Subsequent to the enactment of The Veteran Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Act of 1999, The Office of Advocacy began a long term effort to develop information on veteran businesses and related topics. Buying Businesses,Selling businesses, operating business, small business opportunities. Data has become hard to gather because forms used to compile information generally have not asked for veteran status. Over the years information has improved by using various examination factors effecting entrepreneurship among veterans. Tom Giampapa Managing Partner of buy sell business.com has shared a few data points published by The Office of Advocacy on how many veteran owned business firms there are.
Census found that in 2002, 14.5% of all respondent business owners were veterans,and about 7% of those were service disabled. About 12.2% of all businesses were veteran owned. Advocacy estimated that there were about 29.6 million businesses in the U.S. in 2009. If the 12.2% of veteran ownership in 2002 remained true in 2009, an estimate of 3.6 million veteran owned firms would result, of which perhaps 250,000 were owned by service disabled veterans.
Other interesting data shows that veteran owned firms were similar to all U.S.firms in most respects except for age. Their distribution by size was nearly identical to all firms, both in terms of revenues and employees. This trend also was true when measuring business data in other cases. Tom Giampapa of sell business.com will continue to update related topics published by The Office Of Advocacy. Most of this information was provided by the SBA Office of Advocacy Executive Summary of Veterans in Business.
If your company is owned by a veteran, it can be listed free in the Veteran Owned Business Directory. There will be no cost to list your business if owned by a veteran of the U.S. armed service. This will allow anybody who wants to look for a veteran owned company access to a national reference center.