225: Selling for 10x by Building What Customers Have to Buy with Will Caldwell

About this episode

Will Caldwell discusses how he built and sold his company by tapping into mandated demand within the mortgage industry.

You don't need to create demand if demand is mandated. That's the insight Will Caldwell used to build and sell his company. Will discovered that inside the mortgage industry, banks are legally required to buy flood certificates on every loan. So, he started Snap — a platform that makes it faster and cheaper for banks to do exactly that. Then he partnered with Intercontinental Exchange, the $95 billion company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, plugged into their existing infrastructure, scaled quickly, and eventually sold 51% of the company for 10x. In this episode, we break down how to build within regulated industries, tap into existing demand, and scale without chasing customers. Key Takeaways (00:00) Small Teams Beat Large Companies (01:52) Why "Fat Cats Don't Hunt" (03:13) Starting His First Tech Company (06:09) Knowing When to Shut Down a Business (06:51) Turning a $100 Compliance Headache Into a Startup (09:03) Finding Opportunity in Regulated Industries (16:58) AI Underwriting (21:09) Scaling via Strategic Partnerships (24:00) Selling 45 Banks in One Month (30:56) Selling to Intercontinental Exchange for 10x (32:31) Why He Sold Only 51% of the Company (36:10) Don't…

People in this episode

Host: Brad Weimert

Guest: Will Caldwell

Topics covered

• regulated industries
• business scaling
• strategic partnerships
• entrepreneurship
• demand creation

Keywords

• flood certificates
• mortgage industry
• business strategy
• startup
• compliance
• scaling
• entrepreneur advice

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Snap, Intercontinental Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, AI

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