Sitreps 2 Steercos

BLUF: we’ve worked with Leland and their team of admissions experts, former adcoms, and vet coaches to make a live MBA admissions Bootcamp! Early bird registration available at the link at the bottom through March 31 We talk a lot about how veterans need to consider MBAs as a pivot. Deciding to do it is huge, but only half the battle. GMAT/GRE, Resume, Essays, random one sentence questions, interviews… You’ve got several pieces all requiring extensive thought and detailed coordination. And as a veteran you’re surrounded by other veterans who have no clue how to make sense of any of it. For a long time the only resources available to veterans were outrageously overpriced coaching services and volunteers with extremely limited bandwidth. John Koelliker and his team at Leland have given veterans a resource that fills the canyon in between with real expert advice at a price that reflects the value that advice provides. We’ve worked together with Leland for the last several months to craft a LIVE boot camp specifically for veteran admits that gives in depth advice from adcoms, veteran and civilian graduates of top MBA programs, and the Sitreps2Steercos team. ??From April 30 - May 21 ??Hosted by Sitreps2Steercos founders Wyatt Frasier and Kyle Eberly ???7 LIVE sessions with MBA Admissions Experts Craft a standout application—essays, interviews, resumes, and more! With expert consultants who specialize in the military to MBA transition, you'll learn how to leverage your unique experience to shine at top programs. ?Use code EARLYBIRD to get 50% off before March 31! ?Learn more and enroll here: https://lnkd.in/gXMdVBCY

We had a great meetup in Salt Lake City last night! Followers ranged from dudes who ETSd last Thursday to Vietnam vets. We love seeing the community come together and look forward to more meetups around the US soon!

?? ANOTHER SPICY DROP FROM The Atlantic ?? At Sitreps Recruiting we’ve placed dozens of vets and are looking to help more get into defense tech, B2B SaaS startups, PE Ops, devops, and sales! Check out these 7?? hot jobs and all 1??9?? open jobs at Sitreps Job Board to find your next role- apply for any of these roles here: https://lnkd.in/eEsNtSiG 1?? Engagement Director Company: Defense Tech Software Comp: $220-$250K Base + $150-$300K Bonus + Equity Location: Arlington, VA (In Person) 2?? Senior Machine Learning Engineer? Company: Defense Tech Software Comp: $250-$300K Cash + Equity Location: Pittsburgh, PA (In Person) 3?? Data Scientist Company: Defense Tech Software Comp: $200-$250K Cash + Equity Location: Pittsburgh, PA (In Person) 4?? VP of Strategic Growth (Army, Space, Air Force, and Navy roles) Defense Tech Software Comp: $250K base + Commission + Equity Location: Arlington, VA 5?? Sales Career Program Partnership with sales training for Pro Athletes and US Vets $0 cost with placements into B2B SaaS Sales roles at $120K-$200K year one 6?? Implementation Engineer Company: Defense Tech Software Comp: $120 - $150 Base + 15-20% Bonus + Equity Location: Washington, DC 7?? Engagement Manager- Air Force? Company: Defense Tech Software Comp: $300K+ Cash Comp + Equity Location: Washington, DC

TS/SCI means the information must be transmitted over Text or Signal with Some Civilians Invited

??TOMORROW IN SLC! ?? Grab your Diet Cokes and brews and meet the Sitreps team and followers at Templin Family Brewing in Downtown SLC 7 PM - UTC! Register here: https://lnkd.in/gdnVyyjY

The day you discover Santa Clause isn’t real is matched closely in trauma and confusion by the day you discover how startup equity works. Many naive and hopeful young titans of industry assume that the equity you’re being offered on your contract = ownership in the company, and that getting 1% of the company as employee 20 means you get $10M when that company sells for $1B in 5 years. There are a million ways for VCs and founders to creatively structure funding, but I’ll just walk through a couple basics here before giving some juicy real life examples courtesy of Sonny Tai and Ethan P. 1. options: when you get “equity” at a startup you’re almost always getting an option. This means you get the option to purchase shares in the future at the price of those shares today. Otherwise you get a massive tax bill without any liquidity to pay it. 2. Dilution: At a very high level, share issuance at each level of funding doesn’t function by giving new investors a piece of the existing pie. Instead, the pie is expanded and they get a piece of that new pie while your original piece of pie remains the same. The ways this can happen are many. For a real time example go read Sonny’s threads the past week. Ethan P recently offered up a few other awesome anecdotes (rest of post his): Domo did a reverse 16/1 split pre-ipo and employees with $1m in equity got $60k. Owlet Baby Care employees with $1m in equity had an 18 month lockout upon Spac IPO and by the time they could sell it was worth $10,000. This was due to predatory and bastard lobbying by Massimo pulse oximeters SimpleNexus, an nCino Company who had worked there for 4 years with $1m+ in fantom shares got $0, zero, nothing. This was because they weren’t present at the time of acquisition. Gotta read the fine print. Giddy went from $0 to $150m valuation in less than a year but every non-founder employee got actual zero dollars for any of their equity. What should you do? 1. If you have stock options, demand a legal document outlining the EXACT details then take it to your lawyer and make sure you understand. Hope your company uses Carta or equivalent. If your company can’t produce this they are either incompetent or evil and either way, run. 2. Exercise your shares. It’s likely something like 1-3% of your annual income to do so. That starts the clock for long term cap gains! 12 mo hold period = much less fed tax. 3. Don’t count on privately held stock of any kind to be worth anything. Idiot leaders, predatory terms, markets, and factors totally out of your control can wipe the value away in an instant. 4. Realize that everything is for sale! “I can’t sell my private co shares” is not true. More than once I’ve shopped for offers, gotten one, and had to offer the company board ROFR or Right of First Refusal to buy my shares for the same price. It’s usually a 30 day wait period if they don’t respond or if they’re feeling generous they’ll let you know sooner of intentions not to buy.”

