https://www.listennotes.com/e/a65db1d330d74ed1993db1387fec58ae

Welcome to the Legacy All Stars Podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavlowski.

Welcome to another episode of the Legacy All Stars Podcast, where we celebrate people making a lasting impact through their work and their generosity. You can find this episode and all episodes at legacyallstarspodcast.com I'm your host, Alan Pavlowski, and today we have two incredible guests who have transitioned from their professional sports careers into the world of financial empowerment and fintech innovation. Joining us are Walter Mendenhall, former NFL player and CEO of Help With My Loan, and Jared Lloyd, former professional basketball player turned financial entrepreneur. Their third partner is Jared's sister, Jewel, but she could not make it due to the to her commitments for the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces. So we're sorry she couldn't make it, but we're really happy to have Walter and Jared. Walter, Jared and Jewel have taken their drive, discipline and teamwork from the field and court into the financial industry, where they are now on a mission to revolutionize the lending process and help people secure financial stability and generational wealth. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, my pleasure. Walter and Jared, let's start with your journeys. What was the transition like from professional sports to entrepreneurship? And I'll start with you, Walter.

Man, to be honest, I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was till after I was done playing. My backup plan, they always said have a backup plan after sports was to be a teacher and a coach. And I actually did that, but I started to realize that I wanted to have more of an impact. And exploring, and you know a lot of times as a former athlete, you have to rediscover yourself. You have to figure out what is it outside of the sport that you play that you're passionate about and that you loved. And eventually I saw mentorship, then eventually entrepreneurship as an avenue in order to do that.

Wow, great.

Jared?

Yeah, I think similar. You know, I grew up, my dad was an entrepreneur. And so I remember just kind of helping him at like fourth and fifth grade, you know, with like sending invoices. And so I always had a passion for entrepreneurship. And I always thought that basketball or whatever sport I was doing would be an avenue for me to just accelerate that passion. And so that's what led me to entrepreneurship and started thinking around business.

Yeah, that's great. Were there any lessons from your sports careers that helped shape your business mindset?

For myself, I would say yes. I think business is the closest thing to sports. The adversity, the getting up, especially in football, when you get knocked down, In business, you have a lot of losses sometimes. You lose money, you make a mistake, you do these things, and you have to worry about the next play or okay, what's the next thing? How do I learn? How do I get better? And I think, to be honest, that sports and business kind of go hand in hand. Sports is just physical, and business is mental.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things I always, after working with players for 30 years of my career, one of the things that always struck me as a what's amazing about athletes in general is their ability to overcome obstacles. And that's so crucial in business. Jared, what do you think?

Yeah, I think also being able to take constructive criticism. I think you learned that from early on in terms of all the coaches that filter through your youth career to high school to college. And I think taking constructive criticism opens you up to really be able to think differently in how you attack challenges and problems. And then also to what can you do better, right? So I think that's a skill that sports provides that no other place you can really get that.

Got it.

And be prepared for a construction project.

Yeah, absolutely. The shift from sports to financial services is unique though. What sparked your passion for FinTech and lending? And I'll start with Jared on this one.

For me, when I left playing basketball professionally, I was introduced to the futures and derivatives market being from Chicago. And so the CME group and the board of trade was kind of this historic place. And I got an opportunity to be introduced to what was going on in terms of trading and derivatives in that world. And so I created an algorithm to trade financial markets. And that what sparked me in terms of being able to develop kind of systems and things to think differently and look at kind of global markets differently. Fast forward, I was able to partner with a friend of ours who was a professional athlete and wanted to kind of transform the way people were getting access to capital back in 2010. I was 20 and I started to see really a lot of the disparity that was happening in fintech and finance and banking. And that's what sparked my interest into figuring out more accessible solutions for entrepreneurs.

Yeah, I mean, it takes a lot of character to focus on the needs of those that don't have access rather than just focusing on the shortest path to wealth. So I appreciate that. And did that play a role in your direction on what you wanted to do?

100%. It takes a little bit of discovery process and specifically for me personally, but once I saw a lot of the bottlenecks that were happening in banking and finance for folks that were essentially credit worthy but still not able to access capital, that lit something for me and I really wanted to figure out a solution.

Yeah.

Walter, how about you? What made you want to get into fintech and lending?

