Why I'm Building Team SOFAST In Public (From a Green Beret 18D)

I retired from 10th Special Forces Group as an 18 Delta. Twenty years in. Got out, looked around, and saw the same gap I'd noticed before I ever joined: civilians who want operator-grade skills get sold either fluff content or commercial coaches who never deployed.

So I started building a product line to close that gap. Pocket Coach Series. Five short-form references. Five pillars I'd hand to a teammate still learning the work.

And I decided to build it in public.

This post explains what that means, why I'm doing it that way, and what you can expect to see if you choose to follow along.

What "building in public" means here

It means I show the whole curve — not just the wins. The first sale. The second. The silent weeks. The channels that work. The channels that don't. The revenue numbers, the ad spend, the customer count, the deliverability bounces, the failed launches.

Most "tactical" creators show only the highlight reel. I think that's a disservice to the operators and builders watching. The reality of starting a brand from scratch — even with serious credentials behind it — is that nobody knows you yet, the first traffic you get is family and friends, and you spend the first few months mostly figuring out what works.

Showing that curve honestly is more useful to the next operator who wants to build something than another "day in the life" content piece.

Why I'm doing it this way

Three reasons.

First: I owe it to the civilian community. We were trained by civilians before we ever earned a tab. Paramedics taught us trauma response. Race drivers taught us evasive driving. Strength coaches taught us programming. Marksmanship coaches taught us the rifle. Those civilians handed us their craft, we tactically sharpened it, and now I'm handing it back. The product line is the formal mechanism for that handoff.

Second: the operator community as a whole is undervalued in the marketplace. Veterans run small businesses at higher rates than the general population, but most of those businesses are physical service work — security, contracting, training. Very few are scaled products. I want to show that an operator can build a brand the same way a Silicon Valley founder builds a SaaS company — with metrics, transparency, and a community that watches the numbers in real time.

Third: I'm tired of "tactical" being a marketing word emptied of meaning. The genre is full of LARP content, Instagram filters, and gear porn dressed up as expertise. Real operators see right through it, but it's confusing for civilians trying to learn. By naming what is and isn't operator-grade — and by showing exactly how the doctrine got built — I'm trying to draw the line clearly.

What you'll see from us, weekly

Every Sunday: a Tribe Drop email with the week's new content, sales numbers, and the most useful field reference. (Subscribe in the footer of any blog post to get on the list.)

Every Friday: a public revenue + metrics update. Total customers. Channels driving sales. Channel cost. What worked, what didn't.

Daily on TikTok / Instagram / Facebook Reels: short-form operator content tied to the pillars. Five pillars: tactical medicine, defensive driving, strength under load, protector mindset, survival doctrine.

Long-form on YouTube and the Patreon brotherhood: deeper teardowns, behind-the-scenes builds, ride-along training sessions, and member Q&A.

On the blog (this site): a new long-form field reference every week. Each one is a piece of the doctrine carved into something a civilian can pick up and use.

Where we are right now — Week 1

As of this post:

• Pocket Coach Series Volume 1: all 5 books live in digital, paperback, and Signature Edition formats

• Audiobook catalog: 3 of 5 live (Tac-Med + Driving + Strength). Protector + Survival in production.

• Distribution: Amazon (KDP), Gumroad, Shopify, and moving through Draft2Digital to Apple Books / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Google Play / Scribd this week

• Free conditioning app: SOFAST Groundwork on the App Store, 5/5 stars

• Blog: 7 long-form field references live (this one included)

• Lifetime customer revenue from this whole catalog: still small. The work to grow it is the public part.

The lifetime revenue number is on purpose. The whole point is to show you the curve. If we never published the starting point, you couldn't measure the growth.

How you can help if you want to

Three asks, in order of effort.

One — read a Pocket Coach. If you like it, tell one person. That's how books grow.

Pocket Coach Series digital bundle on Gumroad: 5 books, $34.99 instant download

Or hand-shipped from Patch on Shopify: Signature Edition paperbacks, $14.99 each

Two — if you train, train with us. The Groundwork app is free. The doctrine inside is the same doctrine I'd hand a teammate.

Free SOFAST Groundwork app on the App Store: Download here

Three — if you want to support the build directly, the Patreon brotherhood is where the deepest content goes. Long-form videos, behind-the-scenes work, direct Q&A, member-only references.

Team SOFAST Patreon: patreon.com/TeamSOFAST

Why I think this works

It works because the operator community wants brands that aren't lying to them. It works because the civilian community wants content from people who actually did the work, not actors playing operator. It works because building openly attracts the people who matter and filters out the people who don't.

And it works because the doctrine itself is good. The Pocket Coach Series isn't marketing dressed as content. It's content I'd hand a teammate. The customers feel that immediately.

Stay frosty.

---

— Patch

Jeffrey "Patch" Adams · Green Beret · 18 Delta · 10th SFG retired · Team SOFAST

---

Get the Free Tac-Med Quick Reference Card

Civilian trauma response in one pocket-sized page. Sent free to your inbox when you subscribe. Get the free card →