Laks Srini, co-founder of ZeroDown and former VP of Engineering at Zenefits, explains why he built distributed engineering teams outside Silicon Valley.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Srini: ZeroDown is cheaper than renting after factoring in purchase credits
“If you actually look at the math at zero down, like, against rent even though the monthly payment is higher than rent, but at the end you get purchase credits that's worth, like, 15% of the home, and if you take that into account, It actually ends up being che…”
Insight
Srini: Mortgage buyers prefer lower rates and slower processes over slick UX
“Turns out, like, people didn't care that much about UX because it was a once-in-a-lifetime transaction. In fact, they wanted it to take longer. Yeah. And turns out, People get more about, like, a 50 basis points difference, rather than, like, hey, like, I have…”
Disclosure
Srini: ZeroDown customers earn 0.25% monthly home equity towards purchase
“So you get .25% of the home every month, And over a five-year period, you get 15% of the home. So it becomes easier to buy the home from us at any time you want after a two-year period.”
Disclosure
Srini: ZeroDown's underwriting model bets on customers' earnings in five years
“The biggest thing that we evaluate is, like, is their income, like, healthy? Right? And do they have some savings? Because, like, we help them build the rest of the savings to be able to buy the house from us five years from now. So, so we are basically making…”
Assertion Supported
Srini: ZeroDown qualifies buyers in minutes and delivers keys in seven days
“A pretty fast, like, three to five minute, like, qualification flow. You just connect your bank accounts using Plaid. Like, we look at an asset report. We look at your income. And we say, like, Craig, you can go and buy a 1.4 million dollar house. Like, and he…”
Insight
Srini: Narrowing 10,000 homes to 20 is machines; 20 to 1 is human
“Machines can take your choice from 10,000 homes to 20 homes. Like, 20 to one is a human problem. 10,000 to 20 is a machine problem.”