To celebrate the first six months of the White House-led Startup America initiative, this week we are highlighting the stories of real entrepreneurs who are creating jobs across the country.
The Startup America initiative aims to create the right policy environment for entrepreneurs to flourish. For example, the President signed into law a 100% capital gains tax cut for investment in small businesses made throughout 2011. The President’s budget would make this tax incentive permanent.
Dr. Kyle Hansen is an Army veteran who served our country in Afghanistan. He is also the founder and CEO of “Heal the VET,” a company that has created software that enables and encourages veterans to proactively care for themselves between physician visits. Like all of America’s veterans, Dr Hansen developed strong leadership and management skills during his military service but even the most complicated battlefield assignments don’t prepare people for navigating the world of business plans, angel investors, venture capitalists and tax codes.
That’s where Veteran Entrepreneurial Transfer (VETransfer) comes in. Located here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we are the first ever Veteran-focused business incubator, and we launched in March 2011, after the VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) — whose mission is to identify, fund, and evaluate new and improved ways the government can serve Veterans— selected our proposal to assemble a team of experienced entrepreneurs to found the first business accelerator focused solely on supporting the Veteran entrepreneur.
Our mission at VETransfer is “to improve veteran entrepreneurs’ outcomes by providing resources and support as they build and accelerate their businesses.” We believe that veterans possess unique skills that, when supported in entrepreneurship, can lead to powerful outcomes. Dr. Hansen is currently part of our Incubation program, where he is learning lean business model startup techniques specific to software offerings. Next up for “Heal the VET” is offering recommendations based on health risks associated with the specific time and theater of a veteran’s service.
Fonte: White House