Jessica Kennedy has gone from Florida to Boston to Rhode Island and from the workaday rat race to helping others out of the often-blood-boiling mortgage application process.
She has a knack for spotting systems that don’t work well, finding better ways to do things and implementing them.
Her own career track is an example, and so is her Providence company, Beeline Loans Inc. – designed to provide consumers a way to obtain a home loan in a far-less tedious and time-consuming process than the current antiquated setup.
“It’s the only home loan you can get from your sofa,” boasts Beeline promotional material, “a radically new way to apply. Direct links to your bank, pay and tax info do the work – no digging through the attic for docs.”
She and five co-founders launched the company, which shakes up the traditional home-loan system to make it easier and less stressful for people buying homes by allowing them to do it all from their mobile phones, in real time and in as little as 15 minutes. Kennedy serves as chief operating officer.
The technology makes the loan underwriting and document review process seamless for both the borrower and the underwriter, but the road to this new kind of mortgage company – which started out with 12 people and now has a team of 85 – first began with Kennedy finding a career track that best suited her and her place in life.
A University of Florida graduate with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Kennedy earned her law degree at Florida State University. She worked at two law firms in the Boston area and specialized in real estate.
‘I love creating something out of nothing or fixing it.’
JESSICA KENNEDY, Beeline Loans Inc. co-founder and chief operating officer
But as an attorney, she grew tired of the frenetic pace of corporate life and knew it couldn’t continue as her family grew. Now the mother of two sons, she said she realized something had to give. “I had just had my first son and knew I couldn’t keep that pace and keep my sanity,” she said.
Kennedy left the Boston firm where she was employed to serve as corporate counsel for a company. From 2015 to 2019 she worked for Solidifi Title & Closing LLC of Middletown, where the pace was less frantic, she said. That is where she met Nick Liuzza, one of Beeline’s co-founders, and she discovered her penchant for operational responsibilities.
“I realized I could be legal and operational” by leaving the law firm environment, Kennedy said. “That is my passion and it’s what I enjoy. I love creating something out of nothing or fixing it. With legal work, things happen, and you have to deal with it. It is less-creative work and harder to positively impact customers. Here [at Beeline], we give our customers a positive.”
Ultimately, Liuzza and Kennedy left Solidifi and started Beeline in early 2020, along with co-founders Peter Gonzalez, Greg Ellis, Jay Stockwell and Cameron Slabosz.
Launched during COVID-19, the startup had a small but committed group, with some employees located in Australia. The time difference between the two countries often required late nights or early mornings for some staffers. “With the help of online chats and Google Teams, we made it work. I am proud of our team,” Kennedy said.
While starting a business in a pandemic isn’t ideal, the launch also came during an upswing in the housing market and a boom in mortgage refinancing due to low interest rates. Beeline saw immediate growth, climbing to a revenue run rate of $13 million in the first year. It’s now operating in 12 states.
Creating a healthier work-life balance for herself is echoed in the healthier, stress-reduced mortgage application process Beeline says it offers.
“Nick had always had this idea. He had worked with so many lenders and thought, ‘There has to be a better way.’ There was just no one applying technology in a meaningful way in this space,” Kennedy said. “There was no commonsense way of doing business here. Buyers were at a disadvantage. It was like the little guy losing out. But it doesn’t need to be like that. There is a more transparent way to work with a customer and let them be part of the purchase in a more transparent way.”
Using the latest technology, Beeline promises purchase-ready or refinance-ready approvals to loan seekers in as little as 15 minutes, all from their smartphones, never speaking to a person – if that’s what they prefer – relying instead on artificial intelligence and personal loan guides. Using machine learning, the platform delivers real-time financial information catered to each user, Kennedy said.
But while there is value in what the technology can do, she said, the company will need to invest energy into informing potential clients on how the platform works, as some are nervous about sharing information online. Education is part of Beeline efforts now and in the future.
But after breaking out of a regimented, corporate career track and taking a risk in starting a company during a pandemic, Kennedy says she is up for the entrepreneurial challenge.