If you're a vet looking to apply to an MBA program- you don't want to miss out on this. Admit.me access applications are open until the end of this week for veterans applying to MBA programs within the next 2 cycles. This is a free fellowship to help you form a peer group of fellow vet applicants and access application assistance! Sign up: https://lnkd.in/edxKDGrr

Defense tech. So hot right now… But let’s go back to 1993. The Cold War had just ended and we were all toasting to the end of history, firmly believing that the need for massive defense budgets and a rich environment of defense tech was no longer needed without the threat of the Russian bear staring down Europe (yeah, I know right?) SecDef William Perry gathered defense industry executives for what is now called “the last supper” and told them that to survive the coming reduction in defense budgets the industry would need to consolidate. Lockheed merged with Martin Marietta, Boeing absorbed McDonnell Douglas, Northrop merged with Grumman, to name just a few. The defense industry went from dozens of large prime contractors to just a handful of dominant players. The consolidation left us with the "Big 5": Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon (now RTX), and General Dynamics. In the last decade, though, the DoD has undertaken extensive efforts to expand the defense tech industry and reinvigorate the engine of America’s defense innovation. It’s hard to undo the consolidation- there’s a large “valley of death” that firms have to walk through between the SBIRs and grants to get started to becoming a program of record. But policymakers and firms like Govini have been working closely to figure out ways through that. Just last week SecDef Hegseth released guidance on software acquisition that will look to accelerate adoption: “Effective immediately, I am directing the use of Commercial Solutions Openings and Other Transactions as the default solicitation and award approaches for acquiring capabilities under the SWP. This applies to any software pathway program in the planning phase prior to execution. The reason this works better [is that] instead of spending years writing detailed requirements and going through a rigid one-size-fits-all process, we can tap into the best tech available right now, prototype it fast and get it to the field quickly, if it works. So bottom line, we’re cutting out middlemen. Software companies make software. We’re going to buy software from software companies.”

Many have asked about the ins and outs of VR&E. Lucky for me and you nicthevet has already compiled a library on the subject. BLUF: look up iamnicthevet on YouTube for the full “VR&E Bootcamp” series. VR&E is a program, unlike GI bill which is an entitlement. This means that you do not automatically qualify for VR&E with time in service. Like any bureaucratic program there are a lot of nuances, and knowledge is power. Key to the program is a minimum 20% disability rating, as well as justification for how that disability and your prior military training make it difficult to find employment that fits your “abilities, aptitudes, and interests”, and thus requires “retraining”. VR&E pays full program cost plus E5 BAH (if you have *any* GI Bill eligibility). Myself and many others have used it for top MBA programs and it’s an incredible tool and an economic multiplier for the government.

“I just want to be like, idk, a manager… really targeting jobs around the $250K mark. Hopefully ops. Maybe strategy. My buddy does this revops thing and said that could be good” Trying to analogize military jobs to the civilian sector is really difficult, and oftentimes not really even possible. So it’s understandable that veterans often struggle to figure out which roles and industries they should target. That said, the job market is a merciless place that doesn’t really care about anything except the value you bring to the table. And it’s very difficult to figure that out if you’re not able to hone in on specific roles and industries. Taking a role, whether out of an MBA or straight out of the service, is a consequential decision. While you can switch and change roles (and likely will to some degree), it’s going to be advantageous to find the industry and function you want to do earlier in your career to deepen your experience and network. If you’re unsure of the path you want to take (this will be most everyone)… remember, you’ve done recons, made plans, refined those plans, and executed. Do the same here. ?? Do base level research: jump into chat gpt or Gemini and ask for organizational summaries of typical companies in different industries. Figure out exactly what “implementation” and “revenue ops” means before writing it off or talking to mentors in those fields. ?? Talk to other vets: Find veterans in career fields and roles you think seem interesting. Shoot a LinkedIn DM asking to email some questions or have a call to ask about their career. And plan out personalized, non-Chat GPT type questions to ask them. ?? Go to school: I’ll pound the table here again. Go grab an MBA (or other useful grad degree if you know the credentialed field you want to be in like law or computer science) and take a knee for a second. Use the vast network and school resources to gain skills and awareness risk-free. ???? Train up: Find relevant programs and opportunities with proven track records of placement. If you’re looking at tech sales, for example, look at Shift Group and what Bobby Payne and the team there are doing.