Release Early and Often
June 17th, 2008 Categories: General
I’m a serial entrepreneur, afflicted in worst and best of ways. One of the issues I’ve struggled with through my ‘career’ with is exactly when to roll out a business service or product. ‘It’ (whatever ‘it’ may have happened to be) is never ready in my head, there’s always something that can be done to improve or refine for the better. With the RateSpeed application, never have I been more conflicted in these terms.
Part of the problem when you are so passionately attached to something…working, living, breathing it day in and day out…is that after a awhile eveything begins to run together, it all looks the same and decision making can become very difficult. ‘Do we roll it out now, or after XYZ are done??’ While it’s a little unnerving, our plan is to release early and often.
RateSpeed is very ‘alpha’, if you will, compared to what the User Interface (UI) will look and act like in the near future, but it does the one thing that it’s supposed to do very well; Searches and returns best case mortgage rates and pricing direct from the wholesale lender market without any ability for inflated margins or otherwise manipulated information. The data flow is pure, transparent and therefore extremely credible. This is the most valuable and important aspect for consumers and mortgage professionals given the current state of affairs in the maligned mortgage industry.
Everything from look and feel to functionality and expanded integration of 3rd party data, RateSpeed will consistently evolve and improve with each iteration. I’ve received a considerable amount of great feedback from well respected professionals and am already in the process of implementing some of the viable suggestions. Offering a wide variety of program types (50-40-30-20-15-10 Yr Fixed, 3-5-7-10 Yr ARM’s and an interest only options) to choose from on the submission page is one of the first functionality updates you’re likely to see. A consumer will be able to select up to four program types per search.
To further this dynamic, in the coming days we’ll be launching our campaign to enroll 25 beta testers in the RateSpeed program. They will be hand selected and offered a considerable amount influence as to how the application evolves; I really believe in the wisdom of (wise) crowds. If you would like to be considered for a beta license click here.
For anyone who is submitting their information to RateSpeed and requesting their rates be emailed, hitting the ‘Im Interested’ or Buy Now tabs, your information falls into my inbox, to which I share with no one. We uphold the strictest of privacy standards. I’ll keep it this way unless you expressly state you want me to refer you to a mortgage professional, which I shall do gratis.
Neither I nor this company charges for leads or referrals and we do not originate loans. This allows us to stay extremely objective in our approach to providing the information that we do, on behalf of the transparent mortgage professional and for the consumer. Once we have our beta group in place, consumers will be directed to the websites of RateSpeed licensed mortgage professionals running the application and servicing their local area.
Thanks to everyone who has submitted feedback, offered support and kind words of encouragement towards changing the mortgage industry for the better, for everyone.
JeffX
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