Travis Peace - Co-Founder of Novum Home Loans

Travis Peace, Co-Founder of Novum Home Loans, and former Navy Nuclear Engineer, sits down with Ryan to walk through his career, discuss his companies new approach to home loans, and to talk about his thoughts on hiring and being hired.

Connect with Travis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-peace/

Episode Transcript

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[MUSIC]

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>> Welcome to the Good Fit Careers podcast,
where we explore perspectives on work that fits.
I'm Ryan Dickerson, your host.
Today's guest is Travis Peace.
Travis is the president and co-founder of
Novum Home Loans, an Austin, Texas-based startup,
focused on providing great advice to
borrowers and real estate agents,
and making the process of getting a new home loan as easy as possible.

(00:25):
Travis started his career in the United States Navy after
graduating from the Naval Academy.
Travis served as a Surface Warfare Officer,
and then as a nuclear engineer before
beginning his career in the private sector.
Travis, thank you for being here.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Travis, as we think about your current job today,
I'd love for you to take a moment to explain what it is that you do and

(00:47):
where you fit within your organization.
>> Yeah, so I'm the co-founder and president of Novum Home Loans.
Myself and my two co-founders each provide a unique aspect
to building out Novum Home Loans.
I'm responsible for the growth.
One of my other co-founders is responsible for
the back-end operations and finance,
and our third co-founder is responsible for sales and service.

(01:11):
The day-to-day, what the mortgage process actually looks like
from a sales perspective and from an operations perspective.
It's exciting.
We're brand new at, it's a brand new company.
Things are going well for us right now,
but we're excited for the future,
and we really think we're on to something.
>> So you started the company about a year ago.

(01:31):
If I understand correctly, you have roughly eight employees
on your way to double digits.
Tell me a little bit about where you fit and along with your co-founders,
what the structure of your business looks like.
>> Yeah, so think of a triangle is kind of how me and my two co-founders
have come together.
So I have more of a background in marketing, business development,

(01:53):
and growth, and everything that kind of fault sales,
enablement, all those types of things.
One of my other business partners has much more of a background in operations,
finance, and kind of how the back-end mechanics of mortgage works.
And then the third co-founder,
which was a very critical piece of this,
has real-world sales and operational experience.

(02:15):
Where he's the guy that just knows how to make the widgets,
and how to create a,
how to talk to a real estate agent or a buyer,
put a loan transaction together,
and then see that it actually closes on time.
So the three of us have each part that you need
to create a successful mortgage company,

(02:35):
and now we're off to the races, and so far so good.
It seems like we're on to something.
>> Right on.
To get a sense of who you are as a person,
and then we'll hear about your whole journey.
I'd love to learn a little bit more about what were you like as a kid,
and what were your aspirations?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
>> Yeah, wow.
So I definitely did not want to be a mortgage guy when I grew up,

(02:58):
and not even, you know,
and aspirations to be in the military or anything.
I'm from Texas, from the San Antonio area.
Got two brothers, and I was kind of that typical,
how would you expect a young boy from Texas to be raised?
You know, a lot of sports, a lot outdoors, you know,
Texas stuff, hunting fish, you know, all that type of stuff.

(03:19):
Yeah, I got lucky with good parents who exposed me to just a lot of,
just, you know, there was no path that they tried to set me or any of my brothers on.
They just kind of let us, you know, figure things out for ourselves,
but there was a huge emphasis on education and taking our schooling seriously.
And so, you know, I was lucky enough where I got good grades,

(03:41):
and I was good enough at football,
that that's what actually got me into the Naval Academy.
But, you know, I was good enough at football that, you know,
I knew I was going to be, I had opportunities to play at the college level,
but I didn't really have aspirations or expectations that I'd play in the NFL.
So, you know, my parents did a great job of helping.

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I do think they kind of helped steer me towards a decision of where to play football
that would set me up for a career.
And, you know, in the late 90s, you know, from San Antonio, you got David Robinson,
you know, Roger Stalbock as a, you know, as a Cowboys fan, you know,
just the Naval Academy, the owner of it was just, you know, too great to pass up.

(04:24):
So, that's really how I landed at Naval Academy and kind of what were my winding journey,
you know, how it started.
It was really just, you know, like, I just, I decided to go to a great school
that gave me an opportunity to play football,
and then I thought could set me up for the rest of my life.
As a kid, did you want to be a professional athlete?

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I mean, like, sure, everybody wants to do it.
Every boy wants to be a professional athlete.
But, you know, as you get into high school and you kind of,
so I started going to some of these camps, you know, and I'm in Texas.
So, you know, I'm going to camps with guys that are at UT and A&M,
and, you know, I started to see, oh, I'm pretty good for San Antonio,
but when you stack me up against some of these dudes from Houston and Dallas,

(05:08):
all right, I kind of see where I fit in.
Sure. It makes a lot of sense.
And the Naval Academy is not the easiest school to get into,
nor the easiest school to graduate from.
Could you give the audience with a little bit of perspective
on how competitive it is to actually get into the Naval Academy,
and then tell us a little bit about what your experience was like
transitioning from San Antonio, having sports and hunting and fishing

(05:30):
as kind of your life to being in the Academy?
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's one of the hardest schools to get into.
And, you know, I did have an advantage where I had, you know, a football coach
who kind of helped me navigate through that application process
and helping that, you know, get through that recruiting process.

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I had never been out of tech. I hadn't been out of Texas more than maybe a week
before I landed in Annapolis, Maryland.
And, you know, it was in late June, and I'm not going to be going home
until Thanksgiving, you know, and I didn't know anybody when I got there.
But the great thing about the Naval Academy is, for the most part,
everybody there is in that exact same situation.

(06:13):
You know, I had my roommates were from, you know, New York, Illinois,
you know, and the friends that I made were from all over the country.
And everybody, it's not like anybody goes there because their girlfriend goes there,
you know, or like, you know, those other reasons that you make sure
she's a colleague because you're picking, you know, so it's, it just
accelerates your maturity and you have to just really quickly realize,

(06:37):
you know, hey, man, like if I'm going to succeed here, it's going to be because of me,
like there's nobody, there's nobody that's going to come save me.
And everybody's in that same situation. So everybody just kind of naturally
learns how to rely on each other. And it just creates this culture of, you know,
everybody just throughout your four years there is just supporting you.

(06:57):
You know, there's not a whole lot of competition on like, hey, I'm trying to beat this person.
Everybody knows that it's tough to make it through there.
And so everybody helps everybody else, you know, get through there the best way that they can.
So I mean, that just stuck with me, right? That's humbling, you know, to
to have, you know, somebody from a rough upbringing in Chicago who got their opportunity to, you know,

(07:22):
get into engineering, who's like helping me with my thermodynamics homework, you know, and like,
you know, it just creates this humility. I think that just always stuck with me.
So Travis, tell us a little bit about why you chose quantitative economics for your degree.
That's a great question. Because when I went to the academy, I still,
I didn't know what I really wanted to do. You know, I knew I had to serve five years, you know,

(07:46):
at minimum. I didn't really want to make the military a career. And so, you know, I just wanted
to, in my mind, as an 18-year-old from Texas, I was like, "Well, I want to be in business."
You know, okay, like, there's no business degree at the Naval Academy. But I did find
that quantitative economics was kind of the closest, most practical type of degree that I thought

(08:10):
was closer to, you know, finance and, you know, something that could give me some advantage,
you know, in the civilian world when my military career was over.
So that's really what led me to choosing that was, you know, and plus I just always been good at math.
It was kind of my thing, you know, and that was, it just, it was a more practical degree than

(08:32):
majoring in math. And it was just something that I thought would help set me up for a civilian career.
In terms of your first job out of the Naval Academy, you obviously matriculated into the Navy.
What was the transition like from the academy into serving? And then would you tell us a little
bit about what it means to be a nuclear engineer? Yeah, okay. So this is a good one.

(08:54):
Because I chose quantitative economics, that kind of put me in a category that I would,
if I got, if my grades were good enough, I would be eligible to apply for the nuclear power program.
And so why would anybody ever want to be a nuclear engineer in the Navy? Well, for me,
this is, I can say this now, but they offered a $10,000 signing bonus.

(09:17):
When you're 21 years old, and like they're dangling 10 grand in front of you, like,
dude, I can take some tech, I could be a nuclear engineer for five years. They give me $10,000
right now. So that was as embarrassing as it is. That was, you know, that's my motivation. When I
was 21 is, you know, I didn't want to be a pilot, like a motion sickness, you know, so that was
out of the question. I didn't really want to be, you know, kicking indoors as a Marine. So I was

(09:40):
figured, you know, a nuclear engineer also would sound pretty good, you know, when I was transitioning,
you know, out of the military. So as silly as that sounds, that was really the motivation was,
I thought it would be, it would kind of beef up my resume to be able to say I was a nuclear engineer.
And honestly, like, it was $10,000, which was money for a 21 year old back then.

(10:03):
Sure. I'll never forget, man. When I got accepted, you know, once taxes came out, it was $7,300.
On the button went into my checking account. And I thought, I was like, man, it's I'm set
from I've arrived. Yeah. I thought so many, so many DVDs that that weekend,
it was classic 2000s reference. There we go. Yeah. What is, what does it mean to actually be a

(10:28):
surface warfare officer? That was the first role that you held for the first two years. What do you
do in that kind of job? Yeah. So a surface warfare officer is what you would envision the stereotypical
naval officer being, you're up on the bridge with the binoculars, right full rudder or all
ahead full, you know, like you're, you're, you're managing the navigation of the ship, the safety

(10:49):
of the ship. You're doing all the, all the typical Navy stuff, surface warfare, surface of the water.
So you got submarines, surface and aviation. So surface warfare is ship drivers. That's how it works.
And at the time, you know, I graduated in 2003, which if you can remember back then, it was,
you know, it was my junior year at the academy had just started when 9/11 hit. So it was a very

(11:13):
different, unclear type of time when I graduated. And so while I was accepted into the nuclear power
program, in 2003, it was like, hey, man, we, like the Navy was, you're, we're deploying, like we need
help over there. And so I went straight to a ship, got my warfare qualifications. You know, I was

(11:34):
on the USS baton. It was a big deck amphibious assault ship. It's kind of like, looks like an
aircraft carrier, but it's hollow. And you know, we would launch floating tanks and hovercrafts,
called eight facts and, and triple AVs out of the back. Yeah, it was cool. We, you know, fly
helicopters off the flight deck and, and Harriers, you know, we had a bunch of Marines on board. So we

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would, we know, when I was on the baton, we, you know, went over to the, to the Gulf. And we stayed
in our little imaginary box for a few months off the coast to Kuwait. And we launched Marines into
Kuwait and did, did some, some pretty, I guess looking back exciting is probably the best word
to use. Some exciting missions back then. But you know, that really, that really shaped a lot of

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who I was also, because I, you know, you find yourself, I was 22, 23, you know, sitting on the
bridge of a $5 billion chunk of, you know, the United States Navy in charge of, you know,
very risky operations. And you just learn real quick that you better start, you better rely on

(12:40):
the experts around you to, you know, help get, help accomplish whatever it is you're trying to
accomplish. And you know, I was lucky that I had some, some great, you know, Steve Petty officers,
some, some of my, some of my guys on my crew were just really, really good at what they did, you know,
just, and they were very supportive of, you know, helping me learn how to be a leader. And that

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just really stuck with me also, man, was just having, like, just knowing that your job as a
leader is to support the experts around you, not to do their job for them, but find the best way
that you can support them being the best that they can be. And the Navy kind of throws you into

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situations where you better learn how to do that, or there are dire consequences. You know, that
is a very, you know, hindsight, I was lucky that I had that type of, a perspective, you know,
pushed on me when I was at that, you know, in those formal years in my early 20s.
Yeah. Wow. Incredible. After two years, you transitioned to nuclear engineering

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for the sake of the audience and for my own education. I'm assuming you're not just running
an on land nuclear power plant here. Can you tell me a little bit about what the job actually is
and what sort of nuclear engineering you were doing? So aircraft carriers have two nuclear power
plants on them for redundancy purposes that make everything run. You know, there's, you know,

(14:11):
you can either have in the Navy ships can either run on steam generators, there's some that run on
diesel generators, and then carriers and submarines run on reactors. So I went to the way that the
Navy nuclear power program works is you go to some very intensive classwork for about six months.

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And it is, you know, 12 hours a day in the classroom learning everything there is about
how to operate a nuclear power plant. So it's not really it's you're learning everything's top
secret, but it's not like cool top secret stuff. It's like the math equations behind how, you know,
a reactor is designed and, you know, what the tolerances are for homes and valves, all that

(14:54):
kind of stuff. But you really like you have to know in the nuclear power program as a watch officer,
you have to know a little bit about everything so that you can rely on your experts who are,
you know, the electricians who are the mechanics who are the reactor controls guys.
And you, but you have to know what they're doing and understand the procedures they're
following so that you can make sure that you're giving again, giving them the support they need

(15:17):
to do their specific detailed expert, expert duty the right way. So you go through six months of
classwork to learn a little bit about everything. And then you go to what's called a prototype.
I went to upstate New York for six months, and you're just on a reactor on land and you're
just starting it up and shutting it down, starting it up and shutting it down,

(15:38):
going through all kinds of, hey, what if, what if this happens? What if this happens? What if this
happens? And you're doing it, you're learning all the different watch standing positions that
all your guys and gals are going to be doing when you get to the ship. So you kind of have a little
bit of real world experience on what it's like to, you know, take, take notes on what the gauges
are doing. And if this happens, here's my job, you know, and all the, you know, basically you're

(16:01):
preparing for all the things that could go wrong on a nuclear reactor. And then you go to your
actual ship, I went to the USS George Washington, and you go through it all again, you learn how
the reactor specifically works on that ship. And you're given a job, I had the mechanics on that ship.
And when you're not helping your division, make sure everything all the mechanical components are

(16:22):
running appropriately, you're operating your, you're the watch officer who's in charge of the safe
operation of the reactor for a certain period of time each day. Fascinating. I imagine that getting
both of these jobs was very different than getting jobs in the private sector, the corporate world.
Just for the sake of the folks out there who might not have the experience within the United
States military or any of these academies, what was it like to go from completing your classes at

(16:47):
the Naval Academy, completing your degree to thinking about which of the thousands of jobs you might
be able to hold within the Navy. How did that actually play out? And then what was that promotion like?
So within the Navy, it's funny, your major doesn't really have much to do with what your job is
when you graduate. You get to choose, you know, when you're, at some point, your senior year,

(17:12):
you get to put in, hey, I want to be a Marine or a pilot, if I can't be a Marine, I want to be a
Navy pilot, if I can't be a Navy pilot, I want to be a surface warfare officer. Your grades determine
where your ranking is at the Academy. And based on where your ranking, the higher your ranking are,
the more likely it is that you get to do what you want to do when you graduate. So, you know,
you get a lot of guys that, and a lot of guys and gals who, you know, they take, I mean, they take

(17:37):
what are historically, I guess, some of the more easier majors to get good grades in. If they really
want to be a pilot, well, you better get your grades up. You know, it's really hard to get good
grades if you're in mechanical engineering compared to some of the other majors. I'm not going to
call anybody out, but, you know, there's some of those majors that, that you, you know, people would

(17:58):
choose were just for the purpose of making sure they got good enough grades so they could get
a good ranking and become a pilot. How interesting. I never would have known that.
The process then from your first post to your second role in advancing into the nuclear engineering
role, what was that like in terms of, is this like a traditional promotion? Do you apply for a new

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job? How does that work? So the joke is if you can fog a mirror, you can be, you can get promoted
in the Navy for your first two ranks. You know, it really is more just time and rank than it is
any sort of, you know, my progression, you know, as a, you know, getting promoted through the Navy.
It, you know, from a rank perspective, it's just time and rank. But what I did learn is that

(18:42):
when you're actually on the ship, there are different jobs that you have. And that's where, you know,
you know, everybody, your rank is your rank, but your knowledge and your ability to lead is what
the commanding officer of the ship is going to put you in a job that is best for you. And, and
that's where there is a little bit of, you know, criteria that determines who gets which jobs on

(19:08):
the ship. How interesting. The transition out of the Navy is something that from a career coaching
standpoint, I see as an enormous challenge, translating your experience from that kind of environment.
Even though you're perhaps leading a very large team, you're responsible for enormous budgets,
you have literally national security secrets that you're responsible for. That's a challenging

(19:32):
transition. What was it actually like for you to leave the Navy and begin your career in the
private sector? Oh, man. Yeah. So it took, you know, there was a it was like for most folks, I would
say it was a little bit bumpy for me, where I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do.
You know, I had my priorities by then, you know, by then I was married. You know, we knew we

(19:55):
wanted to probably move back to Texas, but, you know, as a nuclear engineer, I wanted to get into
business. What am I going to do? You know, because, you know, in some instances, like, you could,
I could go anywhere. I could do whatever I wanted to do. You know, I had like, and I didn't have like a,
I knew I didn't want to be a nuclear engineer anymore. And the reason was very logical from that.

(20:15):
So here's the irony. When you go through the nuclear power program, everything you learn,
it like the government doesn't release your transcripts. So everything is confidential
on everything that you learned. So in order to get my professional engineers licensed in Texas,
I would have had to go back to master, get a master's degree, go back to school.

(20:36):
So I think, oh, geez, if I got to go back to school, I might as well get an MBA so I can
lead myself, go get into business and get into, you know, what I want to do. And so that was really
kind of how I stumbled into my civilian career was, you know, I found something that was a
contractor, like everybody gets out of the military that doesn't really know what they want to do.

(20:57):
There's plenty of people that are, well, hey, man, you're nuclear, come, come work for me. I'll
do some project management, you know, while you figure out what you want to do. So I did that
while I was going to getting my MBA. And while I was at my MBA, that's where I learned the importance
really of what I always think you get out of an MBA sure you learn the language of business.
But just as important, I think you're building a network of individuals who, you know, for me,

(21:22):
I went to UTSA University of Texas, San Antonio. And so I was making connections and building
relationships with people at large institutions and organizations within San, close to San Antonio.
And that's really what got my foot in the door to my real career pivot, which was when I got into
the mortgage industry. And I imagine a lot of your fellow veterans can really see themselves in that

(21:48):
same story where had a great outstanding military career and then had to start all over, right?
And had to start from the beginning with not the same level of respect, not the same camaraderie,
not being, you know, around people who were equivalently well trained and dedicated,
and then the bumpy road out of the corporate world. But then I think just like many veterans,

(22:09):
USA, became a really nice place for you to land and you spent a decade there. Tell me a little bit
about when you started to hit your stride. It sounded like you got to do the rotational program
in the beginning and then eventually ended up in product management.
Yeah, so my, you know, again, I got lucky, you know, USA was putting together a program,

(22:31):
it was a rotational program. And so USA being a veteran, you know, oriented business,
well, let's create a program where we can hire guys and gals who were just like me, who had a
lot of great leadership experience, maybe knew a little bit about business, but had no business
experience. So I was in my late 20s, had five years of leadership experience, a lot of technical

(22:55):
experience, but I didn't have one year of experience in financial services. So I didn't check the box
on any of the HR, you know, minimum requirements to get an actual job at you. So they created
these rotational programs. I was, it was called the Junior Military Officer Career Development
Program. And the idea was, all right, Travis, we're going to hire, you're going to come in with

(23:17):
about a dozen other folks, and we're just going to plop you into whoever wants you,
and whoever could use you. And you're going to do that for about a year, and then you'll
rotate to something else. And you'll do that for about a year. And along the way, you'll eventually
just figure out what you want to do. And by then you'll have enough experience that you can apply
for, you know, a quote, real job at USA, and, you know, find your career path. And that's what I did.

(23:43):
And it was perfect for me. And I had always wanted to get into, you know, when I say, you know,
financial services a very general term, in my head, when I thought of financial services,
I was really talking about banking and finance, like that's where I wanted to kind of get into.
But I didn't, I didn't know, like, what the difference between deposits, credit cards,

(24:03):
more, you know, like, I didn't know how a bank was structured. So I got, again, I got lucky.
He's another veteran plucked me out of that, out of that rotational program or chose me,
said, Hey, I want, you know, I want this guy. And what the project was that he was that we were
working on was this new thing. So remember, this was back in 2010, before, you know, Zillow or

(24:25):
Trulia or any of those types of sites had really become what they are now. What USA was building at
the time was a digital experience. So a place where if you're a USA member, you go to, it was
called home circle, you go there to search for your home. And while you're searching for your home
on USA.com, you get, you know, you can see how much you can qualify for a mortgage,

(24:46):
how what your homeowners policy would look like. We had relationships with real estate agents and
just everything you would need from a USA perspective for that home. So it's a great strategy, right?
It's the, you know, that's, that's ultimately what every real estate and
mortgage company is still trying to accomplish Zillow. That's their strategy. Like it's what's
the one, the quote, the one stop shop, right? So, you know, I got, I landed in that, in that

(25:12):
organization. And it really just exposed me to all the different aspects of purchasing a home. So I
got to learn a little bit about homeowners insurance. I got to learn a little bit about
mortgage, a little bit about real estate, a little bit about all the other inslary things that go
into it, a little bit about digital, like how to build a digital experience. There was some IT,
there was some project and program management, some finance, you know, experience on like,

(25:36):
okay, well, we're going to cost this much to build this feature, you know, so it just was a
awesome opportunity for me to just kind of see, you know, from a, from the Eagles Nest, like,
okay, what, like here's how that organization works, here's how this organization works.
And you kind of see like there's different cultures, you know, which is within each one of
those little organizations, there's different problems to solve. And eventually, you know, that's just

(26:01):
for a lot, for a few different reasons, I chose to go into the mortgage side of things. And that's
really what the branch of that, of that experience that, that drew me into there. And you know, that's,
that's how I got into mortgage. Was there something specific or a pattern of experiences that you
had that led you to believe the mortgage was the right path? So what I learned going through that

(26:23):
experience was the, the home circle, anybody's home purchasing experience, it is only ever going
to be like what really drives the emotion of it is the mortgage experience behind the scenes.
And I saw like, you can't, you can't have a great home purchase experience if the mortgage

(26:45):
experience is bad. And so that really kind of resonated with me like, oh, well, that's,
and then I sort of learned more about the mortgage business. And it's not just about, you know, sales
and getting person is getting somebody into a conventional or a VA loan, then you got like,
operations, how to process loans, how to underwrite. And then you got like the capital market side,

(27:07):
like what, okay, so now we close the loan, that what happens with it, you know, how it goes to
investors, like all this. And it just fascinated me on there were like little industries within
the mortgage industry. And so I just, it just, I don't know what it just drew me, it drew me in,
because I just, I saw that, man, I can go a lot of different places if I get into the mortgage
business in a lot of different directions. And at the end of the day, it seems like it's a very

(27:30):
impactful experience in a home in, in anybody. So everybody bought, you know, everybody who's buying
a home for, you know, I understand the time you're getting a mortgage. So like, it seems like it's
a relevant, you know, pretty stable type of industry to get into, or is like, people are always going
to be borrowing money to buy houses. So, you know, for all those different reasons, that's really what,

(27:51):
what piqued my interest and what kind of led me into the, led me into the industry.
What makes a bad mortgage experience?
I always say the best mortgage companies, the best mortgage experiences, just don't suck, right?
So that's all, that's all you have to do. You just don't suck. And so if you think about
a emotional journey, you know, think about kind of this horizontal line, you know, from when you

(28:14):
ugly, we're so, you know, it starts with, okay, we got a contract on a house, we know, we're excited
to move in. It's going to take 30 to 45 days to get through the mortgage experience. So it starts
off, you know, it's really kind of exciting, you know, you're, you thinking through like moving day
and what your, this house is going to look like. And then like, it just has a gradual decline
as you start to like, I got to send in this paperwork and I got to send this in. And then like, you get

(28:37):
handed off and somebody asked you for the same thing again. And it's just like, it's like, okay,
okay, here's this, here's this again, I send it to you, you know, and it's kind of, it starts to kind
of suck, right? The experience does. But then like, things go dark for a couple weeks while you're
in processing and under, you don't know what's happening behind the scenes, but you know,
the mortgage people are doing the mortgage stuff. And then, you know, you know, inevitably two

(28:59):
weeks before you're supposed to close, you call in and it's like, hey, I haven't heard is everything
on, yeah, everything's good. Don't worry. We're supposed to close. We're good to close in a couple
weeks. And then a week before you're supposed to close your loan officer or somebody calls you,
it's like, hey, we got a problem. It's like, well, what do you mean you got a problem? Well,
yeah, I need, I need you to, you know, send in, you know, a justification for this thing or,

(29:21):
you know, there's always something comes up. And so then what do you do? You're like,
are we going to close? Am I going to be able to move? I got my movers coming, my folks are coming
in town to watch the kids, you know, like, you start to panic. And so like, your emotional
journey starts to decline. Like, now this is like, it sucks, right? Like, it's all this anxiety to
what should be an exciting time. And then inevitably, what happens is a few days before you close,

(29:44):
oh, we got everything ironed out, everything is good to go. Okay, we'll see you Friday at 3pm at
the title company to close. And so I'm like, okay, well, are you sure? Because like, two days ago,
everything was so that's when I say like, just don't suck. Don't do that. You know,
that's your mortgage company. Just create a process that doesn't create all this anxiety for your
borrowers right up, you know, before they're supposed to close. It's funny when you describe it that

(30:08):
way. But if you've gone through that process, my goodness, like you got, and then you got your
real estate agents that are, you know, they're relying on their commission. Like, that's how
they make money. You got, there's just a ripple effect on all of that. And you know, that's really,
you know, fast forward. That's why we decided to start Novum is like, there's, there's,
it's not that hard. You know, if you just know the right technology to use, you build the right

(30:31):
culture, you do your training, you know, you have good discipline, good execution. It doesn't have
to be like that. So like the whole 15 years, you know, me, you know, the decade I was at USA,
and then, you know, since I was there, I've been to a couple other places. I've just really seen that
kind of journey of emotion, you know, it's kind of how the whole mortgage industry can impact

(30:52):
the home, you know, an emotional, a significant emotional event that home bars go through. And
that's why that's really always drawn me and kept me in the mortgage industry.
How interesting. I always thought that that process was that kind of, I thought it was kind
of baked in almost like intentional friction to soften up the, the, the borrower to make sure
that they would do whatever the bank needed at, you know, at the very last minute.

(31:16):
It's the best mortgage company. That's fine as I joke, but it's, I think it's true. The best
mortgage company just don't suck. Don't have that emotional anxiety, you know, in the last two
weeks leading up, just, just handle. Here's the other thing that it comes down to expectations.
Like set the expectation upfront. Hey, if you send in all these things, like you should be able to
uncover that, you know, if you're working with somebody who really knows their stuff,

(31:36):
you should be able to uncover any potential issues, like early on in the process. And then
you can handle, you know, good news or I'm sorry, bad news doesn't get better with time. And that's
what, you know, a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of, a lot in this industry, they just, oh,
hopefully it'll solve itself or somebody else will figure out, you know, how it inevitably

(31:56):
jep to a week before closing and stuff blows up. How interesting to think about the
transition and the evolution that you had in the corporate stretch before you started your own
business. Were there any specific skills that you didn't arrive equipped with from your prior
experience that took some work for you to master? And that's a great question. I would say the

(32:22):
deeper I got into the mortgage industry, the more I learned of what I didn't know. And it is just
such a complicated business that I, you know, I kind of, I learned, and this is where I fell back
on my, you know, leadership experiences from the Navy is like, you know, I can't run a nuclear

(32:46):
reactor on my own, just like you can't run a mortgage company on your own. You need somebody
who knows, you know, in the mortgage industry, you need somebody who knows capital markets,
who understands the, like, underwriting guidelines, who understands technology and what the right
tools are, you know, and nobody can know all of those things. That's what took me 15 years to realize

(33:06):
is you got to surround yourself with people who can fill those gaps and, you know, build and
create a cohesive team if you want to build a great mortgage company. Just like, you know,
all the way back what I learned in nuclear power, it comes down to a great watch team of 30 individuals
who know their job really well and know how to support everybody knows what they're supposed to do.

(33:27):
There's role clarity. And there's a support structure of how the whole team works together.
And it's not one individual that's going to, you know, that's going to help make it happen.
It's just a collective team effort to make it successful.
As you got further along the curve of kind of awareness and realizing how little you did,
indeed, no. Were there any painful moments along the way where it's like, wow, I'm actually out

(33:51):
of my depth. And what did you do to kind of get up to speed and see things through?
There's countless examples of just, you know, you realize, oh man, this is so much more complicated
than I thought it was. Oh man, I'm trying to play. I think it's called the Kruger something effect.
There's this, you know, craft that shows if you, you know, the more you learn, you think you know,

(34:15):
as time goes on, you read some articles, you start to dig and it's like, oh, this isn't that
complicated. And then you really get into it. And it's like, oh wait, this is a lot more complicated.
I thought, and then all of a sudden like it goes away, your confidence goes way down.
And then as you keep digging into it, it gradually starts to climb back up, right? And so I have
experienced that so many times in the mortgage industry, you know, when I first got in at USA,

(34:38):
it was, oh, it's pretty, yeah, you search for home, you know, you get a mortgage and then it's like,
well, you get pre-approved for a mortgage. What was that make? Well, there's different types of
pre-approvals. You get, so then you could just go down the rabbit hole and all the different
nuances of getting pre-approved in a mortgage. And then you, and so then you get into the real
state side of things. And you start to like, oh, agents do is they just open the door for you.

(35:00):
There's not much that. Well, really? Because they're like, have you ever gone to like,
what happens if an inspector comes in and there's negotiations, there's all kinds of details there.
Things can go really bad for you if you don't have a good real estate agent.
So you could go down that rabbit hole. And like, I'm not even getting into
homeowners insurance or all the other things that kind of get in. So there's the more I learned,
like it is just the industry also, the mortgage industry, for me, it's helped it creates

(35:25):
humility because the more you dig into something, the more you realize, oh, man, this is a lot
more complicated. I need somebody who really knows what they're doing to help get me out of
trouble before I significantly make a wrong decision here.
And a brilliant demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
That's funny. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. Well said. As we think about your work today, we'll talk about your company in here

(35:50):
in a moment and your role there within, but in a broader, perhaps more philosophical perspective,
what does your work mean to you? Oh, well, I guess the best way to answer that question is I had to
go through a self realization a few years ago. This is after I left USA. I thought I was ready
to start my own company and I learned I wasn't. And things evolved to where I was kind of at this

(36:16):
pivot point in my career where I needed to really think, what do I like? Okay, I've kind of done
the corporate executive thing. I stumbled into the entrepreneurship space and learned, okay, I'm
not ready. So like, what do I do? I go back to being an executive. Do I grind it out on the
entrepreneurial side? But what I did is I relied on my mentors. I've had some great mentors through

(36:41):
my life. And they said, dude, you just need to sit like what do you want? I write it down. What
is important to you? And it was the first time this was four or five years ago. Because the first
time I really sat down and had that introspective, like, okay, what do I really want to do in my life?

(37:01):
Like, with my career, I can factor in, I have three boys. What does my family life look like?
What am I trying to accomplish? And what that helped me realize is, first off,
there's the work life balance. How much do you want? How much of your time do you want?

(37:22):
Are you comfortable traveling a lot? Do you want to be home and help coach your kids baseball team?
Like, what's important to you? Because you can't have it both ways. And you need to define like,
those types of things. What's most important to you? From a financial perspective,
how much money do you really need? I had to think through that, I was like, what is, man,

(37:43):
if I could wave a magic wand, is it a million? Is it 10 million? Is it 100 million?
Those are very important distinctions of what you need to think through. And so I had to think
through, like, all these different, all that type of stuff, right? I guess there's a long way
to answer your question. But from a leadership in a career, I'm like, what do I want to do? I
wanted to own something, put my name, not literally my name, but put my name behind building something

(38:11):
that I could feel proud of. But where I found over the years that I really felt the best
in my career was when I was able to help somebody else accomplish their goals.
And that was what I realized, man, if I could create an organization, sure, it's probably going

(38:32):
to be a mortgage company, because that's what I know. And help people who wanted to achieve
greatness, achieve that greatness. And that's what I really wanted to do. And that's what I found
like is very important to me. That's a part of what we're doing at Novum, right? We want to find
folks who are kind of in that stage of, okay, I'm pretty good at what I do, but I know I can

(38:56):
be a lot better and I just need help getting there. That's what that's the type of person we're
looking for. And that's the type of company we're building is how to get like, and that's really
where me and my two co-founders, that's why we're doing this. It's not this, and sure, like, we'll
benefit from helping those people be successful too. But that's not why we do it. It really, truly is.
It feels good to help people accomplish their goals and to help them first identify their goals

(39:22):
and then give them a plan on how to do that and support them to do it. That's what I wanted to do.
It took me a long time to realize I needed to do some self-reflection to understand that that was
what I wanted to do with my life. Beautiful, so well said. We'll get back to the conversation

(39:43):
shortly, but I wanted to tell you about how I can help you find your fit. I offer one-on-one
career coaching services for experienced professionals who are preparing to find and land their next role.
If you're a director, vice president, or a C-suite executive and you're ready to explore
new opportunities, please go to goodfitcareers.com to apply for a free consultation. I also,

(40:05):
occasionally, send a newsletter which includes stories from professionals who have found their
fit, strategies, and insights that might be helpful in your job search and content that I found
particularly useful or interesting. If you'd like to learn more, check out goodfitcareers.com
and follow me on LinkedIn. Now, back to the conversation. It reminds me a mentor of mine, Steve Gatter,

(40:26):
once shared with me several years ago the concept of Icki-Guy. And it's a Japanese concept,
Icki-G-A-I. And it's this intersection of a four-circle Venn diagram for what you love to do,
what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for. And at the intersection

(40:48):
of those four circles is, I think, what you just beautifully described. And I think that for folks
out there who are trying to figure out, what do I want to do? I think you did a very, very nice job,
Travis, on describing how that comes to be in reality. And perhaps even without knowing that
concept, you embody it. Yeah, I appreciate it. And I think your mentor probably described it more

(41:12):
succinctly and clearer than I did. I appreciate that. But another tool that I found was helpful
in my journey that I picked up again from another mentor, pick three people. Whose job do you want?
Pick three specific people and put their names down. I want to do that guy, that lady,
and that lady. If I could be doing one of those three things, I would be happy. Now you have a

(41:38):
very practical goal to accomplish. I want to be the bank president. I want, you know,
whoever the bank president, I want to put his or her name down. For me personally, I realized I didn't
want, like, over time, my goal evolved from, I didn't want to be a corporate executive. I wanted to be
one of, you know, some of these other mentors that I have now are, they own their own business.

(42:01):
They're business leaders. They kind of do a lot of, you know, a few different things.
And my goals changed, you know, when I started to realize who I wanted to aspire to be like,
but then once you, so what's important there is, okay, once you realize who you want to be,
let's use the bank president example. Okay, well, how did he become the bank president?
Well, he had two or three years of operational experience before then, or he was the CFO before

(42:25):
then. Okay, well, if I want to be the bank president, I got to learn how to, how do I get the CFO job
for a couple of years? Well, if I want to CFO job, I got to get into finance. And if I want to get
into finance, I got to start to be, you know, it's like, and so you start to build a career road map,
a very practical, like, here are the things I need to start to do to set myself up for that
long-term goal. And here are some specific people, even, that I need to start to reach out to as mentors,

(42:49):
to help me get on my path. And the other important thing I've learned through my career is,
and it's humans working with humans. If you want to do something in some organization,
somebody, like, find that example and put your goal out there, to state it out there in the universe,
and people will help you. You know, even if it's not that one individual person,

(43:13):
that you want to be like somebody who's along that path, and same that along that same path,
but ahead of you, well, like, yeah, here's what I did. Everybody loves being a mentor. So,
like, ask people for mentors. And that's a, I thought that was a pretty valuable lesson that I learned,
like, and luckily, you know, a long time ago in my career, find those specific people whose job
you want, and then just, like, far, you know, lay out there, like, what, how do they get there,

(43:39):
and then try to recreate their path. That's great advice. It sounds like you were describing
this development of your own career path of this roadmap as also establishing the ideal pattern
of experience that whoever might be hiring you would be looking for from a skills and experience
a standpoint that what you're saying, or at least what I'm hearing, is that, by taking the time to

(44:03):
be deliberate about this is the destination that I really want, and then analyzing the pattern of
the experience that the people have fallen to get there. It might make it easier for you to
figure out your own roadmap of skills and experiences that you have to develop to get to your desired
destination. So, I've had a lot of failures in my career. But one thing that I did do that I think

(44:24):
really set me up for success was, you know, again, back in my early USA days, I knew I wanted to get
it in the mortgage business, but I had no mortgage experience. But I, so what I did is I reached out
to the, the guy back then who ran the mortgage company and said, I want to, I want to be in, I want
to be a mortgage person. I help, help the guy like, what do I need to do in order, and I was set up

(44:46):
monthly, you know, ish, recurring meetings with him. And I asked like, he were some good executives
that you think would help mentor me and guide me along the way. And I reached out to them and
set up like, hey, and I told them, I want to be an ex, you know, I want to be a mortgage person. I
want to like help, help me understand what I need to do to get into this business. And I,
you know, that's what I call creating your own luck, because then all of a sudden a director

(45:10):
position opens up. And I had been for a year talking to all the different executives in the
organization. Hey, may Travis would be a good fit for, for that role. And that's exactly how I got
on, got it, got into the mortgage business. Like, you know, everybody from the outside looking in
was, man, how lucky they had to, there's a perfect position for you that opened up and it's like,
well, maybe that was because they were, they knew I wanted to get in and you know, it was, you know,

(45:34):
they created that position for me. So at the end of the day, it humans, humans are going to
help other humans. You know, you got to find the human connections to get on that path. And
that was one, one thing that I did that I think really helped me in my career was
just putting your goal, standing your goal out there and reaching out to the individuals who can,

(45:56):
who can help you get there. And you know, and some, that's how you create your own luck.
Tremendous. Thank you for sharing that. Something that I admire so very much about your career is
your resilience and your perseverance. Coming out of the Navy, there were a couple of rough steps
before you've hit your stride and found USA A. And it sounds like the same pattern held true for
your departure from USA A and where you are today. Can you tell us a little bit about what your

(46:20):
first couple of steps were in entrepreneurship that led you to where you are now?
So when I left USA A, so yeah, my first steps into the entrepreneur business were, first off,
it was just having the guts to leave a corporate executive job. I mean, that was,
that's a tough emotional thing to get over. And you know, my wife, Jen, is just, she was extremely

(46:43):
supportive of me. And that is, don't underestimate the support you need at home if you want to
jump into entrepreneurship, because it's going to be bumping. Nobody ever has, oh, man, yeah,
it's just really easy. I started my own company. And it was cake the whole time. Like, you're going
to need support at home to help you emotionally get through that. The other thing that I found is,

(47:05):
it's really hard to do it yourself. So I, you know, I say I left USA A, I left with another
one of my business partners, Pat Hensley. He was running capital markets at USA A. I was,
you know, not, I was doing something else at USA. But he and I just started talking,
it's funny. Like we, we worked out in the gym together for years. And we found ourselves

(47:28):
just talking in the locker room afterwards, like, man, we could just mortgage, what if we
created a mortgage company like this? And we did that eventually led to, you know, an opportunity,
we were like, all right, let's, let's go do this. Let's, let's jump in there. What we realized,
though, is there is no preparation for just jumping into the deep end of entrepreneurship that we

(47:50):
could have, you know, expected, it was just so, we thought we knew how to be entrepreneurs.
And we thought we had like the risk managed appropriately. But man, it is a lot more difficult
than we gave ourselves than we prepared ourselves for. So that is kind of where we jumped into the

(48:10):
deep end of starting our own thing. And then we kind of got lucky and thrown at, you know, like,
we ended up at another startup. We kind of got aqua hired, you know, so to speak.
And that's where, you know, we had, okay, well, now we, at least are getting paid, you know,
and somebody else raised money, we're going to go help build their vision. But it was kind of like

(48:32):
in like a much safer on ramp for us into the entrepreneurs. And we learned, like, so that
Tad stayed there for a couple years. I moved to Keller Williams, where I learned how, I mean,
their whole catch phrases were entrepreneurs thrive at Keller Williams. So again, at Keller
Williams, I had the safety of having a executive job, but I was able to observe real entrepreneurs.

(49:00):
And I learned how to be an entrepreneur at Keller Williams, much more than I did, you know, that I
would have, I really would have struggled trying to figure all those things out on my own. But I
was able to get a really bird's eye view of true, successful entrepreneurs. And I learned some,
again, I found some other examples of people I wanted to be like, people who had started their
own companies and had like evolved, built them from the ground up. And that's who, even with

(49:25):
Novom, that's who we're relying on as our mentors who give us advice on how to go,
how to go do this, do this entrepreneur thing. Awesome. Another healthy dose of the
Dunning-Kruger effect. Yeah, that's right. That's a perfect, that is a perfect example. Yes, we,
yes, I wish there was some way that you could just kind of accelerate your way over that peak of

(49:46):
Mount stupid on that. For better or worse, I think that's the value of experience. We all have to
see our way through. One of the terms that I use with my clients is kind of the opposite of the
Dunning-Kruger is the long valley of despair. And thinking about, you start your journey with
a some set of perceptions, and then you get into the valley and you realize, wow, this is a heck

(50:11):
of a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and how you decide to see your way through and
cross the river in the middle of that gorge. That tends to define us and helps us build who we want
to be. Yeah, and here's the other thing that I learned though, on the flip side, yeah, it is risky.
But it's never going to happen if you don't take that. You got to do it. You just got to jump into

(50:32):
the deep end and it's going to like prepare yourself for how bad it's going to be. And we weren't
appropriately prepared. But now, what I learned at Keller Williams and what Tad learned where he was
at in our third co-founder, where he has this experience now, his name is Don Conwell. He's
phenomenal person. We are much more informed and much more prepared to handle the bones that we

(50:57):
know are going to happen. So there is a heavy dose of reality in our financial forecasts and
our expectations. And we use the analogy of, yeah, we're telling the story of what we want to
accomplish. But the reality is we got to get out of Earth's atmosphere before we worry about which
star we're pointed out with our vision. And you got to like, you got to really get practical on,

(51:20):
okay, how are you going to get your first 20 loans? Where are those going to come from?
Because you're like, oh, yeah, we could do 20 in six months. Okay, which ones? Where they're
going to come? I give you, you got to really dig down and deep and ask yourself some tough questions
that, you know, those are some of the valuable things that we learned along the way, is that
have kind of, I guess, better prepared us to be aware of the risks that we're taking now that we're

(51:42):
jumping into starting our own thing. How exciting. The great segue over into the business.
Tell me a little bit about Novum Home Loans. Tell me about your role they're in and walk me
through what the business does. Yeah, so I think the three of us, you know,
Tad, Don, and I came at it from different perspectives. So I came from Keller Williams

(52:04):
most recently, you know, where I saw the importance of the relationship that real estate agents and
loan officers have. If you don't, there's no mortgage company that is successful without
good relationships between their loan officers and real estate. And so I learned the importance of that.
Tad came from the FinTech world where he learned some valuable lessons and, you know,

(52:28):
it's tough to speak for Tad because he's a genius when it comes to this stuff. But
there's no magic button that's going to be invented to solve the mortgage problem.
We believe that there's innovation and complex coordination and we use the analogy of Tesla as
kind of the example that we're trying to follow of. There's nothing in a Tesla card that in

(52:49):
particular is, you know, is intellectual property. Like GM for everybody has the same access to all
the same parts. What makes Tesla so much such an interesting company is their manufacturing process.
They can coordinate the complexity of putting an electric car together much more efficiently
than any of their peers. And all their peers have all these legacy systems and all these legacy

(53:12):
processes that they can't untangle from. And that's where Tesla really benefits is they started
fresh for new. And that's, you know, Novum is Latin for new beginnings. And that's where we
are a seedling who is emerging from the forest fire that is going through the mortgage industry
right now. And we don't have any of that legacy tech or any of those legacy processes. We're
something totally new. And so, you know, Tesla is the example that we look at is like, where are

(53:38):
how we think of innovation? We think of innovation through complex coordination.
And then lastly, the third part of Novum is what Don Conwell, who is just a highly respected
loan officer, who just knows production, how to provide advice in a transparent, trusting way,

(53:58):
just unbelievable human being. So like culture is a big part of what Tom brings to the table.
I don't want to overlook that. But more importantly, what he has brought is this perspective in the
mortgage industry that loan officers are seeking refuge from the flames that are going through
right now. And they were looking for something new to believe in. And at the end of the day,

(54:20):
they just don't trust their lenders. And there's a lot of reasons why, you know,
lenders, if you look at what's happening, they're just inefficient. And what that means is, you know,
they take away operation support for loan officers, they take away their growth opportunities.
And then worst case scenario, they're starting to mess with some of their compensation plans,
and hey, we can't afford to pay you what we thought we could pay you. So all of that is just

(54:43):
leading to this all time low of trust between loan officers and their lenders. So you bring
those three things together, right, of my perspective of the relationship between loan officers and
real estate agents in marketing, how to help somebody grow and build a brand,
tag from the FinTech side of what he's learned of how to think through innovation,

(55:04):
and then don from the practical side of culture and, you know, building a process and a team and
an organization around trust. That's really like all three of those things kind of came, we came at
the idea of Novum from those three different perspectives. And that's really what's shaping it.
And to be honest, it's, you know, we're still in year one. And so we have this idea of what we want

(55:28):
to accomplish what we want to do. We've also learned that, man, we just need to like, we just need to
keep keep trying things and keep like, it's cliche to sound, but you got to fail forward. You got to
keep moving. You're like a shark, you know, in the water, like you just got to keep moving,
got to keep like, that's the biggest difference also that, you know, we got from our corporate

(55:49):
experience phases, you like, you just got to, you got to keep trying things and got to be comfortable
screwing things up, because that's the only way that you're going to learn what works or what doesn't
work is, you know, just just getting out there and trying those three perspectives that
Ted, Don, and I have is really what brought what brought Novum together.

(56:10):
That makes sense. Would you paint the picture for me and tell me about your vision of what you
believe the process of getting a mortgage and buying your first, second, or third home,
what should that experience actually look like? That's a great question. So first off, buying a
buying a home, it's one of the most significant emotional and financial decisions that anybody

(56:35):
makes. My personal opinion, I believe the real estate agent is who really steps in to manage the
emotional side of the trans of the experience, right? Hey, does this house have the right is it in the
right neighborhood with a neighbor's like, all those emotional aspects of it, the finance side
should not impact the emotional side of the experience. And so what that means for us is,

(56:58):
first off, we need to do a really good job of making sure that the home buyer, the agent,
and us, there's clear communication, there's no telephone game, you know, everybody's on the same
page. So that's critically important to us is communication and making sure that we are keeping
the client's emotions at the forefront and being empathetic for what they're going through. And

(57:20):
quite frankly, the real estate agent too, and what they're going through, they're trying to manage
those emotions. And they don't have to like, man, if you don't ask me like, what's going on with
their asset verification, you know, like all these mortgage stuff like manage, manage your part,
you know, your part. And then so then you get into kind of the mechanics of how the mortgage
transaction works, which is where we believe there's a lot of room for improvement there,

(57:43):
where there's a lot of modern tools that are available that can help that experience be so much
easier for the for our clients, to where you know, it doesn't need to be as paper heavy and as
manual as possible. And really where the trick is there on the back end is you've got to build a

(58:03):
really good process for our employees. So the loan officer, the processors, the underwriters,
the clothes everybody, if you make their lives easier, that's going to translate to an easier
transaction for the client. And everything's just going to go more smoothly for everybody.
They'll be able to focus on the emotional side of the experience and the financing thing kind of
goes back to what I was joking about before. Like you just don't just don't suck, you know, like

(58:27):
don't don't create any of that emotional like valleys in the process. Like there's no most
mortgage companies also I think they missed the point. I want to create this beautiful mortgage
experience that everybody's going to be happy with their mortgage. Like that's not that you're
trying to solve the wrong problem, right? Like who is going to go through their mortgage experience?
You're just like, oh my gosh, that was just so beautiful. I loved it.

(58:49):
Better than the spa day, right? Yeah, like what no, you're trying to like just like make it easy
behind the scenes and support that emotional journey. And you're not like the mortgage company,
you're not the star of the show. You're in the background helping support the emotion
that the client's going through and helping support that real estate agent. And if you build

(59:09):
process and you build everything from that perspective, that's what we're doing at note. And I think
we come from again from our experience. I think we're in a, you know, I think we're on to something
you know, just based on how things are going in the first year. Wonderful. How do you believe
the world sees or perceives lenders and mortgage companies? You know, it's interesting.

(59:31):
Is you know, folks from Martin, you know, the Gen X millennial generation was very impacted by
the great, you know, by 2008. And I think that still has a, you know, there's there's still
that soul resonating through most first time home buyers, you know, repeat buyers, you know,
folks that are trying to move up. What's interesting is if you look at this new generation that's

(59:54):
coming up, they were little kids in 2008. And so if you start to think about the next
generation of first time home buyers, they don't have a negative perspective of the mortgage
industry because they weren't old enough to realize like what happened back then. And it's
interesting that it's almost worse because they really don't have any perspective. You know,

(01:00:15):
at least like millennials, you know, the millennial generation and the Gen X generation,
they're aware. And so they asked better question, you know, they're they kind of know what they
don't know, generally speaking. The other, you know, this newer generation coming up, like they
don't even like what's a mortgage? What do I really need? Like, it's it's really interesting
to just kind of see like for the last 15 years, everybody's been kind of on this, you know,

(01:00:40):
the 2008 financial crisis is really what steered a lot of the experience and how people think
of mortgage. But there's this new generation that's starting to emerge who they don't have that
stigma around it. And it'll be interesting to see how how the industry evolves, you know, once,
you know, once they all start buying homes here over the next five to 10 years.
Sure. Oh, that is going to be fascinating. Are there any misconceptions that you commonly see

(01:01:04):
about your job being either a founder or leading a mortgage company?
That's a really good question. I think it would go back again to, you know, just the misperceptions
of what it's like to start a company. And it's not glamorous by any means. And I think a lot of
people get enamored with the romanticism of, you know, being an entrepreneur and starting their own

(01:01:26):
company. But the practicality is you're the last one to get paid. There's nobody to delegate
anything to there's no task that's too small for you to be involved in. Like, there's no like,
you don't just, hey, it's Friday at five, I'm going to go home and everything. Things don't get done
unless you do them. And so I think that's probably the biggest misperception that I see are folks who

(01:01:49):
just think of starting your own company. And you know, what we're doing it, know them like we are
grinding it out, man, we are like building the back end. And it is a lot of a lot of grunt working.
It's a lot of work, right? And it's, you know, it's kind of nice from the outside looking in,
we're like, Oh, you guys are doing great. You keep grinding it out. It's like, but when it's

(01:02:10):
tiring, you're, you know, and there's a lot more work to do. And it just never really ends. So,
you know, once you're on that, once you're on that train, you better be ready. And that's another
thing we learned, you know, from our past experiences, we have set our expectations that, hey, this is
going to be a long journey. You know, there's no big payoff that's coming out, you know, in the next

(01:02:30):
year or two, like, this is like, we are building for long term generational growth. And, you know,
it's going to take some time to build this the right way. And that, that is not as glamorous.
As a lot of folks seem to think, as you begin to build your team and grow your company and

(01:02:51):
hire new team members, let's just say the people out there listening today are excited about working
with you or excited about working with someone like you. Would you tell me a little bit about how
you approach hiring and evaluating candidates that you might bring onto your company?
Man, that's a love that question. So, you know, of course, I've always, you know, integrity,

(01:03:13):
trying, you know, that's absolutely table stakes. You got to have that. I have always,
you know, found the second quality that I look for is curiosity. And I've always found that
people who ask good questions, you know, when I'm in an interview, you know, I'm more interested,
not in their answers to my questions, but what questions they're asking me, because it kind of

(01:03:35):
tells me what their priorities are, how they think, you know, and the advice I would get, folks is,
I'm always looking for curious people, because curious people are the ones who are going to find
the root cause of problems. They're not just going to solve symptoms of the problems.
And, you know, I think that's what I've always found or the type of people that I really, really

(01:03:57):
like having on my team are people who don't like, they're not going to, sounds weird to say that
they're not going to listen to me. They're going to like have a questioning even attitude of what I
say. And they're going to be curious, like, okay, well, why do you know, that's what I want, like,
find my, find my blind spots and fill those gaps and ask the questions that I don't even realize

(01:04:17):
I should be asking. That's like a really valuable trait that I found that high performers have is
that curious questioning attitude. And it doesn't have to be skeptical. There's a difference, right,
between being skeptical and being curious. You can come at it from a sympathetic, you know,
sympathetic, you know, perspective, but just always don't be satisfied with an answer until you've

(01:04:39):
really kind of dug into it and understood what it's really getting at.
Makes a lot of sense. For other people out there who also agree that integrity and trust are
table stakes. Are there any questions or ways of evaluating that that you found to be particularly
a good, consistent, like a high precision read on that, that specific category?

(01:05:02):
I mean, I hate to say I think there is something innate in humans abilities to, you know,
and I'll say my gut's been wrong in the past and I've paid for it. So, you know, it's
the way that I try to build a case of can I trust this person as I rely on other humans.
And, you know, it's like, there may be something that I'm missing, and they may be a really good

(01:05:27):
BS or, you know, that I'm, you know, and I feel like I have a good BS meter, but, you know, some
people slip some fastballs by me. I love the idea of just go out to lunch with this person,
just see what kind of person they are. Yeah, it gets all those little things, and that's really
where you, you know, of how they, you know, how they're going to treat the waiter, you know,
what they're, you know, how they're going to, what type of conversation they're going to strike

(01:05:48):
up with their personal life is like, you're trying to just understand what kind of person this is,
like what kind of question, like, is somebody that I can trust? And like, do they, do they pass the
sniff test? And there's no, you know, I haven't, at least I haven't found a good metric. It's just
much more of a softer skill. And, you know, just trusting your gut on, hey, do I trust this person?

(01:06:08):
And at the end of the day, you're the hiring manager. You don't trust the person, you don't
need a reason to not to hire them just because, you know, like, if you don't trust them, like, don't,
don't try to find a reason to trust them, you know, like, just, just go with your gut.
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Something that I learned along the, my experience with hiring that helped me

(01:06:28):
gain that last little bit of confidence that I needed to make a hiring decision
was a reference. And I think that some people don't necessarily take references as seriously
today as we can. One of the ways that I found was very helpful in evaluating trust was
trying to figure out what sort of reputation the person you're about to hire left behind.

(01:06:49):
And one of my favorite ways to do this was I would ask them for someone above them. So a manager,
I would ask for two peers, people who worked alongside them, and then a subordinate, if I was
hiring somebody who was a manager. And instead of just calling and saying, hey, do you respect
this person? Do you like them, which are real softballs, right? For a reference, you're not
going to volunteer someone who's not going to say nice things about you. I would always try to

(01:07:11):
spend time with those references to understand what was it actually like to work with this person?
What happened when things didn't go well, right? How did you approach correcting issues or teaching
them things when when they were failures or real issues? And how did they receive that feedback?
What did they do with it? So perhaps for folks out there who are trying to figure out how do I
establish this trust? How do I think about refining my process? Something that might be overlooked is

(01:07:36):
just the concept of a real in-depth reference, right? And to help set you up for success, say,
how can I get up to speed and manage this person with grace? You'd be surprised at the answers you
might get. Totally. And another trick that I've always done is I've always viewed references as
that's as good of a perspective as you're going to get on the person. So again, it kind of goes back

(01:07:58):
to the humans that they've interacted with in the past and doing your own research to find somebody
that they've interacted with that's not on their list of references. Hey, what was this person?
They didn't put you as the like, you know, so why did they not put you on the list? And
don't be judgmental, you know, but because sometimes like personalities just don't gel. So take
take some of the feedback with a grain of salt, but really get a good diverse perspective on how

(01:08:23):
that what that person's like as a person. And that's where, you know, again, if you're trying to get a
job, do build your make your own connections, you know, like find ways that you can kind of get ahead
of that so that when a job posting comes up in an organization that you want to be a part of,
you've already done the groundwork of people know who you are and they trust you and they know what

(01:08:43):
your capabilities are, create your own luck, like go go do that and call your shot. Hey, I want to
be in this organization and then do that with three other organizations and see, you know, see what
comes available. Love it. When we're thinking about the future and where your industry is headed,
where you're headed personally, where we as humanity on this rock are all headed, what are you excited

(01:09:06):
about for the future? Wow, that's a that's a big one. You know, I don't want to put my tin foil
hat on and talk too much about AI, you know, know that I'll talk about kind of the near term
future because who the hell knows what's going to happen in 50 years from now, right? But I think,
you know, in particularly, this is where we're thinking of leveraging AI even for

(01:09:26):
in the mortgage space. A lot of folks think of AI from a perspective of cost avoidance,
right? Like how do I end the mortgage space? How do I use like an automated like AI for an
underwriter, you know, and like they're trying to take expense out. But what we're trying to
figure out is how do you use AI for those revenue driving pieces of the puzzle? And some

(01:09:52):
of the practical things that we're going to test out AI is communication. And I don't mean like chat
bot communication. I mean, like, so here's a here's an example of something that we're building
and that we're testing out. And so far, we've had some good preliminary results from it.
You have all this telephone game that seems to happen in the mortgage business, right?
A client reaches out to a loan officer, they send them this document, hey, the loan officer has to

(01:10:15):
tell the processor that I had this, this came in. But here's some specific thing you need to know
about the document that was sent in and the processor has to tell the underwrite, you know,
there's a telephone game that happens. What happens if you could just have
cohesive conversation with all of those individuals, an AI creates a summary at the end of the day
of, hey, Johnny did this, Sally did this, this talked about this, the next step was, and everybody's

(01:10:39):
on the same page. And you're leveraging AI to have that coordinated communication summary at the end
of the day. That's one of those little examples of where we believe AI can really be leveraged
to provide value. Where now, you know, clients always ask for a single point of contact in the
mortgage business and the mortgage in the mortgage experience, right? Why is that? Because they don't

(01:11:02):
want to talk to the same, they don't want to have the same conversation over and over again. So
what do most mortgage companies do? They solve the symptom, all we're going to give you one point
of contact who's now responsible for the telephone game, right? They have to communicate everything
to everybody else. That's where like, we believe AI can solve that problem. That's getting at
the root problem. They're not asking for a single point of contact per se. They just don't want to
have to repeat themselves over and over again, different individuals. So if you can leverage AI

(01:11:26):
to help all your teammates stay on the same page of the conversations that you're having with the
client, that is a way that AI can provide real value to your organization, help your, help everybody
stay more efficient, right? And can your loan officers have more time instead of playing the
telephone game and getting into operations and making sure things are happening? They can
go talk to more clients and provide more emotional support, more advice to their clients and to

(01:11:50):
real estate agents. But I think that is much more exciting of how technology and advancements,
particularly around AI, how they can really practically make people's lives easier, not replace jobs,
but just be a tool to help people be better at what they're doing. So I think that's the

(01:12:12):
future is going to be much more of that is, I guess, the summary. I think the people that learned how
to embrace technology and learn how to help use it to help them be better are going to thrive. The
people who reject it because they view it from a defensive posture of they're coming to take
to take something away from me. I don't think that's the way that you should be thinking about

(01:12:35):
the future. That's great. Thinking about folks who might want to become an entrepreneur might want to
start their own mortgage company might want to get into lending in a more broad sense.
What's your advice or inspiration do you have for them?
Find some mentors. Somebody has done this before in a way that you can
copy their path. And when I say copy their path, like they are like, don't be so arrogant that

(01:13:01):
you don't think you get like, especially to get things going, like rely on personal relationships.
If you want to get into the entrepreneurial game, it's going to succeed because of your
personal relationships. And so be humble enough where you're seeking advice from a lot of people
who have done it before and who have the dense in the helmet and learn from those

(01:13:24):
dense in the helmet and follow their path. That is, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.
And there's a lot of good literature that's even out there of people who have like, hey,
here's where I screwed up in the past. Don't do it like I did it here. Do it like this. And
take their advice, be humble enough that you can, you know, don't think you need to recreate the
wheel when the path to success in those first six to 12 months has already been laid out.

(01:13:48):
It's a great perspective. Thank you for sharing that. This is your stage. Is there anything that
you would like to promote or let people know about anything that we skimmed over that you'd
like to revisit? You know, no, I just really appreciate the opportunity. You know, what I found also is
it's just opportunities like this for me. It's, you know, with no of them, like,

(01:14:10):
everything changes so quickly in the startups, when you're starting a company that I find myself
describing no of them differently. If you had asked me about no of them two or three weeks ago,
I probably would have had a little bit of a different, you know, spin on what we're doing. But,
you know, because it just gets clearer and clearer and so that's what I'd leave people with who are
trying to get into the entrepreneurial spaces. Be flexible enough that, okay, we have an idea

(01:14:36):
what we want to do. But the path to get there is going to wind and so let it wind and be comfortable
with it changing and don't try to force it into this clear, like, nice little linear path.
Because that you're creating unnecessary guardrails for yourself. Let it bounce around and be
comfortable in that journey of trying to figure it out as you go. And, you know, that's, I guess,

(01:14:57):
the biggest lesson I've learned moving from corporate world into the entrepreneurial spaces,
you got to be comfortable in ambiguity. And just don't, if you don't do it, if you're not
comfortable in ambiguity, learn to have fun doing it and set yourself up to where you can
manage the risks that come from that. Tremendous, Travis, thank you for joining me.

(01:15:19):
Thank you for sharing your perspective. You did a great job. Thanks so much, Ryan. This was fun.
I appreciate you having me. Our next episode is with Sharon Love, Chief Executive Officer of
Cordance. You get a lot more No's than yes's. That's the definition of a job hunt. Those nose are not
about you. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for new episodes, leave a review,

(01:15:42):
and tell a friend. GoodFit Careers is hosted by me, Ryan Dickerson, and is produced and edited by
Melo-Vox Productions. Marketing is by StoryAngled, and our theme music is by Surftronica, with
additional music from Andrew Espronceda. I'd like to express my gratitude to all of our guests
for sharing their time, stories, and perspectives with us. And finally, thank you to all of our

(01:16:05):
listeners. If you have any recommendations on future guests, questions, or comments, please send
us an email at [e-mail].