00:00Live from Las Vegas, I'm Diego Sanchez, President of Housing Wire, and I'm really excited about my
00:14guests now. I've got Gino Peluso, the CEO of Sageint, and I've got Art Calhoun, who's the
00:20VP of Strategic Partnerships, also at Sageint. Gino, I'd love to start with you. We actually
00:25talked earlier this summer, and you gave me a little bit of an update on Dara, which I think
00:31you're talking a lot about here at this conference. First of all, what is Dara, and what's the latest
00:37update? So Dara is our new servicing system that is real-time, and it's a very open API architecture
00:47as well, and it's basically bringing servicing systems into the 21st century. As we had talked
00:53before, the old legacy systems, old code, 1960s technology, we're changing all that with this
01:02new system. It's comprised of Dara Core, which we finished. Last time we talked, we were about
01:0890% done with it, and we had finished it at the end of June, and now it's in testing, and we're
01:16looking to get it into production, and we're actually talking to four customers right now,
01:20contracts talks to go straight into Dara. So we're very excited about it. The last piece
01:27was the Dara Core, right? And read that as, for us, LoneServe, right? We, again, finished that in June.
01:36The other five modules that accompany that core are already in production, and they're out there
01:42with customers right now. So we're very excited about it. Very excited. That's a pretty solid
01:47update. Made a lot of progress. Yeah, made a lot of progress since last time we talked. Amazing. So
01:51Art, you joined SageM pretty recently. I did. You're the new guy. Yep. And you came from a servicer. I did.
01:58Tell me about that transition from working at a servicer to working at SageM. Yeah, so I mean,
02:03had a long background in servicing, and the big difference is, you know, as you know, said,
02:07like, SageM is bringing the platform to a modern environment, you know, where I go back to my
02:13servicing days 20 years ago, when I had to learn all the codes to figure out how to do a payoff and
02:18whatnot, right? And now it's more of a point and click. A payoff, you click payoff. Escrow, you click
02:22escrow. It's just so much more easy and seamlessly to work with. So it's pretty amazing that you've
02:29actually seen the technology evolve and are now on the forefront of the technology. So you're VP of
02:34strategic partnerships. And that feels like important. That title seems important. Why the
02:41focus on partners? So really the focus on partners relies on us building out the security list of
02:48partners that we can work with and have them embedded into Dara seamlessly. And then they can
02:53work with any of our customers, right? Once they're integrated within Dara, they've got real-time data
02:58and we can open them up to all of our customer network. And that way they can, our customers can
03:03choose who they work with. And then our partners can then advertise their goods and services to all
03:09of our customers.
03:10Gino, from your perspective, you're leading the charge at Sage. And, you know, why this emphasis and why this
03:16hire in the area of strategic partnerships?
03:19Look, you know, you need a team, right? Every great team has great teammates. So, you know,
03:24you need a team of good teammates. You know, Dara is a very special thing that we've done, but you've got to
03:31have, like Art was saying, you've got to have the right partners. And really what's made us different in the
03:37hiring, you know, hiring Art is his background. You know, he's been there, done that, right?
03:43And that's really what's made Sage different and what makes Dara different. It's a system that was designed
03:49by people that had all the pain points, you know, decades of servicing experience, right?
03:54So to be able to bring Art in and help us not only identify the right partners, but, you know, that's going to help our customers as well.
04:02So the partner program that you're building, how is that going to influence the go to market strategy for Dara?
04:10Yeah. So once we have, again, we're creating this list of partners, right?
04:14So all of our customers can use them and work with them. Once a partner is integrated within Dara,
04:19then that opens them up to working in this open ecosystem that you know, referred to, right?
04:24We're allowing our customers to work with and encouraging them to work with any one of our partners that is there.
04:30Along with the real time data environment that is Dara.
04:35Amazing. So Gino, you talked about it earlier, really old cold base has existed in servicing for a long time.
04:45And I think part of it is it's such a complex ecosystem and business and it's also heavily regulated.
04:54So it's tough to innovate and make change in that kind of environment.
04:57How are you able to make this kind of innovation and progress with Dara?
05:01Well, like I said, you know, just a little while ago, it's the team, right?
05:06Having servicing experts who have lived through all those pain points, actually developing alongside the developers
05:13and the engineers that are building this out and knowing what's going to work and what's not going to work, right?
05:19All while making sure that, you know, yeah, you got to keep up with all the regulatory stuff, right?
05:25But the way this thing was built, because it's so modern, is the change management aspect of this is really the game changing piece of this.
05:35So they're able to say, no, that's not going to work and this is why.
05:39And we're able to change that code rapidly.
05:43Whereas today, you know, that's a, that's a sometimes two quarter process.
05:47Somebody needs something for, you know, for us, for LoanServe to do.
05:52That takes a while to develop that and then get it in a release and go.
05:57The change management aspect of Dara, we're talking weeks, not quarters, months.
06:04So that, that's going to be huge, but you know, it's really because we have servicing experts, decades of servicing experience that helped build this.
06:13Instead of a bunch of engineers and developers like, well, you said you wanted this.
06:17Well, here it is.
06:18No, no, no, that's not what we want.
06:19And that back and forth, they're, they're side by side.
06:21So yeah, follow up on that a little bit.
06:23Pitch me on joining this partner program and getting involved with Dara.
06:27Yeah, certainly.
06:28So with the partner program, it's kind of like the MBA work right now.
06:31Right now, my job is to meet with our partners, develop those existing relationships and form new ones.
06:37And with the partner program, we actually have them invited to our Ignite conference that Sajent has coming up in May in Phoenix.
06:45And we allow the partners and our customers to interact in a much more intimate environment, giving the partners the opportunity to showcase their goods and services that they offer to again, all of our customers.
06:56And again, just as I'm building those relationships here and forming new ones, it allows those customers and partners to build upon their existing relationships and form new ones.
07:05Gino, are the partners in the partner program, are they influencing your product development and go to market strategy?
07:11Absolutely.
07:12I mean, again, the, you know, the teammate aspect of it.
07:14You know, the partners you bring in there for specific reasons, right?
07:19But building that stable and then giving them access to what we're doing and them understanding what we're doing, you get a lot of good feedback, right?
07:27What's going to work, what's not going to work.
07:28So it's, this is, it's, that's why we call it strategic partnerships because I mean, this is the future of service.
07:34So what are the real world benefits of having this partner program from your perspective for your servicing clients and ultimately their, their, their borrowers?
07:45No, it's, you got to have the right partner, right?
07:47Yeah.
07:48That should drive efficiency, but you know, for, for our, our customers, you know, we're going to have a stable of people that they're comfortable with or can choose from, uh, depending on what piece we're talking about.
08:00Um, but that, that drives efficiencies as well, you know, you get, you get the right partner in there that has the right capability.
08:07That's that'll help them immensely, which all the way down to the barbers, you know, their customer experience, it's got to be second to none, right?
08:17That's, that's the name of the game.
08:18So you're having the right partners, you have the right teammates.
08:22It's key.
08:22It's key.
08:23It's key.
08:23It's key.
08:24Well, gentlemen, it's been so great to catch up with you, uh, this morning.
08:27Actually, maybe we're now an afternoon, but, uh, Gino, great to see you again.
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