While Chris Fuelling, CEO of LendingWise, describes himself in terms of tenacity, gumption, and fortitude—all undoubtedly true—a solutions-first core and builder’s heart is where the real story is. It’s why he launched his first business and pivoted that business thrice over. And it’s ultimately what drives his expectations for himself, his team, and the private lending industry he serves.

At the Drafting Table

The year was 2006. Fuelling was in his 20s and working as a wholesale mortgage account executive at Alliance Bancorp in Florida, selling Alt-A and subprime loans. Frustrated by the inefficient methods brokers used to communicate loan details with lenders—namely phone, email, and fax—he decided to build a platform designed to streamline these interactions. Via this mini web portal, essentially a broker-to-lender marketplace, brokers could send him their deals, and he could quickly review and price out scenarios.

“There had to be a better, more efficient way to communicate and partner with these brokers to handle their loans, inquiries, and other details,” he recalled. “I had an epiphany to build some software to make my job easier,” Fuelling said. “Fill out this information on a webpage and let me look at it. I’ll submit it back to you with a click of a button.”

There was just one small problem: Fuelling didn’t have a technical background. Not one to let “problems” stand in his way, he went hunting for a solution.  He found it in a developer whose expertise in software development was the perfect marriage with Fuelling’s extensive understanding of the mortgage industry.

Working together, the duo devised The Loan Post, the cornerstone of Fuelling’s vision for a more interconnected mortgage industry and one with greater transparency and efficiency.

“People were still used to doing desktop-based software back in that time. So, it was pretty innovative to roll something out over the cloud,” he said.

By 2008, the platform was being used by more than a thousand brokers and several hundred lenders who were eager for a solution to the tedious and time-consuming process of loan brokering.

Change Orders

The runaway success of Fuelling’s first entrepreneurial effort wasn’t the only thing happening in 2008. The financial crisis was on a roll, and along with the nation, testing all Fuelling’s initial constructs. As the housing market collapsed, so did the relevance of The Loan Post.

To compensate, he pivoted the platform toward loan modification, short sale, foreclosure defense, and REO management software, rapidly remodeling his business structure in response to shifting market pressures.

“It was an interesting time,” recalled Fuelling. “It was a scary time, but I took advantage of it. … I took my existing software, I tweaked it a little bit, and I had a client base that wanted that type of service anyway.”

The remodeled platform aided distressed homeowners by connecting them with loan modification or short-sale-related services, eventually becoming a leading avenue to assist managing distressed mortgages through HAMP, HAFA, and other subsidized programs. Fuelling recalls that despite increased regulatory requirements in the aftermath of the mortgage meltdown, The Loan Post supported over a thousand loss mitigation companies and more than one million homeowners.

During this period, Fuelling said he learned valuable lessons. Chief among them were proactive compliance, including working cooperatively with regulatory bodies, and the importance of implementing rigorous user vetting procedures to maintain the platform’s integrity while subverting loan modification scammers seeking to use the platform to defraud vulnerable homeowners.

Perhaps the greatest lesson he learned was a personal one: His experiences during this time tested the adaptability and resilience he’d relied on since starting his business in 2006. This resilience became a keystone of The Loan Post’s DNA, helping it to thrive in a turbulent market.

Construction Phase

But by 2016, the housing market had finally stabilized and loss mitigation cooled.

“It was like, wait a second. No one needs my software anymore,” Fuelling said. “Loan mods? Short sales? What’s that? Who needs that? Everything’s back to normal now. The writing on the wall was coming, but I had built my software to be flexible and adaptable.”

He said he had to “do a little work” to tweak the software and seize the opportunity to build a platform that supported the regrowth of the loan origination side of the industry. LendingWise was born out of The Loan Post’s foundation.

The again-retailored platform aimed to provide custom solutions, this time for a private lender userbase.

“Having seen a lot of hard money and private money lenders actively involved in the short sale side of transactions, I saw an opportunity to build an LOS platform,” Fuelling said. Additionally, fewer regulatory constraints in the private lending market afforded LendingWise greater flexibility to bring new solutions to its clients without an additional

layer of complexity in coordinating lenders’ compliance requirements.

