Today's Guest

Doug Houlahan is Chief Commercial Officer at ClickLease. Clicklease is an equipment financing company focused on small businesses. Clicklease makes it faster and easier for small businesses to get the equipment they need. With over 18 years in small and large equipment finance, Doug has helped thousands of businesses grow by financing their equipment. Hear from Doug how ClickLease has helped address this underserved portion of the market. Doug explains why Clicklease’s service is critical to small business owners. For example, while you don’t pay your employees’ wages upfront, many small businesses do pay for their equipment upfront. If being unable to purchase critical equipment is slowing you down, you want to hear this episode.

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Episode Transcript

(Please excuse grammatical errors due to transcription)

Gordon Henry:

Hey, hey, this is Gordon Henry at Winning on Main Street, and this week we have a guest in an area we haven't explored before, equipment financing. Very interesting area. So welcome to our guest, Doug Houlahan. Welcome Doug.

Doug Houlahan:

Thanks for having me, Gordon. Excited to talk to you and your audience today.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, super excited to have you. Doug is the, I think I got this right, Chief Commercial Officer, CCO at Clicklease. Do I have that right?

Doug Houlahan:

Chief Commercial Officer, yep.

Gordon Henry:

Commercial.

Doug Houlahan:

Kind of all things revenue is basically what that means.

Gordon Henry:

All right, terrific. Even better. At Clicklease, a leader in the equipment finance space. We'll get into what that means in just a minute. Clicklease helps small businesses afford the equipment they need start or grow a business. Too often small businesses who need equipment must choose between either depleting precious cash, maxing out their credit cards, or going to a lender who requires they fill out mountains of paperwork. Clicklease is basically here to solve that problem. It provides a streamlined, simpler system that works better for small businesses who need equipment, and equipment sellers who want to sell it. They help commercial equipment vendors, dealers, wholesalers, all them sell more product by providing best in class financing solutions to small and mid-size businesses.

Clicklease has developed a point of sale financing solution specifically for what they call the micro ticket market. We'll get into that micro ticket, and they provide equipment financing solutions enabling small businesses to select their equipment and document and obtain electronic signatures all within a few minutes. What should you our listeners get out of this episode? Many small businesses need equipment to get the job done, but the process of identifying the right equipment, arranging payment or financing and gaining needed approvals is daunting. Clicklease is may be the answer. So Doug, welcome to the show.

Doug Houlahan:

Thank you. Great to be here.

Gordon Henry:

So first just tell us a little bit about yourself. How'd you get into equipment finance business? A little bit about your background and how you got here.

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, I was a bit of a serial entrepreneur where I had started a couple of small businesses here and there and sold one. I was always curious about being involved in small businesses, and I'd actually sold a business and was moving to California. And at some point in time my wife had gotten out of the dietetics industry, she's in the nutrition business and started working for a large equipment leasing company at Gateway Computer. We were back in the Midwest, and I bumped into a guy actually while I was working at Wells Fargo trying to figure out what to do and he was running a very small business at the time and we hit it off. And the idea of from being an entrepreneur, starting a new business and helping small business and other entrepreneurs get the money they needed was really exciting to me and turned out to be just a perfect fit.

We sort of have a joke in the industry that nobody leaves school and says, "I'm going to get in the equipment finance business and I'm going to lease equipment." That doesn't happen typically. So we all find some interesting way that we fall into it, and I just met some great people and I think who had a great service delivering capital to small business for equipment they needed. And it's gotten in my blood. I can't imagine doing much else.

Gordon Henry:

And that all happened give me circa what time-

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, that was about 22, 23 years ago. So I've been in the industry a while now so it's part of who I am today.

Gordon Henry:

So you were at Wells Fargo, and then 22 years ago you had this meeting and where did you start in equipment leasing?

