Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Willis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

David, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

After leaving the Marines in 2004, like most veterans I was lost. I didn’t have a sense of purpose or the camaraderie that I had while serving. So I found it while volunteering at local veteran service organizations in my area. After 18 years of doing that I was burned out and discouraged after my last service organization. So I took a two year break from doing anything veteran related. During this time my wife Julie told me that my anxiety and PTS was getting worse and that I needed to find something that would help combat what was going on. So i had toyed around with doing a podcast and bought the stuff to do a podcast but it had been collecting dust in the basement. So i started researching other veteran podcasters to see what they were doing and talking about. What I noticed no one was focusing on veteran service organizations, which was something I knew a lot about. That is what I decided to do.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I served in the Marines from 97-01 and then 02-04. After doing veteran charity work for almost 20 years I decided to move into a more creative space doing a podcast called HomeFront Sitrep where we focus on veteran service organizations from around the country. The mom and pop charities that still care about the veteran and don’t see us as a number. On the podcast we bring in guest that talk about different issues that veterans face. We also bring in veteran singers, authors, comedians and business owners to tell their stories. What I am most proud of is that we are who we say we are. As long as we help one veteran a day then we completed our mission. I have also created a collaboration with other veteran podcasters from around the country. We have been ranked as the number 1 veteran podcast according to feedspot.com currently we are sitting at number two.

Have you ever had to pivot?

After serving in the Marines and then serving in veteran service organizations I had to make a change in what I was doing to continue to serve my brothers and sisters. My last service organization that I was involved with was doing amazing things until the founder lost his way. He turned out to be very controlling and everything was about him and not the people that help build the organization into what it was. It was very hard to leave the organization that I had helped build into a nationally known organization. After leaving the organization I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I pivoted and started a podcast that focuses on veteran service organizations. Now this is my form of therapy.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I decided to start the podcast I created a Facebook page and started inviting friends that supported my mission. Once the podcast started taking off I created other social media accounts and started building there. My most recent was TikTok where we currently have almost 2000 followers. My best advice is stay true to who you are and grow organically

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.homefrontsitrep.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Abq47dsBM/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@homefrontsitrep?si=9sbYl2S6aoyHpc-h