Yeah, so it actually, you know, my background's a little bit more on the grassroots level. So as a small business owner, especially during the pandemic, I was looking to get a lot of credit. I'm not going to say the bank that I was getting a line of credit from, but it was an account that I had with that bank. had over six figures in my bank account and I got denied for a line of credit. And that sparked a whole, I'm going to be honest with you, it turned into an obsession. It was during the pandemic, really didn't understand why I was denied. And I kind of went on this kind of journey of access to capital, how to access capital, credit worthiness. And it really turned into obsession during the pandemic. and I just learned a lot about lending, about the practices. I even turned my education and my dissertation to access to capital and discovering sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems. And that eventually turned in to me creating a micro equity fund in partnership with a nonprofit called Sunshine Enterprises and PNC Bank. which we were doing micro lending. And eventually Jared called me and we embarked on a venture together along with his partner who was in the NBA. And really kind of just really to be honest with you fell into it and loved it. And you know that actually turned into tech and fintech and financial lending.

Wow, that's a great story. I mean, it's a great path. Sometimes the serendipity of all of those kind of movements are just amazing to hear about. So I appreciate you sharing that story. What led to the acquisition of Help With My Loan and how did that work out?

Again, our journey's path crossed in 2020 when I asked Walter to come and come along on this journey in terms of figuring out different solutions for entrepreneurs of color. We ended up launching, I would say, a successful fund. And then we pivoted or I pivoted and saying, you know what, we got to figure out a way to scale this opportunity. And so that ended with that, we created a model to underwrite entrepreneurs of not just color, but people that are, you know, essentially don't always have hard assets and don't always have a traditional FICO score or business score or whatever. So I developed the model for that. We actually presented it to MIT in 2023. We won an MIT solve award, actually got to the quarterfinals and, and did that and ended up figuring out that this is, this is a, a a huge problem that we really want to attack and solve. And so in order to kind of accelerate our process, instead of building it from scratch, we wanted to just look and see, you know, how we could provide this opportunity to a larger platform. And so that's really how the acquisition kind of started.

Yeah. And originally, I think the company was from California and you moved it to Chicago. Is that right?

So, yes, the founders, Jack and Chris, started the company in 2017, actually ex-bankers bankers themselves and kind of understood the bottlenecks as well. And they had already started to build some technology around some of these bottlenecks that, you know, unfortunately, banking still has. And so we saw that opportunity. And, yes. So we have an office in, in California still, and we launched an office in Chicago.

Fantastic. So help with my loan aims to revolutionize the lending experience. Can you break down how the platform works?

Yeah, so essentially what we do is essentially itemize the lending process in which we use OCR technology, so optical character recognition, which essentially it reads documents and it packages the loans 80% faster than a human being and we match it with the lenders that you know, would take the deal based on their criteria. So essentially, the technology expedites the lending process and helps the person looking for the capital to get the capital quicker, and it helps the lender in which we help them to source deals and make their jobs easier.

Great. You've had a very high success rate in securing funding for people using that platform. What makes your approach different from traditional lending systems? I know you described some of it, but what makes it so different?

To date, Help With My Loan has essentially originated close to a billion dollars in lending to commercial real estate investors and entrepreneurs that are looking to scale. And our approach is different than traditional lending because we're using kind of AI and OCR technology that helps speed up our processes. And then also we're not just pigeonhole to one credit box. So when the lenders, you know, traditional lending lenders, they usually only have one or two things that they will into.

Right.

And then that's it. For us, we can go across the gamut to Revenue based financing, creative lending, hard money. So we're not just pigeonhole to one style of lending and or one lender's underwriting criteria. So that helps us really increase that success rate for entrepreneurs and not waste their time.

Yeah, that's great. You know, a lot of entrepreneurs and aspiring homeowners struggle with securing funding. What advice specifically do you have for them?

I think the entrepreneurs that are spying aspiring for home ownership. I think home ownership is so important as you're thinking about building a business because you can leverage your home, right? Eventually, if the bank won't in the future give you access to credit, you can actually use your home equity that's been built up to leverage into your business. So you will, you know, that's a start. What advice I give them is, you know, kind of do your rent-to-own analysis because sometimes flexibility is important. Sometimes you might have to rent for a couple of years and then own. So that's one strategy. The other advice I would say is make sure if you do have a home, make sure you get a home equity line of credit, right, immediately so that you can leverage that HELOC for opportunities that you see down the line. And then also if you're struggling to get a home, it starts with your credit, right, unfortunately. But there are solutions for that. But make sure you can get some credit building strategies to help build your credit. so that you look aspiring to a bank. Now, there are some opportunities that are coming in the future where credit won't be such a big issue to own a home. And we could probably talk about that.

