where it exists. That's awesome. So like we originally met, I can't remember if it was Rally. Was it Rally or was it another? I think it was Rally. Yes. Tech. I think it was rally and then heath murray shout out heath murray living legend um brought us brought me over to the venture vets um happy hour yes and then that's where i met ian that's where i met you and your husband and i had seen you guys on stage talk about the pitch competition that you got is that going to continue is it we hope it does right yeah i hope it does but we'll see to talk about like that i guess that experience that i saw excuse me um in indianapolis with with that yeah with that pitch so that came about really actually unexpectedly that was not something that we had planned originally um we had a partner with uh mott hadley up in purdue northwest or northwest indiana and he came to me and he's like hey i have this idea um i have idc is is behind it i've talked with Elevate, but I can't execute it. Would you be willing to take it on? And we're like, yeah, let's, let's do it. Let's do our, you know, the first national pitch competition here in Indiana, specifically for the veteran community. And that was a lot of work. It was so much work and so fun. It was so wonderful to see all of the applications that came in from across the country of the ideas and the tech that was being developed. And, um, how many got on stage? Was it four or five there were five that were on stage and the ones on stage were awesome like it seemed like everybody was a hit um hard to judge i don't you know yeah i don't envy being a judge same that day even i mean i wasn't even involved in embedding the applications which i'm very glad because i wanted them all to be i can only imagine how much how many amazing ideas and cool innovations were on that list knowing what was on stage like geez yeah it's cool so you know many thanks to iedc and Elevate Ventures because they really gave us that opportunity and certainly Mont. But that, I think, was a really big turning point in the next phase of VentureVets. We had just kind of come off of some challenging times with a former partnership, and we were figuring out ways to continue with the cohorts when this opportunity came up. And I think it put us on the map nationally. so I'm forever grateful to the organizations for that and then after that we were able to focus on and do five more cohorts so it's been a wild ride and truly rally in that pitch competition was was a catalyst for the changes very cool if I'm a veteran and I'm listening to this or I'm a veteran supporting organization how do I contact you how do I how do I get in touch with you? Well, I'm on LinkedIn, just like Courtney Zogg, but also the website. So www.theventurevets.com. My email is just Courtney at theventurevets.com and, or they can call you and I'll plug them in. I love connecting people. It's one of my favorite things to do. Yeah. You're good at it. I love being SBDC and IDC. But even if, if they canned me today, I'm still going to connect you the rest of my life. I just genuinely love doing it, especially when it's like, Oh, I know you need to meet so-and-so, right? You haven't heard of this thing. This is going to really help you in X, Y, Z. So always super grateful for these organizations and people that have exposed me to tools, resources, and things out in the landscape, whether it's Indiana or nationally. Um, because the more I learned, the more helpful I can be. And I know you echo that same thought. So, um, I want to talk about, so you used to work at the IEDC, you were doing international yeah uh super cool i bet you learned a ton in that yes and got your you know some connections and resource exposure there yeah that's sort of assisted i'm assuming in every phase like of these other ventures that you've done let's talk about um brian shut and the new the new uh office of innovation or help yeah office i don't want to say innovation right yeah so i've heard nothing but amazing things about brian i just connected with him on linkedin I would love to meet him I've been told multiple times like we need to meet so hey Brian I would like to meet you um I would love to meet him and uh but moreover I'd love to learn uh about what's going on and uh you know highlight it for entrepreneurs and such that are that are listening now yes so the backstory with the office of entrepreneurship innovation is that um I'll make it short. But there's a national organization called Right to Start that launched in 2020. And their mission was to change policies to support, to remove barriers for entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. And I met them through John Deary, who runs the Center for American Entrepreneurship in D.C. John Deary is pretty well known because he's done a lot of federal policy work on entrepreneurship, but also to support particularly active duty military spouses and their entrepreneurship journey. Very cool. But Right to Start focuses on state and local policy. And I was interested because in economic development and consulting, I saw that many states, but especially in Indiana, entrepreneurship was not the number one priority. It was starting to be talked about, but it wasn't there yet. And I saw their policy, Right to Start's policy recommendations as a way to elevate it, of kind of taking baby steps to kind of change the conversation and change the culture around what does economic development really mean. It really should mean strong support for entrepreneurship and innovation. And so I took the recommendations to Jen Hallowell with Hallowell Consulting and the Indiana Technology and Innovation Association. Association, I said, hey, what do you think about this? And she's like, this aligns great. And they were the ones that worked really for the three years lobbying to establish this new Office of Entrepreneurship Innovation, which I'm so proud of and so grateful to ITAA for all of that work. And so when it was announced that Brian Shutt was leading it, I just thought this is amazing. I had met Brian at his 46th refinery co-working space. I knew that he was an HVAC. We had not done a lot of work together with our construction company and HomeSense at the time. But he had a great reputation. People really trusted and respected him. And so when he was announced as the new director, it was like a no-brainer. And Brian's a true asset for Hoosiers and entrepreneurship and very mission driven um a trusted resource and so i'm just grateful that he's at the helm yeah love it yeah i'd like to i've been wanting to meet him he was on a gosh he's just been on the road it seems like yeah you know all over the place connecting with different resources and hubs so yeah getting up to speed and i'm sure yeah making stuff happen but he's what's fun is he's an entrepreneur too. So, um, just recently I had Michael Berger on the show. You know, Michael, just always wonderful to sort of hear their thoughts and getting them in a leadership role. Folks like that becoming entrepreneurs is powerful. And, uh, it's just fun seeing the programming that they're creating now in West Lafayette and just where his mind goes when it comes to semiconductors and all these awesome revenue and job making opportunities throughout. It's not even just West Lafayette. It's, it kind of spills over opportunity. Just really cool. It's always fun to be a fly on the wall and with, in the company of really smart people too. I like to sit there and just listen and be, be glad to be there. I'm there too. Yeah. So as far as, If there's one thing that you could share with entrepreneur, oh, let's do support organizations. The support organizations that are listening now or leaders that are listening now, what's something that they could do today to start to enhance their community or enhance their programming that they're doing? What's something outside of connecting with you, right? Like they should connect with you. I think if somebody is a support organization, they could benefit from your connections. Oh, benefit from VentureVets in general? I think just in general. Let's say that I am the mayor of Kokomo, Indiana. What's something that should be on my radar to know about that would help all my small businesses in my community? No, I might answer this in a different way, if you don't mind. No, it's fine. I think when I think back to successful case studies and, you know, communities that have done this work, Fishers, Indiana being a good example, Boulder, Colorado being kind of the primary example when it comes to supporting entrepreneurship in communities. I think it comes back to leadership. So if a mayor is like, what do I do? It's knowing who your entrepreneurs are, supporting them, but also having them be the leader and the ambassador. I think that, you know, government has to create the sandbox, but really the conversation about how best to support your specific type of entrepreneur in your community, which will vary, right, has to come from the entrepreneur themselves. And so I, but I think, you know, a lot of the conversations and about economic development, most of those conversations or partnerships are with the larger job creators, right, in the workforce space and in the community. but all the data shows that job creation actually comes from firms under five years old it's your new startups it's your new businesses that are the ones that are actually hiring and creating long-term economic prosperity in the community and so if you know mayors or county commissioners really want to truly make change and create a sustainable path forward for economic prosperity It's meeting their entrepreneurs where they are and having them say, this is actually the direction we should take. I love that. Probably, you know, if there was a round table, right, you get, I'm just imagining like this big table with every industry, you know, entrepreneur or leader in that with a series of questions. It sort of pulls in information, pulls in ideas, pulls in, that almost becomes entrepreneurial in and of itself, right? If that table was to exist or a quarterly meeting. Certainly. Was kicked off. And that's just an interesting thought. Like what might happen if silos were broken down and ESOs and entrepreneurs met once a quarter. Right. And somebody was leading that with a series of questions that helped pull in a lay of the land. Maybe the SBDC should do that. Yeah. I would love to. I would love to. I wish I could also clone myself and be in 12 counties. I bet. All at the same time because I, you know, my heart, heart and head's in the right place. I just can't physically be there in those places all the time. So part of my strategy has been trying to, you know, bring folks from more rural areas into central areas between our spots. The Hoosier Heartland region is interesting, super innovative and awesome. There's amazing people doing work that matters and a lot of unsung heroes too. But I think what we're this show and shout out to Vision Studio and the ideas and the people that are sort of helping us have this conversation very professionally with the nice mics and the lights and then distributing it more importantly. that helps us be more omnipresent and grow our our own brand and share information about tools resources that exist and it's been so much fun just highlighting leaders and folks that may not otherwise get known right and different success stories that may not otherwise get read about So this has been a fun, this has been a fun, very well documented sort of test. And we're excited to where this show is going to go in 2026 with the help of the team here. And so always got to give Vision Studio a shout out and Ahmad and the team. but thank you so much real quick if i'm a leader in a community if i'm a veteran if i'm somebody that's like looking for construction help how do i how do i reach you again it's linkedin it's through me i'm glad gladly connect to you yeah or the website but my email is just courtney at theventurevets.com so not just venture vets but theventurevets.com and uh yeah just reach out we will reach back out. We are pretty responsive. Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you for the opportunity. This was great. Thanks, Courtney. Okay.

