Recap of Bunker Labs MusterUSA Tour in Chicago

The Bunker Labs Muster Stopped in Chicago on Thursday to bring veteran entrepreneurs from across the country together to network, think bigger, and get inspired. Speakers, workshops, and even a "launch lab" designed to build a business in 24 hours. This year's muster brought together, "active duty military, veterans, innovative corporate leaders, and local business experts bringing the latest ideas and technological developments."American Grit had the opportunity to sit down with just a few of the participants at this year's event and get their take on this event, and how veterans are making a major impact on entrepreneurship.

Brian Letzter - How Do We Inc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=3rKfrIMA_yETell us about your Business!"I'm the vice president and co-founder of How Do We Inc. We're an online crowdfunding platform designed exclusively for public schools. We partner with schools at the administrative level focusing on large capital improvement projects that the principals have specifically outlined that will benefit the immediate student learning environment... I highly encourage people to check out our business at howdowe.org. We've officially started funding these projects Chicago public schools and we're spreading awareness of what How Do We is trying to do within Chicago."What brought you here today?"I've been an affiliate company with [the Bunker] for the last year now, and the event brings out a lot of people interested in what veterans are doing and how they're trying to contribute to Chicago in the best ways possible. The biggest impact veterans have on the entrepreneur community is establishing that once we have a goal that we're focused on, we're always striving to complete that goal in the best manner and professional way possible."

Tiffany Allen-Hampton - Grunt Fit

Tell us about your Business!"Grunt Fit is a mobile app that is going to launch in July -- the first week of July... it's going to take the guesswork out of fitness and the nutrition. So it's going to tell users what to do to be successful. Whether they want to lose weight, whether they want to increase muscle mass, maintain, or just get healthy overall, Grunt Fit is absolutely going to help them do that."What brought you here today?"It's an opportunity to meet people, veterans in particular, who were interested in starting their own business or have started their business; also listening to some of the speaker's insights, get some encouragement and motivation, and to hear real live stories of veterans who just went through what they went through to start their business... It's encouraging to know that it can be done. For veterans in particular, sometimes when we're separated from the service we're lost -- what do I do next, how do I get it accomplished -- and I think this is encouraging in letting other veterans know that it can be done."

Nick Taranto - Plated

Tell us about your Business!"We cover everything you need to cook a chef-designed meal at home... We initially started this business 5 years ago when we saw a huge opportunity in the food market. There had been no real innovation. We wanted to use data and technology to make eating dinner a better experience."What brought you here today?"I love the bunker mission. Todd actually grew up with our controller at Plated. So I'm here to support Todd, here to support the bunker mission... There is a huge thirst for entrepreneurial knowledge out there... We need give vets that are coming off of active duty box and tools to learn how to do that. Because even if you don't end up going to start your own business, the skills you learn by going through that process can be used no matter where you go on to work."

Kimberly Jung - Rumi Spice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbPm3rcQJWQTell us about your Business!We're a group of military veterans who all served deployments in Afghanistan, and we felt compelled by what Afghanistan really needs which is economic empowerment. So we source saffron, the world's most expensive spice, and it also happens to grow the best in Afghanistan with the highest source of crocin content from afghan farmers. Now, we source to Michelin rated restaurants.What brought you here today?"I'm a member of the bunker, and I'm an entrepreneur who's a veteran who has benefited so much from the community of the bunker. I'm here to meet everyone else to see what I can do to help, to learn from other people who are 10 steps ahead of me, and also because I care about the veteran community and I'm here to support veteran entrepreneurs... I think veterans can make the best entrepreneurs because they know how to get a mission done with little resources and how to build a team so veterans are uniquely positioned to become entrepreneurs and start businesses."

Dan Alarik - Grunt Style

Tell us about your Business! I'm the CEO of Grunt Style and Alpha Outpost. They're both online. Grunt Style is a clothing company we started about 7 years ago and Alpha Outpost is a subscription box a month and we started that about 18 months ago.What brought you here today?"I'm actually one of the speakers today -- I'll be talking about building teams; basically how you go from an idea to making millions of dollars, and doing it by yourself to building a core team to make everything more successful. It's always great to speak, but even more so I'm looking to meet like minded individuals that are veterans and people who are veteran-centric around in business; it's exciting. It's like bringing the full experience of what it means to be an American in one spot. Many of us lost many battle buddies overseas or have been scarred in some ways or have just gone through intensive training and have been in that whole world for a while. And then you go to entrepreneurship and seeing how business and capitalism is run... it's awesome."Check out Daniel's talk at the Bunker Muster below!