The operator
From the graveyard up.
Ten years in the Air Force. Two combat-zone deployments. An MBA from NYU Stern. Four years in big tech. Then I bought a business and lost everything I had signed for.
Jed Morris · San Diego
The service
United States Air Force. Ten years active duty, finance and defense acquisition. Two combat-zone deployments.
NYU Stern
MBA. The formal education. The expensive lessons came later.
Big tech
Four years across Microsoft, AWS, and HP.
2021
Launched a self-funded search. Nights, weekends, and a conviction that ownership was the way.
2023
Bought two landscaping companies and merged them. $2.5M in revenue. 35 employees. The dream, on paper.
2024 · the fracture
Eight months in, it collapsed. Missed payroll. Closed the doors June 3, 2024. More than $1M in personally guaranteed debt. The business went bankrupt, and a legal settlement cost our family its home.
The autopsy
I interviewed 60+ failed and struggling buyers. I read the crash reports nobody publishes.
Today
San Diego. I run Sunset Coast Partners, still sourcing and closing, and I teach the system at Searcher School.
The evidence
What the graveyard taught me
“Of the failures I’ve studied, 65 percent involve material seller fraud or misrepresentation.”
Nobody told me that when I was buying. Every incentive in the room pointed at the closing table: the broker’s fee, the lender’s loan, the seller’s exit. Mine was the only capital at risk. That is why Searcher School teaches the way aviation teaches: crash reports before flight hours. Checklists over confidence.
The front door
Why the front door is free
Quite frankly, I don’t care if you ever pay me a dollar. I care that you have the right information before you sign a personal guarantee, because I know exactly what the wrong information costs. The community is free. The systems are real. Use them.