In this episode of the Spotlight Podcast, host Tim Branyan sits down with Courtney Zaugg, Indiana-based entrepreneur, innovation strategist, and co-founder of Venture Vets, to explore what it really takes to build sustainable support systems for entrepreneurs—especially those from the military community.

Courtney shares her journey from international economic development to entrepreneurship, the creation of Venture Vets, and how obsession, service, and trust drive long-term impact. From construction tech and digital skills accelerators to launching a veteran-focused fund, this conversation dives deep into the future of entrepreneurship, policy, and community-driven growth.

Whether you’re a veteran entrepreneur, community leader, economic developer, or someone building the next generation of support organizations, this episode is packed with insight, honesty, and actionable perspective. 🔗 

Links & Resources:
Courtney Zaugg – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyzaugg/
Venture Vets: https://www.theventurevets.com/
Tim Branyan – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timbranyan/
Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC): https://isbdc.org/
Vision Studio (Podcast Production): https://bookvisionstudio.com

🎧 Produced by Vision Studio
📍 Recorded in Indiana
🚀 Supporting entrepreneurs, veterans, and communities nationwide⏱️ 

Episode Timestamps (37:17)

00:00 – Welcome & Courtney’s background
03:10 – From international development to entrepreneurship
09:45 – Why entrepreneurship became the path forward
14:40 – The origin and evolution of Venture Vets
20:55 – Building trust and community in veteran ecosystems
25:30 – Women in leadership & entrepreneurship
30:10 – What’s coming in 2026: accelerators & venture fund
34:40 – Advice for communities & support organizations
36:30 – How to connect with Courtney & Venture Vets