Building a $100M+ FinTech Venture from Michigan: Ryan Rosett, Founder and Co-CEO of Credibly (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: So what happens after this beer thing closes?

Ryan Rosett: Then I went into real estate development. I was probably 25 or 26 at this time.

There was a large sort of family office regional real estate developer. I was interested in learning that business. That’s somewhere I could leverage my law degree. I partnered with them. I actually went in and said that I’ll work for the lowest salary possible, but I want equity in the deals that I originate.

It was an amazing learning experience. After five years of working there, I said, “I learned enough and I’m going to go out on my own.”

I partnered with somebody who brought in a different skillset than I had. We went into land development – basically building retail and residential developments. Fast forward that to 2007 and I was in metropolitan Detroit area. Michigan is automotive heavy. It was in recession, while the rest of the country was doing well. 2007 came and then the entire country, fell into the great recession.

So the profession of being of a land developer was not a profession anymore. We owned a lot of land. Land is all consuming; financially, it doesn’t kick off revenue. It’s a burden if you’re not making it productive. Largely, we’d go in and re-entitle the property for either master plan, larger developments, residential or mixed use, and then sell off pieces to large retail developers or Walmarts etc.

It’s very good when it’s good. Then when the market shifts, it becomes challenging. Even today certain businesses are experiencing interest rate pains.

I am giving you my whole career if that’s okay. Because of what was happening in the great recession, I saw an opportunity on the side of banks purging assets and selling it back to whomever the borrower was at a discount. I partnered with someone and we raised an institutional fund and we were lending money secured by real estate on discounted payoffs from banks for a period of time.

That led me to the business that I’m in today because it’s still a very good business. It was short-term one to two year bridge loans. Bridge loans were typically 50% loan to value. They were income producing and they were asset based. So you were in a senior position, you’re a senior lender on the property. In the event that something went wrong, you could always take it back and you’re buying it, you know, essentially what you deem to be at 50% value.

From there, I then founded Credibly, a small business lending platform leveraging data science. We’re a financial technology firm that provides working capital to small businesses throughout the United States. I co-own and co-CEO with Edan King. Since our inception, we’ve originated probably 50K loans and an excess of around $2.4B of lending. Our average loan size hovers around $65K, which is larger than a consumer loan, but it’s small from a nominal dollar standpoint.

Sramana Mitra: OK. What year did you start Credibly?

Ryan Rosett: In 2010.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Building a $100M+ FinTech Venture from Michigan: Ryan Rosett, Founder and Co-CEO of Credibly
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