A FIELD GUIDE + mINI-Book + MBA-level playbook for the 0.01% of veteran founders building category-defining companies.
Inside The Veteran Entrepreneur, you’ll learn the FIRE Framework — A clear, no-bullshit system for choosing the right category, sharpening your message, and dominating your market
The Veteran Entrepreneur is your field manual for building a business without wasting years wandering in the fog.
Inside is a clear, step-by-step playbook for the FIRE Framework, ten mission-critical lessons pulled from real veteran founders, and stories from companies carving out new categories in everything from AI to consumer goods. No fluff.
No corporate jargon. Just the tools that actually move the needle.
If you’re a veteran with a big idea but no roadmap, this guide gives you the clarity and confidence to start strong and dominate your space.
Inside The Veteran Entrepreneur,
you’ll learn how to:
Strip away the confusion and find the signal that leads to early traction
Position yourself in a category you can dominate, not drown in
Build a GTM plan that generates demand instead of chasing it
Make smart, fast decisions that give you confidence — and momentum
Create a narrative that makes your business obvious, powerful, and impossible to ignore
A Note from
IRON Mike Steadman
For years, I watched veteran founders with incredible talent and
world-class experience struggle in entrepreneurship. Not because they lacked ability — veterans are some of the most capable operators on the planet — but because the rules of business are different than the rules of the military.
Markets run on categories. Validate early and often. Traction is a strategy, not a reward for hard work.
Through my work with The MisFits and my Category Sprints, I spent nearly a decade helping veteran-led companies sharpen their point of view, position themselves correctly, and design categories they could win. Over time, one pattern became undeniable: veterans needed a framework that translated their strengths into strategic advantage.
That framework is FIRE — Frame, Identify, Rally, Execute.
The Veteran Entrepreneur distills everything I’ve learned: how to pick the right category, craft a clear narrative, validate your idea quickly, and build a business that becomes the default choice.
My hope is simple: that this guide helps the next generation of veteran founders move with confidence, clarity, and purpose — and build companies worthy of the communities they served.
The Veteran Entrepreneur is available now.
Give it and start your next chapter with intention.
TESTIMONIALS
Karla Murphy
Mike nailed this. As a Marine veteran turned entrepreneur. his breakdown of the “Military Training Trap” hit me hard. We don’t realize how often perfectionism, waiting for orders, and rigid SOP thinking follow us into business and slow us down.
His FIRE Framework is clean. actionable. and built for how veterans think. Frame, Identify, Rally, Execute. It’s a blueprint for building a category you can actually dominate instead of fighting for scraps in someone else’s market.
Richard Contreras
"Iron" Mike Steadman and Katrina Kirsch’s article, "The Veteran Entrepreneur," is a must-read for any service member on the path to entrepreneurship. It captures the transition experience in a way that is immediately relatable, serving as a strategic playbook that honors our past while forcing us to confront the new battlefield of business.
Bob Lally
Wow. There is A LOT to digest from this piece. Impressive body of work you have put together and shared out to the veteran entrepreneur community. As a veteran entrepreneur, now onto my second venture after exiting my first,
a lot here resonates with me. It is easy to just start chasing sales, but I always told my employees you can put effort into a sale that generates $100 or $10,000 but you only have a limited amount of time, so you need to focus your efforts.
About the Author
IRON Mike Steadman is the founder of The MisFits—a category-design studio built for underdogs, misfits, and especially veteran founders who refuse to blend in. A former Marine Corps Infantry Officer, Mike has spent the last decade in the trenches helping veteran entrepreneurs break the Military Training Trap, sharpen their narrative, and build companies that slap.
In addition to leading The MisFits, Mike is a Venture Partner at Context Ventures, where he builds with and backs the next generation of veteran-led startups. His dual lens—coach and investor—gives him a front-row seat to what works, what fails, and what separates the top 0.1% of veteran founders from everyone else.
Mike has run Category Sprints, coached founders across dozens of industries, and helped veteran-led startups reinvent how they communicate, compete, and win. He’s the creator of the FIRE Framework, a simple but deadly-effective system veterans use to capture demand and build traction early.
He has advised and trained founders from military academies, DoD innovation communities, venture-backed startups, financial services firms, and creators building at the intersection of tech and national security.
At his core, Mike is a builder, storyteller, and guide—helping veterans translate world-class experience into category-defining businesses.
Are You A Veteran Entrepreneur Launching A Startup?
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