00:00From the George Bush Center in Dallas, Texas, I'm Allison LaForgia, and today I am joined
00:13in a joint interview with Tidal Wave CEO, Diane Yu, and Mike Cordes, who is the CEO of Nexa Mortgage.
00:21Thank you both for joining me, and congratulations on your partnership, which was just announced.
00:26So glad to be here.
00:27Diane, let's start with you, and let's talk a little bit about the vision behind Tidal Wave,
00:34which is an AI-first platform that's making some major traction in the industry.
00:40How is this collaboration with Nexa aligning with the mission over at Tidal Wave?
00:48So the partnership and the customer, and they're just coming so naturally together,
00:54because we at Tidal Wave, we're always proud of ourselves.
01:00We want to make sure that we shift left.
01:02We want to engage with our customers' borrower and help them perfect the file,
01:10and then help everything downstream.
01:13So I remember the first day when I had the conversation with Mike and Jason, saying,
01:20you know what?
01:21I'm not even sure we have the right product for you because we never had a broker as a customer.
01:26And then they were saying, no, no, no, okay, we watched your demo.
01:29We know you were super close.
01:33And if we just work together, bring the very last mile together,
01:38we're going to create history for the brokerage industry.
01:42Let's do that together.
01:43So that's how the customer, you know, basically the partnership came along.
01:47It was really great.
01:48So Mike, as the CEO of the largest mortgage brokerage,
01:55what drew you to Tidal Wave specifically, and why now?
02:00Well, she actually hit the nail on the head with what drew us to Tidal Wave.
02:04We've contacted a lot of different AI companies in this perspective.
02:07We've been looking for this.
02:09We saw some things out there that we realized quickly this is going to change everything.
02:12And if you don't get involved in it now, you suffer being extinct tomorrow.
02:16So we realized that we knew that we're always trying to make changes
02:21and make our loan officers' lives better.
02:23But when we were able to finally reach out to Diane and her team,
02:27it really became obvious that they were willing to listen,
02:31they were willing to think, because everybody else only dealt with IMBs.
02:34They didn't deal with somebody who was predominantly in a brokerage environment
02:37because brokers are very fragmented.
02:40They only have two to five people at them.
02:43So it was only like a brokerage the size of Nexa that could actually get something done for the TPO channel.
02:50So we recognized that their willingness to listen and talk,
02:54and so then we were able to create a better marketplace for the entire environment.
02:58But it was really their willingness to be open.
03:00Diane was actually open, took a call from Jason at 11 o'clock at night at her time,
03:05stayed on the phone with him, talked to him about it.
03:07And you can tell in the way when you really get to sit down with Diane for multiple times,
03:13you can see the methodicalness in how she thinks.
03:16You can see her thinking to some degree.
03:19But she never, ever just blew it off.
03:24She wanted to hear it out.
03:25And that's what we knew was a great partnership.
03:27But for the answer of why now, really, I think now was the wrong time is the reality.
03:36I think six months ago would have been the right time.
03:39So if Diane and I were able to find each other back in January,
03:43the things that we could have accomplished up until now would have been enormous.
03:46But I believe that we'll pick up for lost time very quickly,
03:51and we're going to see this thing really, really expand for the entire markets.
03:53So let's spend a minute talking about how Diane's a little bit different,
03:58how Tidal Wave is a little bit different.
04:00AI is one of those buzzwords where there's a lot of talk in the industry.
04:05But there's a lot of companies who are part of that talk who haven't really moved the needle.
04:12What sets Tidal Wave apart from competitors?
04:17So Tidal Wave, since day one, when we set out to do,
04:20we are not just set out to do an AI chatbot.
04:24We want to create a system, a fully integrated system to truly solve and create a solution.
04:32And that's the difference.
04:33So it took us two years.
04:35I was not kidding.
04:38You know, when the day that AI become a thing,
04:42chat GPT become a known, you know, household name,
04:45since that day, we know, hey, the last piece of this capability is there.
04:51So we want to build AI at its core, build a capability,
04:56the system that can truly help our customer, the lenders, now the broker,
05:02and who knows who, you know, what else, other category of the customer that could find usage.
05:07So the idea there is, and you have to have a fully embedded capability,
05:13and you have to help your customer in a way that truly take away the task, right?
05:20Not add on task, not just give you a whole bunch of work to do,
05:24but actually do the work for you.
05:26In order to do the work for you, it takes a lot of integration.
05:30So we spent the last two years doing integration with credit,
05:34integration with asset, integration with the bank statement evaluation,
05:38and the Fannie and the Friday.
05:39And that finally, the final product is ready.
05:43And that's what's enabled, you know, basically people like Nexa could launch in two weeks.
05:49And it never happened before, and they made the record.
05:52You both are launching this across an extensive network.
