Welcome Vetrepreneurs!

This is the first edition of the Monday Morning Vetrepreneur - a newsletter devoted to highlighting successful veterans in business and describing important entrepreneurial tips & tricks to make you successful.

In this edition you get to meet Luke Peelgrane, founder and CEO of Clandestine Media Group and Head of Marketing for Black Rifle Coffee Company. We'll also dive into the importance of separating your personal and business finances.

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In the crosshairs:

Let's take a look at the man behind the camera who's been quietly building a media empire like few have done before.

Luke Peelgrane is a former Special Forces Engineer Sergeant who has become a modern-day renaissance man.

Like many of his SF brothers, he dabbled around in different areas trying to find his purpose following his departure from the military. He's worked as a DoD contractor making repeated deployments to the Middle East, started a tactical equipment company, and taught himself about photography.

This last one is where things get exciting.

While still working as a contractor, he started his first company: RE Tactical - a name he admittedly regrets and says was confusing to those outside the community, but sounded cool to him at the time - produced tactical equipment to serve the very people he was deploying with. It was an ingenious set up because he would go down range as an operator seeing what guys were wearing and needing, then come home and make it better.

But marketing that gear was expensive, especially the photoshoots.

So as any good entrepreneur does, he adapted and overcame. He taught himself photography. Watching videos in his free time, he perfected his eye for the tiniest detail and captured beautiful shots. Before long, his photographs were generating more interest than the RE Tactical equipment he was making.

Once again, Luke pivoted, starting a media company, Clandestine Media Group.

His eye for authenticity and knowledge of operator appeal immediately landed him clients like Colt, Mossberg, and ultimately, Black Rifle Coffee Company - where he was recently brought on as their Head of Marketing.

BRCC has been an incredible experience for Luke because they do so much more than coffee. He's now managing a multi-million dollar budget for marketing their coffee subscriptions, in-store coffee beans, pre-made coffee, physical coffee shops, two magazines, a podcast, AND (if that isn't enough) BRCC public relations with groups like NASCAR and the Dallas Cowboys.

Plus, he's making inspiring videos like this - Finding Freedom: Syria in the Wake of ISIS​

Not bad for a guy who started watching photography lessons on YouTube.

Luke is a prime example of what you can accomplish when you read your environment, remain flexible, and take advantage of unique opportunities as they present themselves.

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Tactic, Technique, and Procedure (TTP):

Personal and Business Finances...

When starting a new company, especially first-time entrepreneurs, it can be very easy to mingle funds. You have money coming in, you have bills to pay. What difference does it make if you pay for both from the same account?

A huge difference!!!

Take my advice and make this a habit early to prevent headaches down the road.

It's easy to set up a business bank account at the very beginning and immediately keep a clean separation between your personal funds and the money operating your business. Plus, with banks like Navy Federal Credit Union (not a paid sponsor, just who I use), it's completely free.

This will also allow you to set up your accounts in the Profit First model (MMV 002 topic) to categorize your "different pots of money". Knowing exactly where your money is, where it is going, and how much you have is vital to the success of your business.

Having a separate account for your business makes expense and revenue tracking significantly easier, too, because you know all the money movement in that account is business-related. Now you can synchronize this account with your bookkeeping software, like QuickBooks.

Finally, getting a business credit card (which you can also sync to QuickBooks) will allow you to setup auto payments for software and other subscriptions. Again, keeping all your business expenses separate from your personal.

Getting the theme?

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If you enjoyed this and you need help starting or growing your business, please schedule a free consultation call to see how I can best support your goals.

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