Looking for a few good biz whizzes

Veterans buy each other beers, listen to each other’s stories, and provide a shoulder to cry on when the memories become too much.

Veterans are usually eager to help, and sometimes, they even invest in another veteran’s business.

Entrepreneurship comes naturally to some vets. The military trains people to be self-motivated, adaptive and relentless, the same qualities that make a great entrepreneur. Unfortunately, service members know more about small-unit tactics than business plans. They didn’t go to business school, they learned from hard knocks.

Dozens of groups help troops transition to civilian life, but there is a gap when it comes to starting businesses, Anthony DeToto, a West Point graduate, banker and civilian aide to the secretary of the army, told me.

DeToto, whose day job is providing financial advice, founded 1836 to help Texas veterans chase their entre

preneurial dreams. The group casts a wide net and will soon hear pitches in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, but it is careful about whom they back. When they invest, though, the commitment is total.

As with all things militaryrelated, DeToto built 1836’s operations plan around an acronym: FISH, for the four types of capital every entrepreneur needs.

F is for financial. Funding can come in two primary forms, debt or equity. Should the business take on debt, and from where? Should the entrepreneur sell a share in the company, and to whom?

I is for intellectual. Every company is built around a product or service. But in a competitive market, new ideas are what make a company prosper or fail.

S is for social. Does the founder have the connections to get the business off the ground? Where are the customers, who are the advisers, and from where will the money come?

H is for human. Most businesses need more than one employee. Who is going to help run the business? A bad early hire can sink a new company.

“1836 is a beachhead to help veterans find capital in all four of those different forms,” DeToto said.

Financial capital, in many ways, is the easiest since many groups want to invest in veterans, DeToto said, it’s just a matter of putting together the right pitch.

Finding a mentor, a business partner or a connection with a bank is much more difficult. DeToto said 1836 is always looking for investors and business people willing to help.

“We want people who are empathetic to the fact that these veterans don’t have connectivity to the community of investors because they tend to have come from a different socioeconomic demographic,” he said. “They didn’t go to Stanford or Harvard or one of the Ivies.”

1836 has forged partnerships with business incubators and accelerators, but unlike most of them, 1836 is not focused on a single industry. The group has invested in a drone company, a financial services firm and a real estate services business, among others.

Neither are the backers behind 1836 necessarily interested in cutting-edge technology or speculative plays, such as the Ubers and Twitters of the world that attract traditional angel investors and venture capital.

“We’re tending to focus a bit on dirty-job businesses, like HVAC, plumbing and electrical,” DeToto said. “How can we help stand up those businesses that are, we believe, a little bit resilient to a machine learning and artificial intelligence future. The kind where you need to go outside and sweat a little bit.”

This broad approach is what I like the most about 1836. Most of the men and women I served with in the Army were salt-of-the-earth people who took pride in doing a quality job and providing an essential service that highfalutin civilians typically think is below them. A veteran will probably not invent a new quantum computer, but veterans are worthy of investment.

After all, the toilet that a plumber installs in a new office tower will be there long after the mobile app company that initially rented the space is forgotten. And today, master electricians are in as much demand as computer scientists. Investing in one of these businesses may not be as sexy as a Silicon Valley unicorn, but they still generate a return.

DeToto said 1836 will soon split into two parts, a nonprofit that will provide advice and connections, and an investment fund that generates profits.

Not every veteran has what it takes to start a business, but there are plenty with great ideas who lack only the business education and experience because they were defending their country. Helping them is akin to turning swords into plowshares.