Just Go Grind #264: Christopher Hussain, Founder and CEO of RealKey, a Digital Platform Streamlining the Mortgage Processing Experience for Borrowers
Christopher Hussain is the Founder and CEO of RealKey, browser based mortgage process facilitator that centralizes and simplifies documentation collection and review to reduce touches with underwriting by getting the right information and data the first time, direct from the source through API integrations and OCR text recognition, while automating review of data through algorithms and text recognition, creating a clean loan submission that reduces time, effort, and frustration for all parties involved.
Prior to founding RealKey in 2015, Christopher was the number one Mortgage Originator in the United States from 2010 to 2011 and personally funded over $2 billion in residential loans in all 50 states. A born entrepreneur, in 2013 Christopher also co-founded Sindeo, a San Francisco-based startup that raised $50 million to create a new mortgage experience. As a recognized business and thought leader in the mortgage industry, he has successfully scaled numerous mortgage loan companies. In his current role as CEO and Founder of RealKey, Christopher is leveraging his breadth of industry experience to transform and enable faster, more efficient mortgage loan processing. Christopher spends his free time advising for numerous startups and entrepreneurs on growth hacking, marketing, and operations strategy. He is also a 4th degree instructor in Taekwondo and rare beer collector.
Some of the Topics Covered by Christopher Hussain in this Episode
- What RealKey is and the pain points it's trying to solve
- Christopher's background in mortgage technology and his entrepreneurial journey
- How Christopher built, grew, and sold Sindeo
- Christopher's family challenges that led to him founding RealKey
- Managing potential conflicts of interest for RealKey
- How the RealKey team has shifted over time
- Raising capital for RealKey and Christopher's advice for founders in the process
- Christopher's experience going through the Batchery incubator
- How they handled running out of capital in 2017
- How and why they decided to pivot RealKey
- Integrating RealKey into the mortgage tech industry instead of creating friction within it
- User research and feedback for RealKey and the tools their team uses
- Their experience so far with The Flagstar MortgageTech Accelerator Program
- The 3-pronged approach to customer acquisition for RealKey
- The positive ways the COVID pandemic has changed the way the world does business and how RealKey has leaned into remote culture
- RealKey's business model and how they determined pricing
- What Christopher's day-to-day looks like and how he recharges
- How Christopher invests in himself
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