A dentist Stu knew from church retired after decades of practice and just closed the doors. 

Didn't sell it. Didn't know he could. Just locked up and walked away from what could have been 

a real exit. Jason Morris heard the story and said it almost happened to a company he knows 

every week.

Rich Jarvis is the founder of Epic Capital Funds — $830 million under management, $3.4 billion 

in the pipeline — and Jason Morris is his partner at Impact Equity Partners, a 14-year portfolio 

CEO turned business acquirer. Together they sat down with Stu to talk through how private equity 

actually works, what they look for when buying founder-built businesses, and what most 

entrepreneurs get wrong about building for an exit.

What they cover:

→ A Lake Tahoe hotel project that took nine years just to get through entitlement — the first hotel approved in Tahoe City in over 60 years

→ The "SUCCEED" model: Structure, Underwriting, Core teams, Capital stack, Exit strategy, Execution, Due diligence — how they vet every deal

→ What a portfolio CEO actually does: 14 years of managing companies inside PE portfolios, hitting metrics, getting to exit

→ Buying a hypoallergenic adhesive manufacturer in Oregon (biggest industry: gel nails) — and the bolt-on DTC brand merger that followed

→ Three non-emergency transportation companies under contract, plus an auto repair company to service their fleet

→ The dentist who closed his doors on 40 years of work without selling — and why Stu nearly cried

→ "Second bite of the apple": how Rich and Jason structure deals so founders can share in the upside again when they sell

→ Reviewing 3,000 companies in one year — and how discipline in the "buy box" gets you from chaos to traction

→ Why focusing on revenue instead of profit is the most common alignment failure in growing companies

→ Rich's weekly non-negotiable: "clarity breaks" — out of the office, asking two questions, revisiting the why

→ The EOS/Traction framework and why most of their portfolio companies attribute scalability directly to it

→ Why raising capital is about relationships first, transactions second — and how Rich built $830M AUM through RIA relationships, not direct investor pitches

→ How Stu raised money for Stu Kent: not through one big ask, but decades of being a trusted person

🔗 CONNECT WITH RICH JARVIS

Epic Capital Funds: epiccapitalfunds.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH JASON MORRIS

Impact Equity Partners: impactequitypartners.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STU

Instagram: @stu

Website: https://startupswithstu.com

📌 CHAPTERS

00:00 – Intro: two guests, two companies, one whiteboard week in Boise

03:30 – Rich Jarvis: first rental in 1998, lost everything 2008-2011, restarted in 2019

07:00 – Epic Capital Funds: $830M AUM, $3.4B pipeline, what those numbers actually mean

10:30 – The Lake Tahoe hotel: 9 years to entitlement, first approval in 60 years

13:00 – Jason Morris: 14 years as a portfolio CEO — what that job actually is

17:00 – The whiteboard week in Boise that launched Impact Equity Partners

20:30 – What they buy: cash-flowing, 10+ year businesses with lifestyle-owner upside

24:00 – The dentist story: closed the doors after 40 years without selling a thing

27:30 – Second bite of the apple: how deal structure gives founders another payday

31:00 – First acquisition: Oregon hypoallergenic adhesive manufacturer (gel nails → DTC)

35:00 – HVAC company, three NEMT companies, and an auto repair bolt-on

38:30 – 3,000 companies reviewed, a disciplined buy box, and saying no to shiny objects

42:00 – Revenue vs. profit: the alignment failure that kills growing companies

45:00 – Rich's clarity breaks and why he considers them the most important hour of his week

48:30 – EOS/Traction, scorecards, rocks, and one source of truth

52:00 – RIA relationships: how $830M AUM came from fewer, deeper relationships — not a big list

55:30 – How to raise capital: relationships over transactions, value over asks

58:00 – Measuring life from the rocking chair: 5,000 lives impacted vs. Standing Room Only

⚠️ Note: Timestamps are estimated from transcript flow — swap to actual timecodes before publishing.

#entrepreneur #startups #founderstory #privateequity #realestate #businessacquisition #smallbusiness #exitstrategy #investing #epiccapitalfunds