Everyone has a story.
Here's the through-line in ours.
Our Story
We didn't set out to be consultants. We noticed that nobody was serving impact-driven builders with practical, holistic guidance they could actually use. What we found instead was expensive advice that led nowhere sustainable. So we decided to be the change we wanted to see in the world.
That began in 2013. Since then, EPIC Mission has served more than 200 organizations across the country — from a U.S. office of a Japanese global software firm to an Appalachian grassroots ministry taking its first leap of faith.
The work narrowed as it deepened.
The range looks like scope creep. It is the opposite.
A history of more than two hundred organizations is two hundred looks at the same failure from different angles — the program that runs well and leads nowhere, the founder who is ready with no one to be ready for, the capital that sits still while the talent leaves. You cannot see a pattern like that from inside one institution. You see it by having been in enough rooms.
Cradle to Capital is what the pattern became.
The record
TAUGHT
Undergraduate entrepreneurship built and taught at Marshall University as adjunct instructor and executive-in-residence. Visiting entrepreneur-in-residence and program advisory board at Marietta College. Inaugural team member of the WV Governor's School of Entrepreneurship — 40+ high school founders per cohort. Co-founded the West Virginia Innovation and Business Model Competition; its first team went to the international competition at Brigham Young University.
BUILT
EPIC Mission, founded 2013 — 200+ clients across twenty states, with distributed consulting teams across eight states. SAFE College Funding co-founded, built, and exited. The Social Impact Canvas, a proprietary venture-design tool. Systems diagnosis and ecosystem mapping across some of the hardest social problems there are — human trafficking, substance use disorder, homelessness.
INVESTED AND DILIGENCED
Multiple committed-capital angel and micro-VC funds directly managed, including operational turnarounds of underperforming funds. An investor-education institute designed and built from inception. Formal due diligence run across hundreds of companies inside a rural angel network. A multi-state fund network's diligence process re-architected around AI to create efficiencies and greater effectiveness.
DESIGNED FOR OTHERS
Exit to Win, a six-week exit accelerator for tech founders of color at Rutgers University. Accelerate 606, a twelve-week accelerator-in-a-box for the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky. 3 Steps to StartUp WV, a six-class master series with a companion podcast. West Virginia Innovation and Business Model Competition, a statewide competition focused on designing the core elements of an early venture.
The person who has only invested cannot see the Bridge. The person who has only taught cannot see the capital gate.
Practitioners, Not Theorists
Strong strategy and real capital rarely sit at the same table. Ours does. Our team brings decades of strategic planning, entrepreneurship built firsthand, and hands-on capital experience — the full range it takes to walk an organization or a region from idea to investment.
