On November 10, 2017, the personal finance site CentSai published “Jobs After the Military: How One Former Marine Started Podcasting,” by Kara Perez. The profile followed Michael from the Marine Corps through a rough transition to the podcast he built with another veteran.
What the article covered
Perez starts with his service. Michael joined the Marine Corps in August 2004, served with a 7th Marines weapons company, and spent nearly eight years in uniform. She notes that he had lost fellow service members, been mortared, and missed a sniper’s shot by inches, and that he had a lot of adjusting to do.
The article traces the next few years:
- Two years teaching combat marksmanship at Quantico
- A move to Massachusetts and classes at UMass Boston, switching from engineering to business entrepreneurship
- Feeling isolated in New England, and a first business with a fellow ex-Marine that failed
- Leaving school in his junior year to start a business and move to North Carolina
The turn came at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University, which he described as “an entrepreneur boot camp for veterans.” After 45 days of correspondence work and nine days in person, he used his failed company as the base for a new plan. It won him the “Most Outstanding Venture” award.
I had the best business plan and the best presentation.
Michael Penney, CentSai, November 2017
Cigars and Sea Stories
Perez tells how the podcast started. Michael and Bennett Tanton, a former reconnaissance Marine and U.S. Army infantryman, were smoking cigars in Olympic Park one evening when they came up with a show about veterans “adding value to the world.”
Michael was open about the numbers: about $6,000 for the website, about $10,000 in start-up costs in all, and around $1,250 a month in overhead. He told Perez he wanted Marines to see the show as credible, so he did not want it lost in sponsored content. He was also building a section of the site for the 5-Paragraph Business Plan.
Why it mattered then
Most coverage of Cigars and Sea Stories was about the guests. This piece was about the founder, and it was honest about failure, money and isolation. That made it useful to any veteran weighing a business of their own.
The article ends by calling him a veteran for life, building a world for other veterans every day.
This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.
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Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.