A startup founder who served time in prison is looking to court an untapped market: ex-cons

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Richard Bronson, an entrepreneur who recently launched a startup called Commissary Club, has an unusual background for a founder. In a previous life, he spent time in prison. Back in the 1980s, Bronson worked for the notorious Stratton Oakmont, the corruption-riddled brokerage firm that was run by Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, whose story became a 2013 film. The firm collapsed in the mid-90s under the weight of misconduct accusations. Bronson was a partner at Stratton, but left after a year to start his own firm in South Florida. He was quite successful in that venture, until he wasn't. Bronson told TechCrunch, "...I built a $100 million business, taking these small-cap companies public." Some of the success, however, came through breaking the law, securities laws, and ultimately, as I knew inevitably would happen, I had to pay the price. I lost everything, and most significantly, my freedom, and I was sent to federal prison for a couple of years. Bronson has been out of prison for a long time now, but he has never forgotten the struggles he had when he initially emerged from prison. Nobody would hire me, despite all of my education and work experience and everything else. I was, like, completely radioactive. Bronson's experience after prison helped inform his current startup, an employment-focused social media platform called Commissary Club, which takes its name from the store inside a prison where inmates buy snacks and toiletries. The site is specifically marketed to ex-cons and uses AI to help them navigate the often confusing process of finding employment and housing after they re-enter the world. Bronson said, I could not help but notice how little assistance was available to people coming out of prison. If it was this bad for me, what about the guys I was in prison with who had very little education and very little job experience? What were their chances? Commissary Club also had a social component, which Bronson said he added because he knows how isolating the post-prison experience can be. It's almost like Facebook, he said, where people can not only find jobs and get the help with the jobs and the housing and access to benefits, but they find the other missing ingredient that's existentially important to them that is not satisfied elsewhere. They find community. Judging by the site, Commissary Club also appears primed to become a referral network, and it offers a way for users to find dates. For now, Bronson's startup is a team of two, just him and his co-founder, Roman Kissen, who Bronson called the technical mind or the brains behind the project. Kissen previously worked for eBay and IBM, and between 2022 and 2025, he served as the CTO of LexisNexis, according to his