Why Innovation Requires Risk When Running a Tech Company

Why Innovation Requires when Running a Tech Company Risk

Veronica Nguyen, co-founder and EVP of BeSmartee, recounts her journey as a woman leading a digital mortgage firm — and embracing risk and innovation — in an era of rapid technological change in the mortgage industry.

BY VERONICA NYUGEN

As a woman in business with my husband, I realize he is more of a risk-taker than I am. And here’s why: he will always make the big bet, and will put everything on the line for the big win. On the other hand, when making big decisions, I look at things from a different lens: I look at the odds, the risk, and the reward. I ask myself questions like, “What happens if this doesn’t work out?” or “What happens if we are successful?” or “Am I willing to put everything on the line?”

RISKING IT ALL FOR INNOVATION

Now, when I talk about risk, I want to make it clear that I am not saying women are less likely to take risks than men. As a matter of fact, I think women take risks every day. Some of us just have a different approach when doing so. In order to innovate and run a successful company, you have to take chances, especially in today’s digital world, where change is swift and certain.

So, when the market hit rock bottom in 2008, we decided to risk it all.

Out of my comfort zone? Yes.

Necessary? Without question.

INNOVATING AT BeSmartee

When we started BeSmartee, I stopped playing it safe. It was time to bet all my chips. The economy was already going down, and mortgage companies were at their worst. How much worse could it get?

Well, for starters, we weren’t able to raise venture capital money. At the time, investors didn’t understand our product or realize the impact it would have on the mortgage industry. We were on the brink of something huge, but no one could see it!

This could have made us pull back, but it only fueled our fire. Now, we knew that we were ahead of the game, and with a pretty strong hand.

BEFORE: WHAT WE’VE LEARNED ON THIS JOURNEY

Letting Go of Control Did people really want to be able to get a mortgage online in 2008? We thought so. Why wouldn’t you want to be able to get a mortgage the same way you get a plane ticket? We were already creating a 10-minute mortgage application around the time Facebook was launching the “like” button. But... the industry was not ready.

At the time, people couldn’t understand our vision for online mortgages. They also couldn’t see how it would work. Either the integrations and automations were beyond their capabilities or they didn’t have the money to invest because they were trying to keep their businesses afloat. I could have looked at this as a failure, but I didn’t. It was neither good nor bad. “Lo que sera, sera,” as the saying goes.

Validating Online Mortgages

Soon Rocket Mortgage debuted their own product. This validated the concept, but lenders were still skeptical of how BeSmartee could automate the origination process, even when we had blueprints from 2008.

We kept pushing because we believed in our vision. Today, we’re still committed to making mortgages easy, fast, and transparent.

As women in technology, we have to take risks because innovation requires it. Take a look at NASA. How many times do they have to test their rockets before sending them to space? Even when they do send them to space, they still sometimes fail. But they continue pushing. This is the same thing we do here at BeSmartee.

Dealing with Legacy Systems

As we integrated our new technology into systems that lenders had already implemented, we realized that legacy systems were

structured so differently; we had to create work arounds so that we could still provide a seamless experience for the user, no matter what. Legacy systems were not made for today's environment but they are an important part of the back-end process. Mortgage POS systems are customer-centric, meeting today's customer behaviors and needs.

TODAY: HOW WE’VE ADAPTED

Like with all innovation, people must adapt to change. Often, it takes time for the majority to fully accept new ways of thinking and doing. We’ve seen this first-hand on this journey. Here, at BeSmartee, we focus on the following:

Risk

The mortgage industry already has a lot of risks, but it also has a lot of rewards when helping borrowers find the homes of their dreams. This is true for us when we started building our Mortgage Point-of-Sale platform. We saw an opportunity to create an easier, faster and more transparent process for consumers and lenders. Now, this required risk because we went from a Point-of-Sale to a robust and configurable digital platform to building brand new products.