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, so the company at time was called Allegiant Partners Equipment Finance, now it's AP Equipment Finance. They've grown probably tenfold since then. I left them in actually 2008 when we hit the financial crisis, started a new finance company called Maxim Commercial Capital. So I founded that company with some partners, ran that to a nice size, and then it was fortunate enough back in late 2017 to meet couple of the investors that had an idea there in the finance business. They have a commercial working capital company, a consumer rent to own company, and they wanted to be in the commercial equipment space. So they were sort of headhunting. We met each other and the ideas that we wanted for delivering capital to small businesses and what we thought the space needed, we really aligned and it's really been a fantastic last five and a half years of building Clicklease together and we've accomplished a lot of what we want to. Still a lot more to do, but really, really excited about what we've built over the last few years.

Gordon Henry:

Okay. So you guys launched around 2018?

Doug Houlahan:

I started commuting to Utah in January of 2018. So I actually live in northern California, that's where I'm talking to you from today. And I had relatively young kids at the time and I said, "I will be there, I'm just not going to uproot my family for a startup right now." So I hop on an airplane almost every Monday morning, fly into Utah, fly home Thursday typically, and did that for the last five and a half years. Cut back on travel a little bit lately, but spent a lot of time in airplanes. I was basically on a plane or in an airport every three or four days for the last five years.

Gordon Henry:

Were you doing that during the pandemic too?

Doug Houlahan:

I took about six months off. So I did a pause for six months. I remember walking into Oakland Airport and it was probably May of 2020 and it was an eerie feeling. I had to take a quick trip to Vegas for something. I mean, I kind of looked around both ways of the hallway and there was not a body to be seen hardly. It was strange, but I got some miles in.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. So you're in San Francisco, company's in Utah, why did you select Utah? Was it just a great environment to build a company or?

Doug Houlahan:

Well, it is. I mean, that is one of the benefits. It's actually where we were leveraging some of the people and facilities that they had in place from the other companies. So those other companies are headquartered in Utah, primary investor base is there so that's where we launched. Utah has some good lender rules and laws and regulations unlike California so it is helpful, but great environment.

Gordon Henry:

I see. Got it.

Doug Houlahan:

Good people, smart people, lots of good people to leverage. So we're tech heavy super they call it Silicon Slopes in Utah and a really strong group there to pull from, and a really great sales organization. If you want to start a sales business, Utah's a fantastic place to do it as well.

Gordon Henry:

So Clicklease, would you call yourselves a finance company, a leasing company, a FinTech company? What's the space you consider yourself?

Doug Houlahan:

It's funny, I'd certainly call us a FinTech. We have some really great technology and great data which allows us to do what we do, and really I think innovate in the space. But early on we were trying to get a bank facility and we have to borrow money to lend to people so that's kind of how it works. We're a middleman deploying capital with our cushion in the middle to people the banks typically don't lend to, provide money to. And they asked us at the beginning this, are you more of a tech company or more of a finance company? Because there's a lot of tech companies out there who will put a lot of money on the street and do it really fast. The problem is they don't get it back and that's why they kind of go away. So the secret is figuring out how can you effectively and efficiently put the money in people's hands and also get it back? I think we're finance people first then we hire really smart tech people to help us make sure we put a good product in front of people from a tech standpoint.

Gordon Henry:

So Doug, for our audience of small business owners and people looking at small business who probably have equipment needs but don't really know how all this works, how does equipment financing work? And what are some of the benefits that Clicklease provides that they might not find from some other lender?

Doug Houlahan:

I think I would expand that answer to not only the small businesses that need the money. There's a lot of small businesses that are selling equipment, selling products that if they can provide a finance solution, a payment solution can help sell more product and more payments. We're seeing that across the board today. I mean there's so many people in the payments business because a lot of people they want or need things for their business and if you can take away the affordability question, it helps both sides. It helps the buyer and the seller to really grow their business. The real benefit, I use a ridiculous analogy if you want to call it that way, is if you're buying a piece of equipment and we like to focus on essential use business equipment business that really either helps you make more money or save a lot of money in your process.