“Within a year of tweaking the existing loan management platform and a rebrand to LendingWise, we were able to go to market on Day One with a very robust, feature-rich professional software system,” Fuelling said.

LendingWise made its private lending industry debut in 2017 at AAPL’s 8th Annual Conference. “What a phenomenal way to meet all the major players in the private lending space,” said Fuelling of the event, “[It was] our first stop to make a splash.”

Finish Work

The goal at LendingWise is to give every lending company a solution that is both turnkey and flexible.

“It’s no easy task to fully adopt a system,” he said. “I have spoken to so many private lenders that have been unsuccessful in their tech rollouts, whether it be off-the-shelf providers, custom Salesforce, or Hubspot, or true custom software from scratch. I would say there are more failures than successes with the build-your-own method.”

Fuelling understands that personally – the reason so many lenders have issues, he says, is also what makes building a turnkey platform like LendingWise such a challenge. Private lenders each set their own loan criteria and origination procedures so there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but to Fuelling, there’s still a common thread. “The truly big problem for all organizations is creating a system that seamlessly connects each department,” he said. “Our goal is to give every company an operating platform that has an easy-to-use and easy-to-configure framework.”

Among many features, the company meets these needs by serving up modules and fields with built-in on/off switches and other configuration options. Its community of more than 300 lenders and brokers can build their own workflows, templates, and reporting, all without coding.

At the heart of Fuelling’s strategy and dating back to The Loan Post platform is a client-centric approach. His method involves an active feedback loop where every client “has a voice.” Along with traditional communication tools like tickets and phone support, the company offers “upvoting,” which allows users to vote for features or suggest new features that all users can see and vote on. Additionally, Fuelling assembled a group of LendingWise’s top customers to form an advisory board that he refers to as his “angel clients.” They give the LendingWise team insights into the evolving needs of the industry and guide the platform’s solutions-focused development.

Drafting the Next Project

Fuelling envisions a bright and expansive future for both his company and the industry. His plans include broadening the platform to accommodate a wider array of features compatible with other vendors, but with a focus on each addition enhancing the collective functionality of the platform as a whole.

“I look forward to adding many more integrations that work with other platforms and third-party vendors like inspections, appraisals, due diligence services, capital markets, and more,” he said. “We chose the name LendingWise because it can handle everything related to lending. Lending is a big industry. We chose to focus primarily on private lending when we launched, but our big picture would be to cover more lending products outside of private lending.”

The Vision Behind the Build

Chris Fuelling’s career in the mortgage and private lending industry reflects the mindset of an entrepreneurial master builder: Visionary thinking, strategic problem-solving, focus on quality and longevity, and always looking ahead. From identifying cracks in the structure to redesigning strategies during economic shifts and expanding his plans to create comprehensive solutions, Fuelling is building more than a platform. He says he’s reshaping the evolving world of private lending.

“I’ve learned that I’m a true entrepreneur at heart. I love taking nothing and turning it into something, taking an idea and executing on it. The challenges behind that are thrilling and exciting. It gets me up every day and keeps me going—and I couldn’t have it any other way.”

To keep himself productive and motivated, Fuelling works on developing habits that help him consistently plan, manage, and delegate.

“Since I started the business, I’ve done a lot and continue to do a lot myself,” he said. “As I transition away from managing and doing tasks in each department, I’m learning to let go. That leaves me more time for hearing and solving problems, and helping my team be more mission and goal focused.”

Fuelling drives his team to meet every problem with an idea for a potential solution, and then having the confidence to implement that solution themselves. “Part of truly leading is hiring the right people,” he said. “You’re inspiring the people. You’re motivating them. You’re coaching them, right? It’s not you doing the work. It’s inspiring them to do the work that you do. … It’s funny, I talk about how important it is to create systems, standard operating procedures, KPIs, etc., and I’m starting to realize how important it is to eat my own dog food and practice what I preach and teach.”

Our final two cents: While Fuelling says he hates being presented with a problem but no solution, he’s also made a career of building innovations that meet that need–and created a team that thrives in that mindset with him.