Encouragement

After not being able to raise funding in 2008, we could have just said, “forget it.” But we pushed through. We brought the same blueprint back to the table and started building. As leaders, we need to be the voice of encouragement for our team members when something does not work. Encouragement is needed in all phases of a start-up because you're working on a project that has so much uncertainty. But, when the vision becomes a reality, and when that vision grows beyond what you could have imagined, it’s all worth it. Pushing Forward

When building technology, especially one that touches so many parts of the origination process, there are setbacks. For example, consider when legacy systems cannot connect to new technology. This delays projects, but innovation cannot stop. We must keep pushing forward. No matter how another system operates, there are always ways to make the overall experience better, and that is something our organization understands.

Agility

We have always built technology in agile environments. Agility in technology is what allows us to keep innovating and continue making changes rapidly as things evolve. For us, it means listening to our clients’ needs and pain points, and moving to a strategic solution together, quickly. With the ever-changing regulation in the mortgage industry, including major changes such as the new URLA, agility technology is the only way to continue making improvements.

IN CLOSING

The mortgage industry has come a long way as far as technology innovation is concerned: from eClosing, to eSigning, to the entire loan process happening in a digital platform sans siloed systems.

In order to get to the next step of innovation, and continue to transform the lives of end users, we need to continue to take risks and ask ourselves, “Where else can we innovate mortgages to improve the lives of end users?”

Veronica Nguyen is co-founder and executive vice president of BeSmartee, Inc., an original founder of the modern digital mortgage and developer of Digital Mortgage Platforms for megabanks, credit unions and non-bank lending institutions.

Inner VIEW

Claudia E. Duncan Founder and CEO, QC Verify cduncan@qcverify.com

Question #1

Can you give us an inner view of your company and the solutions your present?

QC Verify is a unique tool designed to incorporate efficiencies and costeffective solutions to the lending and Quality Control verification process. As leaders in the Quality Control space, it seems inconsistent that income and employment continue to be predominantly verified and reverified manually. This practice can be cumbersome, create process delays, and is prone to fraud risk. Under pandemic influence, overseeing a manual verification process becomes even more complex as many industries migrate to remote work environments. QC Verify fully automates the verification and reverification of income and employment, as well as rental history and gift letter acknowledgement. The QC Verify platform offers a secure environment that greatly simplifies processes required by regulators, government agencies and investors for processing, underwriting, pre-close and post-close quality control of mortgages.

Question #2 What are the benefits of QC Verify?

The QC Verify platform offers process improvement and technology innovation: • Complete all verification related tasks in an automated and efficient manner. • Yields cost savings by eliminating cumbersome manual processes and reducing fulfillment costs. • Provides process oversight, status tracking and verification reporting. • Improves turn times for receipt of verification documents and data confirmation. • Prevents misrepresentation of propagation of borrower fraud. • Greatly improves turn times for receipt of verification documents and data confirmation. • Automates antiquated processes, including document preparation and mailings. • Users can have one ecosystem to manage the process that includes the option to print, email or fax a document. • Offers the ability to bundle and export verification requests. • Enables data field and checklists customization or access to templates for ease of setup. • Provides secure verification processes incorporating SOC 2, SSL certification and encryption. • Captures IP address for added security. • Reinforces long term data security by deleting all documents once the verification process is complete.

Question #3

Who needs your services?

The QC Verify portal was originally designed to fulfill the quality control process of reverification of documents as established by investor and regulatory agencies. These verifications usually include employment, income, assets, rent, mortgage, occupancy, and gift documentation. Although the QC Verify portal is clearly used as a tool to validate quality control documentation and processes, it can easily be implemented as a working tool during the origination process for lending, processing, and underwriting departments within financial lending institutions. QC Verify provides a user-friendly portal to assist in the submission request while allowing the user to upload and encrypt the necessary documentation. The user then can track such documents and export in a secure manner. While other third-party tools provide automated access to income and/or employment data, these solutions are strictly tied to larger employers that enter into an agreement with the vendor. Numerous applicants do not work for these employers; subsequently these third-party tools are not able to verify or reverify income or employment for many loans, rental or employment candidates. QC Verify is a cost-effective revolutionary solution to aid in this process. Contact us today to learn more. www.qcverify.com