Yeah, that'd be a fascinating conversation for sure. Maybe another episode.

And I would like to add to that is that think ahead, plan ahead, and understand what it takes in order to accomplish your goals. I think sometimes, yes, There are credit barriers, there are other barriers. But I think a lot of it, and the most, I guess, critical barrier is knowledge. Even when I went to apply for that line of credit, if I would have known what I knew now, I probably would have got that line of credit. I just didn't know what bankers look for, what lenders look for. I just thought it was a good credit score and money in the bank. But the formula is a little bit more complex than that. And I really didn't know. So study what it is to order to acquire certain assets that you're looking to acquire and then plan ahead.

Yeah. Wow. A friend of mine always says knowledge isn't power. Execution is power. But the two of them combined is extremely powerful. Yeah, exactly. the company's mission focuses on bridging gaps in the lending industry. And besides the systemic inequities that we all know about, why is financial accessibility so crucial for building generational wealth?

I believe it's the foundation of wealth building. If you look at any wealthy or successful person, there was capital that was not given, but lent to them in order to grow their enterprise. And especially in the, you know, American society, you need debt in order to grow. And people think of debt as a bad word, but it is actually, if you use debt correctly, it can be a multiplier, it can be a accelerator, and it can grow and scale your enterprise. three or four times as faster as if you were using, you know, money out your own pocket. Yeah.

OPM, right?

Yep.

Jared, do you have anything to add to that?

Knowledge is important and understanding, you know, once you do have accessibility, you know, how do you steward it properly? It's another conversation too, right? So once you do have financial accessibility, How do you actually build generational wealth? Because there's a lot of steps in between in that process. But no, I completely agree. I think it's super important and that's really the foundation is accessibility.

How does technology play a role in removing barriers for underserved communities?

So technology has the ability to be unbiased. that's the number one thing that I see because with technology, the traditional route of how some majority of financial lenders operate today is based on one, their credit box. Sometimes it's where the business or entrepreneur is located. Sometimes it's based on demographics and also how that person feels. the underwriter feels about that business entrepreneur or the business. And that can provide a lot of bias rather than just looking at the data, pure data. So technology has the ability to just really be a better process for unbiased lending and unbiased credit scoring. And so that's where I'm seeing technology plays a huge role.

Right, I mean, the obvious elephant in the room is the cultural bias. and technology could definitely bypass that or at least curtail the dependence upon people and their cultural biases. So it's great to hear what you're saying about that. Both of you have super inspiring career pivots. What does legacy mean to you? Walter, I'll start with you.

What legacy means to me is leaving this world better than where I found it and finding a lane in order to do that for myself, whether it's through my non-for-profit, the Male Movel Initiative, which seeks to positively transform the way young men live and lead in their communities through leadership, entrepreneurship, workforce development. I just want to inspire, I want to influence, and I want to leave this world and people, you know, remembering me for doing something that was life-changing and that affects generations to come.

All right, well, let's not bury the lead, because what this show is all about is people that do great things to help others. And I'd love to hear more about your non-profit that sounds like an amazing initiative.

Awesome. Yeah. So, you know, the male Mogul started with five kids. at a local church after a conversation I had with a young man at a career day, great young man, honor roll student, basketball player, but sold drugs to get the things that he wanted. And I thought to myself, how many young men in this city and just in the nation have the gift skills and talents to be successful legal entrepreneurs, but don't have the opportunity or the accessibility to become a successful legal entrepreneur? So it started with five kids at a local church in 2018. It's blossomed to serving over 3,000 young people, producing over 200 plus jobs. A lot of our young men are now commercial and business loan brokers with the help of my loan platform. And we actually also last year opened up Chicago's first small business incubator for youth and young adults. called CoLab, short for collaboration. So we're doing a lot of things to create community wealth building and generational wealth building through young men and helping people to see them as assets instead of liabilities.

That's amazing. We'd love to make sure we promote that at the end of the show and make sure people know how to reach you with regard to that nonprofit, 'cause that's a big part of what we do here. Jared, what about you?

I would say I'm still ironing that out. Legacy is a big work. And, you know, the focus of all the portfolio companies that we acquire is really transforming people's lives through financial services. And that's, really what I'm focusing on in terms of how, you know, I want to kind of leave a legacy. But I'm excited about what I think the next, you know, five to 10 years looks like for that type of vision and mission.

