Why Lenderfit?
While creating our own loan program and supporting other microloan products nationwide, certain systemic issues began to appear through experienced based learnings that were less evident when we first began our work in the access to capital arena. Time and again, communities across the country all described similar pain points. Small business lenders and small businesses themselves were struggling to connect in multiple ways. Struggling to discover each other, and then struggling to either create or obtain enough information to make a final loan decision.
How We Helped
As practitioners ourselves, we could certainly relate. After our initial contact with a potential borrower, lead generation being a challenge as well, the process of collecting quality information for a final decision was tricky. This lead to experimentation with different methods of data collection such as question and answer formats versus spreadsheets. We also incorporated as much automation as possible into reminder systems, and partnered with local Technical Assistance providers to solve for efficiency and quality issues.
When it was all said and done our volunteer loan committee, small business owners, and technical assistance partners were interacting across 5 or more software solutions as part of solution that was better than where we started, but still severely lacking in many ways. This lead to the creation of Lenderfit. One platform that would allow multiple users to collaborate on the same loan package. A platform that would also allow other communities to replicate our non-collateralized, non-credit score based, Growth Loan product as an additional access to capital solution.
