People who know me from my days at Fortune 100 companies probably aren’t surprised by the shift to writing software for small businesses. After all, the companies themselves have been trying to find a way to sell their expensive software to the small to mid-size business market for years, usually with little success. Not a big surprise there – small businesses need affordable solutions, thank you.
But I think several of my peers would look askance, or be mildly surprised at least, at my choice of selling products to mortgage brokers. After all, in the financial mess we find ourselves surely it was the mortgage brokers and lenders that caused it. Right?
Could be. They certainly had a hand in it, as did speculators, Wall Street, Congress, and even Joe Public. When people see an opportunity to make money they jump in if they can. That’s how it should be. Most people call it capitalism. I’ll save my rant about homeownership being the only leverage those without large bonus packages have to get into the game for another day.
Now, I’ve heard plenty of opinions about what happened and who is to blame. But here’s the bottom line – homeowners are caught between a rock and a hard place. Most have no idea about the options that are available to them. Know who does? I’m sure you guessed it. Gold star for you, dear reader.
We all know that there are charlatans out there poised as mortgage brokers. Same for bankers, and insurance agents, and car repair shops, and … you get the idea. But there are far more honest business people, and most of the mortgage brokers that I’ve met over the last several months fall into that camp.
Having bought and sold several houses over the years, I directly received the benefit of competition between mortgage brokers and banks. So it’s good business to create software that will help them stay in business. That’s a logic any geek can grok.
Now if only there were a way to sell only to the good guys.