Think of a manufacturing line, instead of hiring 20 people if you can buy a piece of equipment that can do the same amount of work, ultimately that's going to save you a lot of money. If you were going to hire someone that was going to build a 100,000 widgets or 10 people,` a 100,000 widgets over the next five years why in the world would you pay them the full five years today? Why not up your production, sell more product and use the profits and increased revenue and increased cashflow from that growth to fund that equipment? And that's really ultimately what equipment finance allows you to do. And I think I'd really focus from whether buyer or seller if you're going to leverage equipment finance and other financing products, make sure that equipment does add a lot of value to you. We don't want you borrowing money for equipment that's not going to pay for itself many fold over that.

That is a bad recipe for any business owner, but if you can buy a piece of equipment that can help you radically expand your business and leverage somebody else's capital to do it over time, use that cash you would've plunked down onto that equipment instead to run your marketing, hire better people in operations, salespeople to really support and grow your business marketing all the infrastructure you need. To us, that's really what the ultimate benefit is of equipment finance, is really that leveraging your dollars and matching your productivity with the cash allocated to it over time. I mean, another thing to equipment finance some of the benefits in how it's a little bit different than a traditional loan or traditional financing is really it's really a combination of both the value of equipment and what you're getting.

So when most underwriters, and we're a little different than a lot of them in our process, they do look at that underlying asset as part of the collateral pool that helps make that a stronger loan because you got credit, cashflow, collateral and character. Those are kind of the four Cs of underwriting that bankers go through over time, and that really good collateral helps the transaction. So credit and cashflow are always important when you're looking at how to attract financing, but equipment finance focuses heavily on the equipment you're buying. So that's part of it. And then that can help lower the bar of the other pieces of equipment. And then there's tax benefits, you can finance typically the whole a 100% financing, easier underwriting process traditionally it depends what you're buying and of course to leverage.

And then offering financing, the goal is to sell a lot more equipment. If you can give people an easier solution to put that equipment in their hands and take it home, we're hoping you can sell more equipment to your customer base.

Gordon Henry:

Thank you. That explanation I think is a very compelling reason why people might want to finance their equipment as opposed to plunk down money themselves or use a credit card, which we all know high interest rates, but what about Clicklease is so unique? Isn't it your process which is easier and simpler for the small business?

Doug Houlahan:

If you go back to 2017 and you look at what existed in time for commercial finance, I know I said I've been in this business about 22 years and where I said we live by the golden rule, he with the gold makes the rules. So you could put people through whatever process you wanted to and make them jump through hoops. And then on the other side you look at consumer finance and how fast that's progressed, I mean with Affirm and Klarna and a lot of these platforms out there, Afterpay, it's literally a ten-second process and you can buy a shirt or a pair of shoes or socks or a Peloton bike or what have you. It takes just seconds and there's a massive disconnect in that space and there really didn't need to be. So that was our goal really was to bring that same almost consumer-like experience at the point of sale to the commercial space. And we're really one of the few in the commercial space that can do that effectively.

So we focus you mentioned it briefly on micro ticket transactions, that's primarily under 25,000. And really we have the ability to underwrite and finance new businesses, businesses with tougher credit, and so really we picked all the hard things to knock out first because that's what nobody else really wants to do. Banks and traditional finance companies, it's really hard to do a deal fast for a small amount of money because of the costs typically involved. And like I said, we tackled all the tough ones first. Trying to go upstream from there that's a growth plan, but so our process now really you put your phone number in, it kind of recognizes who you are, you get to confirm it, pick up I think it's a total of eight pieces of information that allows us to underwrite and we provide instant decisions so you can know right there if you're approved.

And depending on what equipment deal you're working with, you can sign documents within a couple of minutes and be done point of sale or online. So it's really, really a unique process in the commercial finance world. Compared to hours, days and even weeks that you can if you're working through a bank or somebody else that kills a lot of sales and kills a lot of opportunities, so we try to make it really, really easy and efficient for both buyer and seller alike.

Gordon Henry:

And most of this is happening online. I mean I go to your website, clicklease.com and I just do everything you just described, just put in the eight pieces of information and in five, 10, 15 minutes I'm going to know the answer?