05:56How are you thinking of operationalizing the AI piece of this?
06:04And how are you keeping the human interaction at the center?
06:10Well, for me, growth is easy.
06:13I'm not scared of growth.
06:15There's no fear in growth to me.
06:17We grew Nexa Mortgage to the largest mortgage broker in U.S. history in four years.
06:22So we're not, seven years in, we're looking for new things.
06:25We're looking for new challenges.
06:26Our loan officers, we have an extensive communication with them, so it's very easy.
06:30I did a meeting with them just before this interview, in fact, where they're extremely excited.
06:34They want to get on it.
06:35They want to do this.
06:37They understand the future of it.
06:39So it won't be difficult for us to really do it.
06:42It's just going to be able to control the massive amount of questions that they have.
06:45But we have an extensive support network that is going through it first.
06:49As Diane's indicated, we have already had some loans go into the system, but that's our support team.
06:53Those are the people who support our loan officers, who train our loan officers, who teach them.
06:56So we have an entire support platform for that as well.
07:01And as far as the humanistic part of this whole thing, I think that's the best part of AI.
07:05Everybody's afraid it's going to take them away or take them out of it.
07:08In my opinion, it's going to put the loan officers into what they enjoy the most.
07:12It's going to put the loan officers directly into, and loan officers are natural salespeople.
07:16We're naturally socializers.
07:18It's going to allow us to do that 10 times more than what we've been doing.
07:22Because what we really don't do well is the paperwork part of it.
07:27And this is going to take care of that.
07:29So we're excited about what it does for loan officers' lives.
07:32So let's lean in and talk a little bit more about increasing the effectiveness of those human interactions.
07:40What is some of the chatter that you just mentioned you've heard from the people who are actually going to be implementing this
07:48and what they're excited about for the enhancement capabilities of those human-to-human conversations?
07:55So they're excited because, as I said, loan officers by nature are ADD, if you will, right?
08:03We're salespeople, alpha, high-drive people, right?
08:09But we get frustrated with mundane tasks.
08:12Probably one of the problems with getting a mortgage for the average consumer is a loan officer can get frustrated pretty quickly
08:16and they can lose a little bit of focus.
08:19AI doesn't lose focus.
08:21It doesn't do that.
08:22It just keeps doing it, right?
08:23Underwriters and lenders hate when you piecemeal conditions.
08:29AI doesn't care.
08:30Underwriters, loan officers love to piecemeal conditions.
08:33AI doesn't care if you do it.
08:35It's fine with it.
08:36So you can just log in and talk to the loan.
08:38You don't have to talk to the consumer anymore.
08:40So loan officers, like I said, we're going to be able to go out and do the things we do.
08:44We're going to be able to socialize, go to events.
08:46We just have to drive as many people into our AI platform as humanly possible.
08:51So we'll be able to do 10 times as many loans as we had in the past.
08:54So it seems like there's not only a benefit to the loan officers who will be implementing this,
08:59but also for that borrower experience.
09:01100%.
09:02For a borrower to be able to log into the system themselves and talk to their own loan.
09:06What is wrong with them?
09:07What do you need from me?
09:08To talk to it and work with the loan itself to provide a solution for them to get the financing they need for their home.
09:16So that's an enormous difference in comparison to how it's done now.
09:20Absolutely.
09:21Now let's end with a forward-looking moment.
09:24What are we excited about where we're at the very beginning of this partnership?
09:28What are we excited about for the future?
09:29I'm super excited the opportunity to win together because together we're going into a different category.
09:37A category that, you know, taking tidal waves resource alone just won't be able to get in
09:44because we have too much, a lot of traction on the lender front already.
09:49But with this partnership, with their operational expertise, with their business expertise,
09:54and the max team will just be able to take over powered by tidal wave everywhere they go.
10:02And then that's amazing, you know.
10:04And I think one day, and then it will be in my dream, that we can help all the borrowers who work with a loan officer,
10:13help them to get to the pre-approval mortgage application on the point of interaction,
10:21like in real time, get right there to help all those customers ever want to get a mortgage.
10:27And that will be my dream.
10:30Yeah.
10:30What I'm most excited about really with the partnership is I truly believe that Diane and her team at tidal wave,
10:35what they're able to doing can really change the entire TPO sector
10:41so that they can now all be a part of this as well.
10:45And they won't be left out from the, specifically from the front end that we're being left out on.
10:51So she's going to help change that.
10:53And I can't wait to see what the end of 2026 looks like.
10:56Well, it sounds like this is the beginning of a very exciting partnership.
11:00It sounds like there's going to be a lot of things that happen,
11:03not just for the loan officers who are getting access to the technology,
11:06but it seems like there's going to be a lot of impact to the borrowers themselves.
11:10So congratulations to both of you.
11:12And I'm excited to see what comes from this.
12:18You
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