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Fireside chat with Matthew McAllister

Who is Matthew?

A father of two, husband to 1 and Co-Founder and CEO of MortgagePropeller.com – an On-Demand services platform for Brokers and Borrowers.

Tell us more about your role in Mortgage Propeller.

Mortgage Propeller’s origins go back to 2018 when my wife and I had a stressful experience obtaining a mortgage for our home. I had been through the process in 2010. In 8 years nothing had changed. So my Co-Founders and I and decided we’d try to solve the underlying problems that make the industry so challenging.

My role as CEO is to oversee the continued growth and development of the company, ensuring the platform is continually improving to make the application process quicker and easier for borrowers and brokers. I also have a hand in the boring stuff all Fintech startups have to do – admin, fundraising, reporting…

What is the most difficult part of your job? But the most rewarding one?

Time away from my wife and kids. It’s a killer! But you know. Its for a good reason. There is no better feeling than working 3 day and nights straights, getting home exhausted and hearing the footsteps running to the door and hearing “DADDY”!

Is there anything that you would change about your professional path?

Good question. Hmmmm … I think if I were to go back I’d have entered the FInTech and startup world earlier. There is much more opportunity and reward building something from scratch with a great team.

What’s your key strategy for the development of your company?

Recruit great people. It’s everything. You need great people around you and working with you. Aligned and with the same objective those that believe in what you are trying to do but also have the acumen and work ethic to execute. That culture is lost in most large companies and being able to innovate with limited resources provides a strategic advantage.

Elon Musk, for all his flaws, is all over media at the moment talking about the need to trying to innovate at Twitter. With all the resources in the world he just can’t force that culture upon Twitter – hes trying. Our development is based on that culture already being there so we continue to grow and development even with the constraints of an early stage startup.

What do you think about the next period of time, keeping in mind the pandemic and the new business climate? How will your industry be affected?

The industry will continue to move away from bricks and mortar, face to face meetings between advisors and their clients.

For example, I know of a successful firm in the heart of The City, originally located for easy access for Londoners. Since the beginning of the Pandemic they entire firm has yet to meet a client face to face with everything now done via Zoom.

More and more of the industry will follow this lead, especially as Gen Z and Millennials begin to get on the property ladder. We are also likely to see consolidation in the market with lots of small brokerages and financial advisory firms acquired, rolled up into one larger firm and advice provided from central locations..

Look to America where Rocket Mortgage have 20k+ staff in Detroit and dominate the Amercian market – RocketMortgage.com didn’t exist in 2015!

Please name a few technologies which have the greatest impact on your business.

MortgagePropeller.com is built on the Azure cloud and supported by a number of technologies. Twillio, SendGrid power a lot of the communication. We integrated Hubspot which allows us to keep our salary overheads low and we find ButterCMS a simple, elegant solution for essential site updates.

But overall, the biggest technology that has had the greatest impact on our business is the mobile phone (and a few key communication apps). Our culture would have been lost without the ability to stay connected every hour of the day – especially in the early days during lock down.

What books do you have on your nightstand?

  • No Filter by Sarah Frier
  • The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear
  • Never Split the Difference By Chris Voss

These are the last 4 in my audible list ‘read’ list.

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