SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is home to more than 160,000 veterans — and a growing number of them aren’t just entering the workforce after service. They’re building companies.
Veteran-owned businesses make up nearly 7% to 8% of all employer firms in the San Antonio metro area, according to data compiled by the San Antonio Business Journal from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey — almost double the national average of 4.65%.
Texas is home to roughly 213,000 veteran-owned businesses, and San Antonio consistently ranks as a top-20 U.S. city for veteran entrepreneurs.
Kelsey Waters is one of them.
Waters served as a Marine Corps communications officer from 2009 to 2012, responsible for keeping networks running in the field — sometimes out of the back of a Humvee.
“The joke in my community is — if it plugs in, you’re responsible for it,” she said.
After leaving the Corps, Waters spent years working in the tech sector before co-founding Openlane in August 2024. The San Antonio-based startup is an AI-powered platform that helps small businesses pass security audits and compliance certifications — essentially helping them prove to potential customers that they can be trusted.
The idea came from years of frustration with the way that work was being done.
“After most of my career running these systems manually — using a spreadsheet to track every piece of evidence — I just said, ‘Wow, this is kind of insanely inefficient,’” Waters said. “My two co-founders and I sat down and said, ‘I think we could build something that is materially better.’”
She says the instinct to go solve that problem didn’t come from the tech world. It came from the Marine Corps.
“I really think that’s actually a very military skill set — to take the initiative, have the bias for action, and say, ‘Hey, what is out there does not meet people’s needs,’” she said. “I think I can build something that does.”
Waters has been a Geekdom member since 2020 and recently received a $30,000 investment through the Geekdom Community Fund. Brian Sierakowski, entrepreneur in residence at Geekdom, says the support system matters — because starting a business is harder than most people expect.
“When you’re building a business, nothing’s fixed,” Sierakowski said. “There’s basically an infinite number of permutations of how you can get to success — and that’s the most challenging thing.”
For veterans specifically, Waters says the skills are already there. The missing piece is usually community.
“You already know deeply about responsibility, about bias for action,” she said. “Surround yourself with good mentors, find a good community. We actually have a good cohort of current military, veteran, and reservist founders operating right here in San Antonio today.”
As for the hurdles that come with starting any business — Waters isn’t fazed.
“Founders are going to be founders,” she said. “Especially veterans — we’re not easily dissuaded from much of anything.”
SA Startup and Tech Week is underway next week, with more than 40 free sessions across three downtown locations — Geekdom, Central Library, and Texas Public Radio. Register and find the full schedule here.
Read also:
