The Future of Mortgage Jobs: Anonymous Matching and Data-Driven Recruiting with mLoop

there was this dating app in that came outta Stanford that was really popular, or is really popular, but there's an article in the Wall Street Journal about it. But their premise from this like social psychology, it came out of a class at Stanford and then they implemented it on their college campus. You got 3 drops, which was like 3 matches. That was the only people you could talk to that week on this dating app. That sort of was this premise for me. I was like, oh, there's this interesting sort of exclusivity makes you take an action versus like, oh, I could just continuously swipe through my matches, if that makes sense.

So, for decades, mortgage recruiting has pretty much looked the same. Recruiters call, loan officers dodge the call or block the number, companies pitch, and then people are left thinking, well, what's really out there? So, what if there was a better way? Today, I'm sitting down with Ellen Duncan, and she believes the recruiting process is long overdue for a disruption. And as the founder of mLoop, loop. She's building what many are calling— well, some are calling, and I think it's pretty clever— the Match.com or Tinder for mortgage recruiting by creating a private platform where loan officers can, can explore opportunities without the hassle of talking to recruiters and lenders, and they can connect in a completely anonymous way and in a different way. So actually, this conversation isn't just about recruiting, it's about innovation, entrepreneurship, solving real problems, and what happens when someone, um, sees an industry challenge and decides to build a better solution. So, Elle, thank you so much for joining me today on Lending Leadership. Yeah, I'm excited to dive into this because as a former recruiter— when I didn't even know I was a recruiter, to be honest, when I first got hired— but yeah, there's a— there was a big problem with just trying to get somebody on the phone and trying to sell yourself. And I feel like you've really created an awesome vehicle that kind of Just changes the whole game.

I know it's been interesting since, you know, I'm sure we'll go into a little more of the background, but since launching and sort of even bringing this sort of proposition or value proposition to both sides, the, you know, lenders who are looking to recruit and originators who are, you know, potentially open to a move, everyone's like, man, I should have thought of this. So this is so obvious. Like it didn't, it doesn't have to be the way it's always been. And I think that's just sort of one of those age-old, you know, things that people know, but there is, there can be a different way. We don't have to always do it the way it's been done.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's back up a little bit. So let's talk about, you know, where this idea came from, because so many times we have an idea and we're like, huh, that might be interesting. But you actually had this thought and did something about it. So, so back up. And because your background is not in recruiting, you're, you're really actually have a really interesting all over the place background, mostly in marketing. But yeah, talk me through where this idea popped into your brain.

Yeah, definitely. So, like you said, I am sort of primarily from outside of the industry. I've owned and run an independent consulting marketing growth strategy firm for about almost 6 years now. And in that work, came into this space, I was advising and then a fractional chief marketing officer for an IMB. And in that work, I was participating in recruiting, was helping in the storytelling of recruiting, and mapping out a journey and seeing where the conversion rates were. And I just started to really see that it's, you know, I would say broken, that there's a lot of areas of opportunity to be fixed. One in particular I was observing is participating in a conversation between a lender and an originator. And this, this was pretty far in the process.

I'm definitely a—

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's so interesting. I really do. I think that there's definitely a brokenness, and I'm sure that's pretty frustrating. You're sitting at this table and they're like, what's your CRM? And you're like, hold on a second, this, this is completely backwards. That should have been talked about, and it probably was spoken about, but, you know, people, people forget, or, um, You know, I think the Uberfication, if I'm saying that correctly, the Uberfication or the Match.com. I know a podcast group, PodMatch, does this.

Yeah.

And it's such a smart way to, to really start the relationship where someone can dip their toe in the water and just say, hey, you know, I'm— I don't know if I'm ready, but I'm kind of curious to see what else is out there. I think that's so smart. So, so talk me through You get this idea, you just launched it. What's the feedback been?

So across the board from the get-go, even back, I talk about sometimes my first couple lenders that came on the platform believed in it with a couple PowerPoint slides, which I'll be forever grateful for. And even were like, sure, we'll sign your contract and give you a little bit of money. But they believed, again, they saw the opportunity in the idea. From, I'd say, entirely positive, both sides, a lot of Oh my gosh, this is so obvious. Some skeptics of, which has been interesting, I would say, and this is sort of a fixed mindset reaction that I've gotten around that ensuring neutrality, you know, where people are like, well, who are the other lenders? Am I definitely going to have a fair shot? Maybe some people have said, I don't want my own loan officers to be on there. So I think this notion of I'm trying to find the partners on both sides that are really have a growth mindset. So, this could be a different way of doing it. We're not going to get it right from the get-go, but let's go into this with a notion of neutrality, transparency, aligned with privacy across all things.

So, positive feedback, even from, I would say, traditional recruiters. That was one area where someone had said early on, like, oh, people would be like, oh, she's coming for recruiters. That job of recruiter's done. And I always you know, use the analogy of sort of dating, where there's still this notion of we're going to make the data-driven match, but it's up to someone to nurture that relationship through to, you know, in this scenario, someone joining a lender or, you know, quote unquote, to a long-term relationship or marriage in the dating world. And so, there is a role for, there still is a clear role even through MLive matches for traditional recruiters. Yeah.

Well, I think that goes with anything, right? I mean, people can use that same fear or have the same conversation around just AI in general. Like, is AI going to take my job? Well, no, there still needs to be the puppeteer pulling the strings and there still needs to be the relationship behind it because you can get so far. And again, I, I, I never used any of the dating apps, but I imagine, you know, you, you look at someone's profile, they look perfect on paper, but then it's actual meeting them and the, you know, the sparks that fly between between the two people. It's the same thing in this situation, to actually sit down and break bread with someone and see, you know, what, what the vibe is. That, that, you know, this will take you so far and get you there, but it's, it's only going to have a better conversation when you sit down. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, um, let's talk about just the recruiting process in general, because I, like I said, I, I've been on that side of the equation, and, you know, it's so hard to break through. And so many times people kind of hold their cards very closely, even if they know they're going to be making a move.

It's like, well, I'm not talking to this recruiter. So, um, how have you really just seen that, that table being turned? Or maybe, you know, it's, it's new. So, so what are your hopes there?

Definitely. No, it's, I mean, new, but we have some early proof points, um, on both sides of the table. The notion of anonymity is really beneficial. And so what I mean by that, to your point on the loan officer side, there is this initial shield, trepidation, fear, A, that people are going to find out they're looking, could it impact their current employer role? Just having, is it going to lead to that many more phone calls? But on the lender side, there's also, I'd say, a hurdle some of them are dealing with around assumptions of the lender name. So, you know, I'm Ellen that's representing X company and that there's maybe a market assumption of who that company is, or maybe regionally they have a reputation, but nationally it's different culturally and things like that. And so when you first match on MLOOPS, so the loan officer receives a match, the lender themselves is also anonymized. As soon as they say they're interested, the lender's name is revealed. The loan officer stays anonymized.

But it's an interesting, we think a pro, the data, you know, behavior will start to play it out to see how that works. But we've seen it actually as a pro because, you know, from the notion of swipe left, swipe right, let's just say you and loan officer initially was like, oh, I know that company. They, you know, I don't like those people, but it might be different or it's a branch or it's the DBA or whatever it may be that you're not going to get that initial swipe left or we call it a decline. But a decline at name, you're at least potentially going to get to it, the conversation, and you might be, oh, I was a 96% match. Maybe I will just see what they have to say. They never even know they're talking to me until I reveal it. So long answer to the anonymity on both sides has actually been, we think, more of a pro than we realize, even on the lender side.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. I mean, sure, people have these preconceived notions, right, of, oh yeah, I know that company, or I know someone who went there and it was terrible, or I know someone who's there, they're doing great. And that's all subjective, right?

I mean, or even, I've never heard of that company, where they still might decline. They're like, oh, they're not— I've never heard of them, so I'm not gonna— when it again could be a great match.

That's, that's really cool. So what kinds of things, um, and actually let me back up. So it starts with the loan officer, right? They're the ones starting it. And, and lenders and IMBs and brokerages, they can, they can sign up on your platform, they fill out a whole profile, but then It starts with the loan officer filling in their information, correct?

Yeah. So I'll walk through it quickly. Exactly. So it's two-sided matching. So lenders create profiles that are based on, right now it's probably 76, we are continuing to optimize it, but data points, everything from their pricing, their products, their technology stack, their culture, growth opportunities. And then loan officers fill out, so loan officers are made aware, which we can talk through how we're doing that. Then they join. When they join, we validate their NMLS, their production, and then have them add in the rest of the sort of secret sauce details, which are what products do they want, what technology, what kind of culture, what kind of leadership, what kind of growth opportunities.

So then you have both profiles in the database and then the AI algorithm does the matching. But then she— where the journey begins is the loan officer is presented with the matches. So they're going to see Up to 3 match cards at a time. It'll tell them the percent of match, what matched, what didn't match. We phrase it as worth discussing, and then they have the opportunity to connect or decline. Our goal is to get as many connections as possible because that starts the conversation. When they choose connect, the lender's name is revealed, but the loan officer stays anonymous. So within the web app, a conversation starts.

They would know they're talking to, which is I know you're not, you know, recruiting day to day, but Rachel at HMA, and you would know you're talking to loan officer 1, 2, 3, 4. You know that that loan officer falls within your criteria of who you're looking for. So either it's not, so you at least know that much about who it is. So they're within your volume range you're looking for. They matched with you. And then the goal is obviously to get that loan officer to reveal or just say, hey, connect with me offline. Here's my phone number. Or they can within the platform actually.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, that's really cool. So are they able to— is there any kind of last chance for the lender if the loan officer goes quiet or ghosts them, or is it really just up to the loan officer?

So great. I would say right now the way it works is we're enabling a way to— we're not going to phrase it exactly, but let the loan officer gracefully bow out. So if they sort of aren't feeling it, they don't need to ghost and everything like that. They can sort of close the conversation and Emily takes care of letting the lender know. Aside from that, the way that we're motivating loan officers to, once they're in a conversation, I was going to say something like, well, we're about to do, basically take an action or don't take an action, is they can only have 3 matches or conversations happening at a time.

Okay.

So that's where we, because to that behavior, like we anticipate a lot of people might just, oh, connect and then just sort of let those things be ghosted, but they won't get new matches unless they've basically dispositioned the conversation. They either have said, yep, now I'm talking to them. Like we're, they have my number, we're talking offline, or I'm no longer interested. And then that would unlock another match for them.

Okay. Okay. So it's limiting them to 3 conversations, 3 dates.

You say 3 active. 3 presented matches or conversations just to— yeah, exactly. There's where that came from. Um, it's a little tangential, but it's interesting. There's this dating app that came outta Stanford that was really popular, or is really popular, but there's an article in the Wall Street Journal about it. Of course, the name is escaping me right now, but their premise from this like social psychology, it came out of a class at Stanford and then they implemented it on their college campus, is that you had 3 drops every Sunday.

Mm-hmm.

You got 3 drops, which was like 3 matches. And you only— that was the only people you could talk to that week on this dating app. Anyway, so it's just that sort of was this premise for me. I was like, oh, there's this interesting sort of exclusivity makes you take an action versus like, oh, I could just continuously swipe through my matches, if that makes sense.

So, um, I had recently read something about dating apps just in general, and this might be a conspiracy theory, I don't know, but I thought it was interesting about how it's not always just to match people and create relationships and marriages for life. It's about keeping people on the app because they can constantly swipe and the goal isn't always to, you know, have them happy and married off, but it's to keep them on the app, to keep them kind of in this constant loop. But I really like that idea of having and allowing people 3 conversations at a time because it inspires action like you just said.

Exactly.

That's pretty— Yeah.

Our goal to that point, we've gotten challenged a few times around, well, you're just going, you're going to continue to, I'd say, expand this notion of 20% of loan officers, you know, attrite or switch lenders year over year. And like, what if MLoot makes that into 25% and you're just really going to just sort of extrapolate this problem that's there? What I, I love to say, and again, proof will be in the pudding as we see this play out, but is that we're helping them hopefully find their long-term match, you know, and where they do have the best fit and be able to do that. It's not that then a year later Mloop is going to match them with another place, but that we're helping people either see there is a better fit for my business model out there, or maybe I am at the right fit. And it just, you know, reaffirms that and gives that confidence, which would lead to longer-term retention.

Yeah, I, I really like that too. I mean, how, how cool would that be if somebody takes a you know, goes through this, this whole profile and all these different data points, and it's like, hey, guess what? You've been at the right place all along. You're doing great. Um, I, I think that's pretty cool. So I want to talk about the data points because you said there's how many different data points? 70, 80, something like that?

We started with a lot. We started with over— I mean, close to 90. Um, what we found is— Oh, really?

Okay.

I was through a lot of interviews of just what are people looking for, what are all the things you could you know, call it filter or identify around what you offer or what you would be wanting. And especially, I think we are going across broker, uh, bank, IMBA depository, um, we are expanding into CD. So there are just a lot of different, you know, niche things, broader things. Um, so we started, we culled it down just because of the length of onboarding. We really wanted to try to keep it to 10 minutes. I'd say we're at about 12 minutes right now, give or take. Um, And then now we're using that data to optimize which points seem to be important to people. So we have the option for you to skip some questions.

We have the option where we see a lot of people saying open to all, so they're not really differentiators in the matching process. So we're, as we continue to optimize, we'll try to get it, you know, down to the core set and then probably, you know, augment, think about cadence profile builds that we do across other things where it's like, oh, now let us know, what snack do you prefer in your hotel room? But we could ask that down the line. We don't need that initial matching.

Yeah. Oh, that's fun. And when I come to visit this company, I would like only blue M&Ms on my rider.

Yeah.

Not necessarily the most important thing right in the beginning, but down the line, sure, you want to get to those specifics. to really wow somebody. Um, that's pretty cool. So is there anything that you noticed in the data points that you were really surprised about? A few things.

Um, I actually just released a newsletter today that, um—

I saw it, I saw it.

That learns this indicator. And again, I'm newer to the industry, learning a lot every day. But, um, even when I came into the vertical, there was so much sort of delineation between broker, IMB, depository.

Yeah.

So are you a broker LO? Are you a traditional retail LO? Are you wholesale? Are you like, and it felt like there were these sort of arbitrary lines. I'm like, yes, people make the jump, but it's, we don't really like when you go from broker to IMB or vice versa. And it, so all that to say, what we're, of all the loan officers or originators, 'cause there's branch managers too that have onboarded, 82% have said they're open to at least 2 or 3 of those contracts. And over 50% are saying they're open all. So are you, you know, I'd say there was this assumption coming in that you're at an IMB today, you probably are looking at an IMB. You're at a broker today, you're probably only looking at a broker. And it's really, the data is not, it's showing that lines are blurring. Um, I think we see that on the lender side with people delegated, non-delegated, you know, retail banks, uh, doing, uh, you know, delegating on QEAT, like where there, there continue to be blurred lines.

I think the majority of our IMBs that are on the lender side do offer access to a broker channel. You know, so again, it just, the data is showing that the lines are blurring.

Yeah, that's surprising. That's really surprising. 'Cause when I first started in recruiting, it was like, you know, we had all of our different tools and platforms we'd look at to kind of pinpoint our ideal avatar. And, you know, I remember them saying, oh no, don't even talk to the brokers. You know, it's this whole brokers are better, you know, IMBs are better. And there's that stigma, but that's interesting to know that 82% would be open to 2 or 3 and 50%—

And over, I think it was 55% that had checked open to all. Wow.

Okay. Well, that gives me some hope for our recruiters out there. Like, hey, don't, don't just discount somebody because they're, they're wearing this hat right now. You know, if, if, if it's a fit, it's a fit. It comes down to—

And even interesting, this is more of an anecdotal point, but I was at the Mastermind Summit in Vegas. I guess now 2 weeks ago. And when I would, you know, spoke to a lot of people on both sides of the marketplace, but loan officers themselves, I mean, they're in their work. They don't, you know, some of them are, I was like, oh, are you with a retail IMB? Are you with a broker? And they're like, IMB? What do you mean by that? And not in a way to make them like to talk down, but they just, they're in, I mean, they're just doing like, they don't, it's such these like corporate way that we talk about it versus even the The originators themselves are just their loan officer. And so how are they, you know, whoever they partner with to fund their loans?

Oh, that's funny. So they're like, what's that acronym? What are you talking about? You're like, oh, okay. Are you a broker? Yes. Okay, well then you're not in an IMB. That's funny. So, you know, I remember, and this point kind of surprised me, and sure, everything ebbs and flows, but I'm curious what you're seeing right now in terms of the pillars, the big pillars that are really driving change, or the pillars that people are really staying at a company for. Um, I was surprised that culture had such a high percentage, and this was a few years ago, and again, when I was really, really focused on primarily recruiting. Um, would you say that you're seeing any kind of, uh, trend or anything like that in terms of the, the key pillars of either what keeps someone at a company or makes them Definitely.

I'd say some, a few things are coming out. One is interesting. That's the hybrid or not. So there are, we've, I've seen more than a handful and actually was just talking to a lender recently that said he lost a bigger group because of this, um, that wanna have an office to go into. And I think there's—

They did want, they wanted one.

Yep. And so we have actually a question that we originally removed from the onboarding that said, That basically asks, do you want to be fully remote or do you want to have an office space to go into? And I think you're seeing this across in general communities, but then I think even interesting in this vertical and for these roles that having a space outside the house that you can go and whether it's for a community and/or just have a place to meet with referral partners or do things that just stood out as something that people are wanting to filter on, which was interesting. The other part on culture is, or leadership and culture in general, is the incentive programs. Um, I'm seeing a lot more variety of what's offered, a lot more, we don't really care about President's Club, or we actually took all the money from President's Club and are offering it in spot bonuses, or like, we're just, there are people, I think again, of things don't have to be done the way they've always been done. And I think there's Maybe an industry or subset industry that's like, of course you need to have a president's club and of course it needs to look like this. But then people trying to meet their team members, their employees, their loan officers where they are. And if getting a spot bonus of $5,000 might mean a lot more than an all-inclusive vacay or getting— so that's been an interesting one too, of where people, less of the lenders offer a traditional president's club vacation than I anticipated and then have a different way of doing that. And I would say when you look at the weighting of it on a loan officer side, again, not as important as you would anticipate.

Yeah, I would think that would be a big game changer. Like, oh, we get to go on a President's Club, Partners Club, Chairman's Club, whatever it's called, versus not having it. I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess that's the old school kind of thinking, but you're right, there is no, there is no mold that you have to follow.

Exactly.

And I do really like that. So, yeah.

And then to the third is, and I talk about this, um, a few times in some other, where there, I've been asked and we have not built this in on the product roadmap for sure, but it's sort of this just, I'll say cultural index, but really around, I have a lender that was like, Ellen, just match me with nice people. You know, like I want them to have great business, do good volume, but like, I just want someone that's going to be nice to my processor that's not making a whole lot of money a year. And just where, and I just, those are the things that we're trying to think from a DISC assessment or even some third-party quick quizzes. You can do the, there's different ways you can do it, but I thought, I just love that from, that's very reflective of that lender's culture that their chief growth officer, that's what they said. But the depth, people are just also wanting the right human connection as well.

Yeah, I love that. Just match me with good, kind people. We always say that. We don't want to— and Robert says this, which I think is really funny coming from him, big guy. And he's like, we don't work with jerkface meanies.

That's true.

No, we don't. We don't want to work with jerkface meanies. Yeah, because sometimes you spend more time with the people that you work with than your own family. Yeah, I get that about the hybrid piece too. That's really funny that you had initially taken that out. And I can see that. I mean, working from home, and we do, you know, we're all up and down the East Coast. So, there are some branches that do have an office to go into and some, I mean, I guess I could.

It's a little bit further away from Yardley, but I get it. You know, working from home all the time, sometimes it is nice to get out of your yoga pants and your nice shirt and actually get dressed up and go into an office.

Yep.

That I would imagine that is an important box to check or not check.

Or have the option. But yes, I was just, that one stood out to me this week. And yeah, so they're always on both sides. And so I try as much as possible, I personally onboard, you know, go through, anyone can do it on unloop.co, but personally co-onboard all the lenders that are active, meaning they're a paying part of the beta. Other lenders can onboard and then, you know, we'll look at whether they could fit into the beta or not. But then on the LO side, I'm really trying to do as much personal onboarding as well, just to get to know, you know, again, the what are people asking, what do they want, how are they reacting to different parts? Because we only know what we know, and that's the whole point of the data, is just to really match on what's important to you versus, you know, ancillary things.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, are you finding the loan officers that are signing up for Mloop, or, you know, they're not necessarily They're not the ones necessarily signing up. It's the lender that kind of pays the membership, right?

Correct. So for now, at this fate, like life stage of the company, lenders pay to participate and then lenders pay a success fee when an originator joins their company who was matched via Mloop. Loan officers are not paying anything at this time. We anticipate in Q4 into Q1 of next year, but probably in Q4, we will have some paid options on the LO side or the originator side, whether that's TBD, sort of tiered, maybe extra. Sure. All workshop, open to all ideas. And we're workshopping some of those things, but we will have a free option for sure for probably a long time for loan officers just to get there if they want to explore. We don't want to be a blocker to—

Yeah, I think that's pretty cool. So there's really, if someone's just curious to fill out a profile and just, there's really no There's no harm in doing that.

No one— Yeah, that was interesting. I wrote out—

No one needs to see your name.

I'm a subscriber to a lot of different, you know, business methodology things, and especially from my consulting life. And I was listening to something earlier and I was like, I'm gonna write out this exercise for Mloop. And it was sort of like, for lenders, it was sort of like in 5 years, or what were the statements? It was like, for lenders, like, you can't not be on it. And then for originators, there's no reason not to be on it. And I'm like, yeah, so it just sort of— that was sort of like, okay, if you try to put goalposts out for both of them.

Yeah, I mean, there's really no— there's no harm in it.

It's exactly—

it's completely anonymous. You don't have to pay for it. Um, and I actually— I think this would be so interesting to do internally, um, for, for our own loan officers, just to see how well matched they are. I mean, I might be a little bit afraid if we did that internally and someone isn't matching, but I mean, I think it's a great growth I totally, I mean, wholeheartedly agree with you on that.

I think there's a great option. I would love to, happy to pilot it with HMI, but it's the, there is something to that. And then I'm like, we all have that hesitation, you know, whether a relationship or like, but the, why not just get the data? And then if there is something where you're only a 70% match with someone, then we're like, all right, let's, what do we need to do to switch that? You know?

Yeah.

And it could be a misunderstanding that X means Y and you're like, oh no, we actually are on the same page. We just. Didn't realize it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I saw this a lot even with the IMB that I was working with getting into this industry is you always need to be retaining your talent that's with you today. And so I was always saying even at that lender, and I've talked to other lenders about this, you almost need to like re-pitch yourselves every year, every couple years to the people that have been there for a long time because you're telling the people you're recruiting all the new things that you have and all this stuff, oftentimes, the people who have been there might not even realize, like, oh, wow, we show up really impressive in recruiting conversations. But they have— it was to re-recruit them. So, all that to say, I do think there's some interesting application of internally looking at it.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would always say, hey, we can't just recruit someone and then say, see you never. We have to continuously be dating them. And I always, funny enough, I always would equate recruiting to dating. And, you know, when the marriage happens, that's not when you say, okay, see you later. That's, that's where the real work happens. And that you continuously have to date somebody, you continuously have to pour into the relationship and make sure that person is seen and heard. And, and yeah, I think you're definitely onto something with that.

I think that's, that's my, my wheels are turning. Yeah, let's just, I, you know, I'd love to, to just talk about where you're, you're really headed. And I know this is brand new and So it's actually happened pretty quickly from idea to—

For sure. Which for my personality, I have some great friends that are sort of pseudo-advisors until I can fund actual advisors, but they have to all the time be like, Ella, you've made a ton of progress in 6 months. Like, that's it. So definitely have, I'd say where we're going. So where we are exactly sort of today, halfway through the year, obviously in July, we have 12 active lender partners across, like we said, depositories, IMBs, brokers, um, potentially gonna bring a couple CD partners on. We may ha— add, uh, 2 or 3 more lender partners in. Um, we're really not pushing in that space right now until we are really are sort of operating on all cylinders on the originator side. So the focus for the next quarter is all on the originator awareness, adoption, getting them into the cycle of matching.

The technology will continue to evolve. We have another release. So we're just, you know, I'd say in sort of operating mode, but still in beta phase. Um, goal is to move out of beta by the end of the year, hopefully early Q4. Um, so that when we really hit the, you know, quote unquote high season of recruiting in Q1 of '27, we're really set up for success.

Right.

Um, so that's really like the short-term roadmap there. Um, it's still just me. I have a development partner that I'm working with. And, um, like I said, some friends that I have convinced to help listen to me and sort of work through some problems. But would love to grow the team, you know, in the next 6 months or so just to have, I am such a, like, just wanna talk things out. And so having a person or 2 that are really in it on at least a day-to-day or, you know, week-to-week capacity will be great. And then from there, it's expanding within vertical. So we have already had requests from some of our early adopters to, could you expand it into, um, you know, think underwriter roles, could you expand it into wholesale account execs? So thinking through, could this be the mortgage talent portal? Um, not just originators.

So looking at that. And then the next horizon would be out of vertical. So healthcare professional matching, hospitality industry. There's a few other, um, I'd say industries or verticals that have these more niche roles that can have specific requests of what you're looking for, that kind of support, basically their own equivalents of technology, products, culture, and potentially expand into those.

I love that. I love it. I think it's so smart. I think it's so fresh, it's so needed. And for anyone who is in that position to be looking for something, it It is frustrating, you know, and you, you don't know which way to go. There's so much out there, and a lot of times you end up applying to companies and it's a bot, and you're like, oh, I don't know if this is the right fit. I don't know where I should— what I should do.

And it's so one way. So, people, you know, at times have been like, oh, it's the modern job board, or it's a different version of Indeed. And not that those are, you know, 100% wrong, but it doesn't give this account that it's a two-way fit. You know, it's not just one person replying to a job posting. It's, you gotta figure out what someone, what the fit is on both sides. But then also just to the whole point of like earlier on, just know what your options are. Don't wait, you know, I'll say, you know, in the worst case is some people like, till your company's acquired, or don't wait until your regional manager leaves, or don't wait until—

Yeah.

Something, you know, you're really pissed at operations for a while to then be desperate for a change. But like, just if you build up and know your options, the better you are.

Yeah, absolutely. Puts that, that power back in your hands and puts the ball in your court, so to speak. Um, where, where can people find you? What's the first step they should take? Because I just think this is so fun.

I love it. I'm so glad to be able to share it with you. Um, so a few things: mloop.co will get you some of the information. There's a quick sign-up link there that will get you started into the onboarding, but also just share your info. We're on LinkedIn, um, Mloop. And on Instagram, @mloopHQ. Also personally reach out LinkedIn. Myself is [email protected] and open to— it's been so good, I'd say, in the past 6 months just learning so much more, like I said, about so many different lenders, so many great people that are in the industry.

So it's been really fun just to expand within that network as well.

I love it. I love when someone has an idea and brings it to fruition as quick as you did. I feel like you're just at the tip of the iceberg here. I'm excited to follow this journey and and see all the great things and great matches that you bring to people. And at the end of the day, these are human beings behind every story that hopefully brings more joy and value to their life. And it's just that domino effect of giving back. So thank you so much, Al. This has been great.

So guys, follow Alan Duncan, Mloop. Make sure you like and subscribe Lending Leadership and let us know, comment below if this is something that you're interested in or you created a profile, we want to hear from you. So we'll catch you next time. Thanks, everybody.