Doug Houlahan:

You can't go to the website now, what we do is we partner with a lot of, we have thousands of dealers across the country that we help them sell more equipment. So whether it's on their website, if you're looking at a piece of equipment you can click on that equipment, it has a Clicklease buy now button. You click on that and it's literally you put your information it's 10 seconds, it's eight seconds on average, just a little under eight seconds. So literally we make a decision in real time. If you're approved and you know what your payments are, there's a payment calculator you can play around and say if hey, oh wait, I wanted eight, I got approved for 15 or 20, what would my payment be if I bought something a little bigger, a little better?

And that's been a surprise is a lot of the lessees, the customers we talked to have said, hey, I was actually able to buy better equipment and more equipment than I expected to after my process. I thought it might be tough to get this used piece of equipment or something and Clicklease allowed me to buy really a better piece of equipment that I wanted that would make me more efficient. Have more reliable equipment and have a better business ultimately. So you can do that literally within seconds.

Gordon Henry:

And what are the terms like? What are the rates? What are the payback terms?

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, so 39 months is kind of the average term and that is how we're different than a lot of the, I'm going to call it FinTechs that are out there. They're very short-term capital and you can get money from a lot of those, but paying off a CNC machine or a big riding lawnmower or restaurant equipment in six or nine months is pretty daunting, right? That's a big payment, right? And what we really focus on is matching the term of the equipment to really the life and the usability, the utility of the equipment that we're financing. So we'll go up to 60 months, I said 36 to 60 depending on what and people mostly have the option to choose what term they want. So if like, hey, I like this payment more than I like that payment, whether it be larger, shorter, quicker turnaround time.

And then from rates we do risk-based pricing from very bank type rates like I said, we got brought in market up all the way up into true startup, tough credit type 500 FICO stuff where you got to work hard to get that kind of a score. So we have what we call risk-based pricing. So we try to match pricing to default rates, but we're super competitive through the spectrum.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Okay. So if that's from the borrower standpoint, I wanted to also talk about the company that has the equipment that's looking to lease the equipment. So are many of them just finding this space or equipment sellers have been doing this forever, this is old news to them. How new is this?

Doug Houlahan:

It's not new. They say leasing is the second-oldest industry in the world [inaudible 00:20:18]. It's really fascinating actually, we have conversations internally between makes and takes. So makes are people that haven't used financing in the past to sell their product because it's intimidating. Traditionally it's been very intimidating because you have somebody and you might have somebody selling some welding equipment or something like that and now all of a sudden you want them to be a banker? That just doesn't translate very well, and that can be extremely intimidating for both management and salespeople alike. And so that's what we would call a make, it's taking somebody who hasn't used financing in the past and trying to get them to use it.

And then there's the take so people that have used financing historically in their sales process. There's a lot of really savvy companies that have said, hey, if we can switch this to a payment based sales process, we're not talking about a certain dollar amount. We're saying, hey, we know this equipment can generate somebody 10 grand a month. So if you're paying five or six or seven or $800 a month, I mean it's kind of a no brainer to help us invest in that equipment. So people have picked up on that and there's people that use it on 70, 80% of their business. Then there's guys that are intimidated by it, and I think our goal is to make that process easy for everyone. We're trying to take the intimidation factor away from selling and having finance discussions and understanding of, hey, what do I have to do to get qualified? And wait, what's a PnL or what's a balance sheet and how do I get it to you? And what does that mean?

It's been intimidating. Like I said, we had the golden rule for a long time, he with the gold makes the rules and we didn't always make it easy. That wasn't necessarily the top rule. So that's really what Clicklease does, is they make it easy to offer financing. Put the control back in your hands because if you know got somebody approved, you can have a much different conversation about selling that equipment than you can if you're hoping they can find the money somewhere.

Gordon Henry:

And in terms of your pitch to the sellers, have you been able to show that you grow their kind of universe? That sellers who might have had a certain number of sales before offering the leasing that it increases, that it basically grows their business by making this purchase process so much easier for the customer?

