“There’s no reason why anybody should be building alone. There’s so many of us. We’ve all done it. We’ve all solved every problem that we could run into.”

Aaron Welch was a kid from small-town Southeast Texas when the internet changed everything. He remembers sitting at a friend’s house, chatting in real time on a green-screen computer with someone in Switzerland. For a teenager who had never traveled far from home, it was mind-bending and it set the course for everything that followed.

Aaron served in the United States Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. When he got out, he was already convinced the internet mattered, even when few businesses believed it.

“I was begging people for scraps of TV and print budget to prove the internet wasn’t a fad,” he said.

He built a career that took him through corporate giants like Cisco Systems, Rackspace, Google, HP, and IBM. He raised $5 million in venture capital on his very first pitch and then got fired from that same business. He was downsized out of corporate America twice. Each time, he rebuilt. Each time, a little wiser and a little more certain that he was done playing by someone else’s rules.

Today, Aaron is on his fourth business, Lift Digital Marketing, a veteran-owned, full-service digital agency serving primarily service-based businesses such as accountants, lawyers, therapists, IT firms, and insurance professionals. He was a Google Ads beta tester in 2001 and has been active in AI-driven marketing long before it became a buzzword. But the technical expertise is only part of it. What Aaron really sells is story.

“I love hearing people’s stories. I love telling people’s stories,” he said. “That’s where the why matters.”

“Nobody’s going to take care of us like us. Help is readily available, probably for free.”

When Aaron moved to the Chicago area about two and a half years ago, he arrived knowing exactly two people. He went looking for a veteran business community to plug into and couldn’t find one. So he built one. That search led him to found the Chicagoland Veteran Business Owners nonprofit, which eventually connected him with the Veteran Business Project team.

He has since joined VBP as a business coach and Advisory Board member, contributing directly to the vharmony matchmaking program and bringing the same candid, no-gurus-allowed approach to coaching that has shaped his own entrepreneurial journey. It is a natural fit for someone who has taught digital marketing at the University of Miami and North Carolina State University and holds an MBA, but more than credentials, it is lived experience that he brings to the table.
What drives him is a number he can’t stop thinking about: in the greater Chicagoland area alone, there are an estimated 35,000 veteran-owned businesses. Too many of them are building in isolation. And some of them never find their way out of it.

“It does feel like when you’re on this entrepreneurial path, you’re walking alone,” he said. “But there’s no reason why anybody should be building alone. There’s so many of us. We’ve all done it. We’ve all solved every problem that we could run into.”

His message to any veteran considering entrepreneurship is direct: reach out. Don’t be afraid to ask. One conversation can change the trajectory.