Yeah, that's great. How do you see your impact evolving in the next five to 10 years? Jared, I want to start with you on this one.

You know, again, I'm really focusing over the next five to 10 years. as an entrepreneur, focusing on transforming people's lives through financial services. And my mission and vision is to create at least a $10 billion annual economic impact for folks annually through financial services. And I think we have a way to do that. That's what I'm planning on. And so that's really kind of how I look at my impact evolving over the next five to 10 years is focusing on how do I create direct indirect economic annual impact, close to 10 billion annually. So that's something that I'm really focusing and driving on.

Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, it's great to put a number to it, but it's also great to see when your short term and your long term goals are aligned and in sync. And it clearly seems to me like yours are in sync with each other. You just want to expand it and grow it.

Yeah, it's the goal. And hopefully I can leave my legacy.

In that format too. Yeah.

How about you, Walter? Yes, so for us, it is essentially creating a model that can be duplicated for community wealth building ecosystem. This is something through my dissertation, which I am finishing up this month, on how to create prosperous and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems and communities of color under-resourced communities. of color. And this is based on my life's work, my research, what we have done with the nonprofit, understanding the problems, understanding the solutions, and figuring those things out and essentially solving what I call the three problems that I feel plague the city of Chicago. The first one, 45% of African American young men ages 18 to 24, are not in school or working. The second one, 80% of capital needs for black and brown entrepreneurs go unmet each year, which is $146 million annually. And the third is that 80% of homicide victims are African Americans. So I believe in, you know, what we're doing, what Jared is doing, us coming together, collaborating, partnering from a high level and also from a grassroots perspective will not only solve these problems, I believe that we could take this globally and eventually, you know, our ultimate goal, which he's not saying, but I'm gonna say, is to acquire and to have our own bank. So, yeah, I'm putting that out there.

So you don't put it out there, it's not likely to happen. So I believe in manifestation and I certainly think that's an amazing goal. Walter, as a CEO and a leader, what core values drive your work at help with my loan?

That's a great question. Essentially, what some of the core values, I think it's just even me personally, I think integrity, I think being innovative and essentially being humble, those are the things that drive me as a leader, as a CEO for the company. I think a lot of times people don't say humbleness, but you know, when you sometimes do things or you know, you're in finance, to deal with money, you can kind of feel that, I'm trying to find the right word, that some people can get an ego. And I think the humility piece, understanding that people are not here to make you money, but you're here to solve problems for other people. and help people to be better and to serve. And we do that by helping them to access capital. And that essentially is the ultimate humility and character and integrity. Those all go into that. And if we can do that as a company, I believe we could be the leading fintech company in the world.

That's amazing. Jared, what advice would you give to athletes looking to transition into entrepreneurship?

That's a great question. I think it starts with identity. Because sometimes as athletes, we wrap our entire identity into our craft. And that's good and sometimes that can be a hurdle. So I think first, understand who you are and that takes some deep soul searching. I'm still figuring that out as well. Who you are. What are you actually passionate about? Which is standard, right? Find your passion. And then I would also say mentorship, right? So who do you see? It could be via books, it could be podcasts, it could be actually engaging that individual or group. What are they doing that you want to do?

Right.

And then go seek them out, right, or go study. So I would say that that's some of the things that I've been able to do and still doing, right, because I'm always trying to learn.

So, yeah, great stuff. Well, closing thoughts, I want to kind of move on to where can listeners learn more about help with my loan as well as nonprofit ventures that you're involved with and how can they get in touch with you?

Best way is to get in contact with us via our website. So it'd be helpwithmyloan.com and then on a larger scale, because helpwithmyloan is a portfolio company of the Lloyd Co. Which Walter is a managing partner of that as well. They can find out a little bit more about what we're doing from a larger scale at thelloydco.com How do you.

Spell the Lloyd Co?

T-H-E-L-O-Y-D. co.com.

Okay. I want to make sure people don't get that confused. Look, I want to thank you both. It's been a great discussion. You guys have inspiring vision and an amazing platform. And I'm super excited about the opportunity that people have to grow their generational wealth through the tools that you're building. I couldn't applaud you more. I'm just incredibly grateful and excited for what you're doing. So, thank you. Thank you for sharing your powerful insights today. Listeners, if you found this episode valuable, please subscribe, share, and leave a review. This is Alan Pavlowski signing off for the Legacy All-Stars. And remember, stay inspired and keep building your legacy.