Doug Houlahan:

Oh yeah there's I mean both. We have anecdotal evidence from some of our vendors and partners both on average ticket size. There's data around, it's 40 to 70% larger tickets if they have the money. If you go to our website, there's a testimonial we have where a guy's like I was able to grow my business significantly just because of this process. They make it so easy. There's lots of things involved with the way we use financing is, hey, not only are we helping you basically sell it online by giving them the payment, making it affordable, taking that part of the discussion away, but it's also the follow-up process. When you have somebody that's just looking and they've applied because our application process is very easy, now you have all their information, you have their phone number and their email and you can follow up and you can see what equipment they're interested in.

Like I said, you look at how Affirm in Klarna and Afterpay and all these other companies are coming on board and a lot of these vendors, they might be paying their financing partners six to eight points of their sale price just because they drive sales that much and because they make it so much easier to afford the equipment that they sell more. So I guess probably the strongest indicator is a lot of people are paying for the use of the financing. Now on the opposite, depending on how it's structured we can actually pay a vendor to leverage our platform.

Gordon Henry:

If you're a customer, the end customer who's leasing the equipment obviously they've got to pay it back with interest. The seller, are they paying you or you're paying them or how does that work? Please talk about that.

Doug Houlahan:

We don't charge any of our partners to use our product. So we talk about sometimes maybe we should and actually we have some partnerships where we can actually give them a point or two. And really that's in the take situation is if they have somebody in place, sometimes the value that their financing partner provides is really not much more than paying them a few points on every deal that they do. So some people don't want to get away from that, but what we see is most of our vendors, the equipment dealers are saying, "Hey, I just want my customer to get the best deal, the most affordable equipment." Because clearly if we're paying them we have to find somehow to get at least some of that back so it just makes it more expensive ultimately for the end user.

And really that's not what most of the equipment dealers want, is they want their customers to get the best deal. And we use the analogy of we're babysitting their kids for the next three years. So they have their customer, they put them in our hands to take care of it, and we have to treat them properly because we're an extension really of that service to their partner. So we want to do everything we can to make sure they're happy with their product and their process as we babysit their children for the next few years.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Do you have defaults or customers who don't pay? Is that part of the equation for you?

Doug Houlahan:

That's a big part of the equation for us. So we did all the tough stuff first. So like I said, it's kind of the near prime and subprime, and I don't think we do as good a job as anybody in the industry for balancing that risk, and our goal is to provide as many approvals as we can to that equipment dealer. We want to help. I mean everybody can do the bankable stuff, that's cookie cutter, that's commodity, that's easy to do. The banks want to give people money that don't need it. What we're trying to do and what a lot of the newer FinTechs and finance companies are doing is alternative capital. We're trying to put money into the hands of the people that really need it, and that comes with risk because you don't quite miss as much as you get it right but I mean there's a lot of misses. So that's why that cost of capital for those individuals is typically higher, but we certainly have a lot of delinquencies and default we have to deal with.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Yeah. Interesting. And in terms of where you get your money from, do you deal with one bank or multiple banks? Where do you borrow from?

Doug Houlahan:

We have a large relationship that we work with a bank and I talked about underwriting and how it can take weeks, it's a process for us to get it. They have to be comfortable with how we're going to get them paid back so that could go on for days and hours that kind of discussion, but investors and banks we take money in and redeploy. We're kind of that middle cushion, we add the additional collateral and cashflow to that business to allow the money to pass through the cashflow chain.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Okay. We'll be back with Doug Houlahan from Clicklease right after the break. Don't go anywhere.

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Gordon Henry:

And we're back with Doug Houlahan. Fascinating discussion about his company Clicklease and this whole area of leasing equipment and the financing options available to small businesses. So if a small business doesn't use Clicklease, they don't choose you for some reason, what do they typically do? What are the other options that are most popular out there?

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, I think the micro ticket space is a little bit different than traditional. We are typically credit card competitors. So if they're not using Clicklease with our average deal size of 10,000-ish dollars, by the way, micro ticket to go back to that, we do $500 to about $25,000. That's what we finance. We're actually in the process of looking to go bigger, but that's really where we started because it's tough for a lot of people to do that. So a lot of business owners, they have 20 or $25,000 they can put it on their credit card and figure out how to take care of that. A lot less with lines of credit and loans, but that is a portion of it, a small portion, but credit cards and Visa and MasterCard are our biggest competitors.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Yeah, makes sense. And in terms of what you make easy for people, I assume you're giving them better rates than they would be getting from their credit card companies otherwise why would they use you? What is the catch? Is it just that you do a better job of assessing the risk? How are you able to do what you do?

