New Business Launched

I have interviewed a lot of people on the podcast about buying a small business.

• John Hubbard, a former enlisted infantryman who bought a trailer manufacturer

• Steve Ressler, a serial entrepreneur who loves to invest in veterans

• Lisa Forrest who works for Live Oak Bank, the top SBA lender in the country

(I have second episode with Lisa coming soon as well as an interview with a veteran who went bankrupt on his deal).

All that is to say, I am bullish on veterans in this space and love democratizing information for people to make informed decisions.

That’s why me and some partners launched sbalenders.co

What does it do?

1. Gives you stats on top lenders, direct from the SBA 

For example, you can see that while Chase issued about the same loan volume as First Internet Bank (147 to 193 loans) FIB had 2.5x the total volume ($438 m to $169 m).

Or that GBank did 83 loans (69% of total count) for hotels and motels. Clearly- they have a niche.

Where is this data coming from? Directly from the SBA.

2. Let borrowers see what individual lenders did

I know this may be a surprise, but not everyone is active on X and LinkedIn (shocker, I know) There are deals that happen you may never heard of. Take this from Blake Cranor at Live Oak:

If you are curious, you can access this deal and others within 2 clicks from our landing page- all without making an account.

3. Connect with individual loan officers

Ok, yeah, you can do this elsewhere also.

Here's where we are different: Loan officers are building profiles on here. They can add deal details to highlight what they have been able to get across the line. Here's my man Kirby from Acclivity:

It's huge for loan officers to showcase themselves to borrowers. Loan officers have LOVED this. They also love that borrowers can leave them reviews. Yes reviews.

Future and vision 

First- how we make money. Answer: as a loan broker. Loan officers see our vision to have a data-driven product to match lenders and borrowers and want in. They are happy to pay us a fee on closing for borrowers we drive them.

This current version isn't perfect. We know. It's got some work to be done. But we have something good enough and wanted to ship.

We have plans to use this to gather a lot more information both on borrowers and lenders. We can ask questions about a borrower's personal finances, industry experience, and get details about their deal to align with the right bank.

Banks, on the flip side, will be able to adjust their preferences for different industries, credit box, and other factors. All to save everyone time and get the best match to make the best deal happen.

If you are a borrower- create a profile. It's free. Explore the data and reach out to me. I am seriously dying to know what we can add to make this a killer product for you.

Go crush it,

Mark