For most veterans, the hardest mission begins after they take off the uniform. The structure and chain of command disappear, and what replaces it has to be self-directed. A growing number of veterans are choosing entrepreneurship as that next chapter.
On June 17, roughly 70 of them gathered at the Handlery Hotel in San Diego for the Veteran Business Growth Summit Powered by TikTok, a one-day convening built around an increasingly urgent question: how does a small business actually grow in a marketplace where discovery happens on a phone screen rather than a storefront?
The Summit was hosted by the Association of Women’s Business Centers (AWBC), the San Diego & Imperial Women's Business Center and SBDC Network, and TikTok. It brought early- and growth-stage veteran business owners together with ecosystem partners and small business support organizations for an afternoon mixing fundamentals with platform-specific training. San Diego was deliberate: the region has one of the highest concentrations of veteran-owned businesses in the country and an ecosystem AWBC wanted to put to work.
A Gap Worth Closing
AWBC CEO Corinne Goble named the problem the Summit was designed to solve. “Veterans bring a level of discipline, adaptability, and mission-driven focus to entrepreneurship that is truly unmatched,” Goble said, “and yet they remain one of the most underleveraged forces in our small business economy. That’s the gap we’re here to close.”
Goble was joined by Daniel Fitzgerald of the San Diego & Imperial SBDC, Katty Ibarra of the San Diego & Imperial Women’s Business Center, and Joe Mendrala, TikTok’s Global Lead for CSR, Social Impact, and Sustainability – a lineup capturing the partnership behind the event: a national women’s business center network, a regional SBDC and WBC with local relationships, and a platform company offering product expertise. TikTok Shop’s Patrick Nommensen framed the program as a way to meet small businesses where product discovery is already happening.
From Pricing Strategy to Live Selling
The agenda moved between two registers. A series of short “Business Operations” sessions covered the fundamentals that determine whether a business survives long enough to grow: pricing strategy, sales tax and finance, and order fulfillment. Then the focus shifted to TikTok itself, with a fireside chat on building a business through the platform and a hands-on walkthrough of getting registered and selling on TikTok Shop.
The fireside conversation featured Tiffany Jones-Lewis, founder of TLJ Collections and a SOAR accelerator graduate, and Darys Avalos, a TikTok creator and business owner who estimated 80% of her leads and sales now originate from viewers who found her on the platform. Her advice to founders still hesitant to post was blunt. “Push the plus sign and start recording, because you’ll never be 100% ready,” Avalos said. “You’ll be surprised on where TikTok will take you and your business.”
Jones-Lewis offered a more personal read on what events like this provide. Leaving the military often means losing a built-in community of people who understand the goals and challenges of the work, she said, and a room full of veteran founders facing the same uncertainty recreates some of that. She also pointed to something that surprised her about her own TikTok growth. As a 6-foot-1 founder building a fashion brand for women often overlooked by the industry, she expected customers to connect with the products first. “Instead, they connected with the mission, the journey, and the community,” she said. “TikTok showed me that people don’t just buy products, they buy into stories and brands that make them feel seen.”
A Pipeline, Not a One-Off Event
The Summit doubled as a recruiting moment for AWBC’s longer-running S.O.A.R. (Supporting Our Artisans & Retailers) Together Accelerator for Veterans, a free eight-week virtual program pairing business fundamentals with structured TikTok Shop coaching. Veteran and military-spouse-owned businesses can apply through VeteranStartup.org, and Goble walked attendees through how to apply.
That accelerator has a track record, with earlier cohorts building consumer brands across food, apparel, skincare, and pet products, using TikTok Shop’s blend of content and checkout to grow sales without the budgets larger retail players take for granted.
Why the Timing Matters
The Summit also landed against a notable policy backdrop. In February, the Women’s Business Center Program received $27 million through the bipartisan Consolidated Appropriations Act, the highest funding level in the program’s history, as demand for WBC services has been climbing. AWBC has been making the case publicly that continued investment pays dividends for the women and veteran entrepreneurs who rely on the network.
A room of 70 veteran founders training in San Diego is a small data point on its own. Multiplied across a national network of more than 140 Women’s Business Centers, it starts to look like infrastructure.
The Larger Bet
The Summit reflects a wager several institutions are now making: that the traits the military instills – adaptability, consistency, mission focus – map cleanly onto a platform that rewards exactly those behaviors. TikTok doesn’t specifically reward a perfect launch; it rewards founders who show up and adjust as they go.
For the veterans who spent the afternoon working through pricing models and storefront setups, that bet is now personal. The transition from service member to founder will always require reinvention. What changed on June 17 was the toolkit they have to do it with.
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