Doug Houlahan:

Well I mean it's data, right? I mean we have the right data on performance so we can do risk-based pricing. And I think when you look at cost I guess you think how are you talking about that? So there's opportunity cost of having that capital available for other things, so that's a cost that if you use your credit card you may not have to invest, like we said, whether it's marketing, Facebook ads or however it is you grow your business. We think that's a big piece of what people are better people. Putting your money into people over that period in time to keep them happy. I think what we do it's two things. One, we give equipment dealers control at the point of sale so people know they have the money to buy the equipment. So that's a huge benefit that we didn't even really understand when we started the business.

And then also we give the lessee, the person using the capital or buying the equipment, the ability to budget. If they know, hey, I have a payment of $600, I can set that and I understand whether this equipment will make me enough money and/or not to make that $600 many times over. So that's I think one idea is that consistency. And you think about what's happened, I mean we got killed by it effectively is if you had used your line of credit 12 months ago or 15, 18 months ago, your cost would've almost doubled, right? That payment at that time because of the variable capital rate so we're providing also a fixed payment. So it does matter what happens to interest rates. In this environment truly our cost of capital has doubled in the last few months, and they have that consistent payment so they can like I said, truly budget and related to that. And then we just make it really easy. I mean it's really simple.

So you go through and you do that, it's probably two minutes to apply depending on if your information. The pieces we ask it's you get answered and you do a DocuSign, and click DocuSign with three signatures and it's done. That's all you have. We pull your bank information at that time so it's set up in the system and we ACH your account the same day every month so you don't even think about it for the next three, four or five years as you make that payment. I think that's really what we do. And then credit cards, you're managing that payment in different pieces and ultimately depending on how you manage it can be a lot more. Your total cost of ownership if you just pay your 2% or whatever it is, that'll cost you a lot of money over time. So I think those are probably the benefits of using a equipment finance company versus just putting it on your credit card.

Gordon Henry:

And are all of these situations where the lessee is, I don't know if you call it lessee, but the ultimate customer is buying the equipment? At the end of the day they own the equipment or are they leasing it? So I lease my car, at the end of the 39 months I hand the car back to the car company, but in my home purchase obviously I bought the home, it's a mortgage, at the end of the mortgage I own the home. So which is it?

Doug Houlahan:

It can be whatever they want. And I know that's kind of a funny answer, but we structure it so a very affordable. We're structuring with the assumption that they want to own it at the end of the term, however, not everybody wants to. So for example, if somebody says I want 36 payments, it's structured approximately, they make 33 payments under the base lease term, then there's the purchase option, which is a amount we calculate, which is in the ballpark of 10-sh percent of the value. And if they choose to then they can make a few more payments and then they pay off the equipment and it's theirs after so many payments are made. We structure it with the assumption that they're going to buy the equipment and almost everybody does. Just goes through and makes a couple extra payments and owns it.

So it's very clear, just like if you're leasing a car it's not like 40% of the equipment costs. If you're buying a $50,000 car, you're not paying 20 or 25,000 at the end of lease, you would be paying 5,000 at the end of a $50,000 lease.There's all kinds of legal and accounting stuff around leases, so that's why I'm probably talking a little bit ironic, but we structure it with the intent that we believe they're going to want to own it, but they don't have to. We get people that return equipment at the end of, hey, I pay my base term. I'm done. I don't want this. Where do I send it?

Gordon Henry:

Got it. We just have a few minutes left. Tell us a little bit more, who are your typical customers? I think you mentioned before restaurants and some other categories. What would be your top four or five categories of customer?

