
This is software (AWS) generated transcription and it is not perfect.
yes, So that's quite the question to start off with. It's been a journey I started my career is an entrepreneur right out out of college. I studied at BYU and played soccer there and want it and have been an entrepreneur, kind of, you know, as a young kid thinking about like all those things. And I found out about a entrepreneurial program similar to the TV show The Apprentice, where there was about 100 students that applied. 20 of us were selected and we went through an eight week boot camp and where we did sales competitions and marketing competitions, and we learned all about entrepreneurship. We had a bunch of mentors, and at the end of that eight week competition they gave 55 entrepreneurs $50,000 to start their business, and I was fortunate to be one of those five. And, uh, that money helped me get things on the ground. I went out. I could use that money anyway, that I chose Teoh be able to buy a business or start a business. And as I was out exploring different business, idea is one of the challenges that I consistently came across from other business owners was that they had a difficult time getting the capital. They need to start and grow their business. Um, so, uh, we originally started a business called Funding Universe where we're connecting entrepreneurs to angel investors. Kind of in a speed dating format. Um, you like a business. You post your business plan and the investors would come and look at it and, you know, not quite swipe right. Swipe left like they do today. But something similar Onda And then we realized that the demand for capital was high. But most businesses weren't going to raise money from Angel and venture capitalists. They needed debt financing lines of credit term loans SPL. So he pivoted our business and went from 10 million in revenue to zero overnight and, uh, and launch Lindy A in 2011. And we've been running yet ever since. And and so it's been quite a journey of highs and lows, and those were just a very short version of it, But that Z how I got to where I am today.
Yeah. So Linda is the largest marketplace the United States for business loans. Eso think expedient it for is for hotels or yelp for restaurants. Lindy O is for business lending. Um, eso We have funded a business owner comes us, fills out an application and then gets access to many lenders and comparison shop. The all the different loan offers the rate, the term the payment amount and choose the loan product. That is the best fit for them. And we have funded now over 225,000 businesses for about $10 billion. We have about 400 team members on the team and growing very, very quickly. And s o The pain point is that there's millions of businesses that need capital and they go to their bank and they apply for a loan. They get declined. They didn't. They need a better experience. And so we have created that. Give them a place to shop for it online. Um and we call it fueling the American Dream, meaning that business business owners have this dream to grow their business, and they need the capital to make it happen. And that's what we do
man the first few weeks That feels like an eternity ago. Uh, it's been a long time, but, you know, I think one of the things that I learned it was for that first little while is, you know, being in Australia, you get really excited about you know, your your website and your your business cards and your logo and all these things that really don't matter. What really matters is you know, your are your customers willing to pay for your product, you have product market fit on DSO. Probably the lesson that I learned is revenue cures. All ills really focus on the customer, focus on their pain and how you're going to solve that problem, and then the rest of that stuff will take care of itself.