Doug Houlahan:

Top four or five? So we do a lot in what we call light industrial. So call it a woodworker like a cabinet maker, a guy who runs a small manufacturing shop, metal fabricator, welders. Those are great industries for us because that equipment makes them a lot of money. We actually do a lot of food trucks, food trailers actually. A truck where you're driving all of a sudden becomes a lot more expensive, but a lot of food trailers we do a tremendous amount of those. Automotive repair shops, you need diagnostic equipment, you need lifts, you need tools, wheel balancers, that's a great industry for us as well. We do a lot of trailers. So guy that's got a hauling business, a dump business, mowing, arbor tree business, moving [inaudible 00:36:10]-

Gordon Henry:

All those lifts you see.

Doug Houlahan:

Think about guys who are buying equipment that makes some money, that's 15 to up to basically 20, $30,000. And then for example, restaurants, we're not doing a whole restaurant build out, but if somebody's dishwasher blows up or their oven goes out or they need a new this that, we'll finance a lot of that as well. And a lot in the janitorial business and remediation sanitation we do. You think about the floor scrubbers, you drive along and they're sweeping the floors and cleaning and-

Gordon Henry:

Trucks?

Doug Houlahan:

It's printing business. We don't do trucks. We do a lot of trailers, but we don't do... And my very generic information around trucks is I don't know that I want to finance something for five years. A truck with an engine that's less than 20 or $25,000, the chances of that going sideways are pretty significant from a repair standpoint. So the value in that equipment is hard to assess over time.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Interesting. Okay. What's next for Clicklease? Are you guys international? Where do you know go from here?

Doug Houlahan:

I touched on it briefly. Where do we go from here is we go go up. It is interesting, we started in this micro ticket space we started at 15,000, we've gradually gone up to 25,000 and we've had a focus on the near prime and subprime, not the true prime customers historically. What we're doing now is really looking to go larger. So we're looking for ways that we can go maybe up to 50 or $75,000, which will allow us to help out even more vendors and more dealers and more customers for larger exposure. So that's something that we're building out now. And then also looking at other ways, other needs. So hey, we just financed somebody who bought, I'm trying to think. We do some sign printing and manufacturer, right? Sometimes if you get a big project you might have 10 or $15,000 of consumables materials you need to do that job.

So maybe looking at providing some short term inventory or working capital financing for that is also something we're probably considering over time. We have all these great relationships, hundreds of thousands of customers and thousands of vendors. If we can help them as a trusted partner to do more, I think that's a great next step for us. So we all want to do more with our customers. The better care we take of them, the more business we can do with them and I think what we want to do is go deeper with those existing partners.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, awesome. So I know you mentioned that sometimes people, end customers go to the equipment, the site of the equipment manufacturer and find you there, but they can also go and find you just on clicklease.com, right?

Doug Houlahan:

On clickleases.com. Yep, you got it.

Gordon Henry:

Okay. And the process I could go through the whole process right there and get approval?

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, up in the corner there's like an apply now and then ask for buyers or sellers and you go through the buyer process. And then if you go through that process then we have to take you back and take you to a partner, to talk about the way we underwrite, the equipment and the dealer are really important in our process, underwriting process. So it's actually you have to almost get re-underwrite and when you find the partner you need or we love it if you come in and you have a partner, you want to introduce it to somebody, that's a great way for us to grow our business. It's just if you know who you want to work through it's great to go for them or we can help direct you to some people that we work with as well. Happy to do that. But yeah, clickleases.com is a great source to get started.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, awesome. Well, Doug, fascinating discussion and I'm sure people listening would be interested in checking you out. So thanks for coming and I hope they look for you and find you on the site.

Doug Houlahan:

Yeah, appreciate it. It's not always easy to make finance equipment finance interesting. So I think you did a good job of keeping it real. So I appreciate that, Gordon.

Gordon Henry:

Appreciate it. And I want to also thank our producer, Tim Alleman, our coordinators Diette Barnett and Daniel Huddleston they do a great job. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please tell your colleagues, friends and family to subscribe. We'd love it if you'd give us a five star review. We really appreciate it helps us in the rankings. Small business runs better on Thryv. Get a free demo at thryv.com/pod. That's thryv.com/pod. Until next time, make it a great week.

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