Latest / Small Biz Florida / Ep. 430 | Simplifying Small Business Lending: Navigating the Path to Capital with mySherpas
Transcript
- 0:02Joshua Talbert: Welcome to Small Biz Florida, your go-to podcast for all things small business in the sunshine
- 0:07Joshua Talbert: state. This podcast is sponsored by Florida First Capital, your trusted partner for financing and
- 0:13Joshua Talbert: support. Here, you'll discover the latest news, trends, and invaluable resources to help you grow
- 0:19Joshua Talbert: and succeed. From startup strategies to scaling your business, we've got you covered. Join us as
- 0:25Joshua Talbert: we explore the vibrant Florida small business ecosystem and connect you with the experts who
- 0:29Joshua Talbert: can make a real difference. And now, please welcome your host, Tom Kindred, Regional Director of the
- 0:35Joshua Talbert: Small Business Development Center at Indian River State College. This is Small Biz Florida, the
- 0:42Joshua Talbert: podcast and broadcast that's all things business across the state of Florida. I am Tom Kindred,
- 0:48Joshua Talbert: your host. And if you've been tuning in lately, you know, Small Biz Florida is on the road again
- 0:52Joshua Talbert: at one of my favorite, most important conferences of the year for small businesses. This is the
- 0:59Joshua Talbert: annual FLAGLE conference. FLAGLE is the Florida Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders. So
- 1:06Joshua Talbert: the room is absolutely full of SBA, alternative lenders, platforms, technology that assist banks
- 1:15Joshua Talbert: and assist borrowers, small business owners to help them connect to the capital needed to start, grow
- 1:23Joshua Talbert: and succeed in small business. And we have one of those incredibly innovative, valuable platforms
- 1:30Joshua Talbert: with us right now. It is our very good friend, Joshua Talbert, who is the co-founder, owner-operator
- 1:37Joshua Talbert: of MySherpas. Joshua, welcome back to Small Biz Florida. I think we talked a couple of years ago
- 1:44Joshua Talbert: at this same gathering. Yeah, thanks, Tom. Great to be on the show again. Absolutely. And again, I welcome
- 1:51Joshua Talbert: this conversation because you have created a platform that is very valuable, useful to small business owners
- 1:58Joshua Talbert: as they pursue the capital they need. So I'm going to love this conversation. But let's start as we
- 2:04Joshua Talbert: always do, Joshua, just a little bit of your background, pathway to your current role as co-founder
- 2:09Joshua Talbert: and owner-operator of MySherpas. Yeah, of course. So engineer by training, actually started out doing
- 2:16Joshua Talbert: AI things for the military right out of a university. Spent some time as a small business owner in the
- 2:24Joshua Talbert: medtech space. Sold that business to Johnson & Johnson back in 2015. That got me into real estate
- 2:31Joshua Talbert: investing, both multifamily and commercial retail. And that kind of exposed me to the world of lending.
- 2:40Joshua Talbert: Did a bit of private lending beginning in 2020. And that really was the impetus to really simplify
- 2:45Joshua Talbert: that experience, both for the borrowing side, small business owner, and the lender. And that was
- 2:51Joshua Talbert: really how my Sherpas was formed. And I've been running that business for about five years now.
- 2:56Joshua Talbert: Wow. And I guess, again, who knows, I may show my ignorance here, but Sherpas are the individuals
- 3:05Joshua Talbert: that lead you up Mount Everest. Is that correct? Yeah. So a Sherpa, they're born in the Himalayas.
- 3:14Joshua Talbert: They're stronger than you. They're built for the terrain. We kind of thought that was a great
- 3:20Joshua Talbert: metaphor for small business lending because it could feel like that to the business owner.
- 3:25Joshua Talbert: Yes, it can. Yeah. Sometimes it feels like it fell off Everest or something. Yeah. No, no. I love
- 3:32Joshua Talbert: the connection to the name. I really appreciate that because it is so important. Probably one of
- 3:38Joshua Talbert: the most important aspects of small business is acquiring capital because you've got to have
- 3:43Joshua Talbert: capital to continue to grow, scale, buy equipment, buy inventory. That's what it's all
- 3:50Joshua Talbert: about and scaling. I guess, of course, I'm dating myself too, but 40 years ago, you had this
- 4:01Joshua Talbert: relationship with your local banker and you picked up the phone and you called and you said,
- 4:05Joshua Talbert: hey, Mike, I need to borrow some money. But that's not the way it's been for a long time. Is that a
- 4:11Joshua Talbert: fair statement? Yeah. I think people are looking for convenience. And when you're a small business
- 4:16Joshua Talbert: owner, you're spending most of the day running your business, thinking about capital. And when
- 4:23Joshua Talbert: you need it comes late at night, maybe the bank's closed or the financial institution you're working
- 4:28Joshua Talbert: with. And so having that ability to, when you're ready to go and start to do work on the capital
- 4:34Joshua Talbert: needs, needs to be on time 24-7. So would you consider yourself part of this fintech community?
- 4:43Joshua Talbert: It's technology that's in the finance area? Yeah, I think that's fair. I think what we're
- 4:48Joshua Talbert: I mean, basically we're just trying to simplify that process. The biggest friction point is
- 4:54Joshua Talbert: small business owners don't know what they need to deliver or why they need to deliver. Lenders are
- 5:00Joshua Talbert: experts at lending, and that can cause friction because this person who's been doing it for 20
- 5:06Joshua Talbert: years versus a small business owner, it might be their first time, it might be their second time.
- 5:11Joshua Talbert: It's a whole new experience. So they're kind of navigating that terrain. So talk to us about
- 5:15Joshua Talbert: MySherpas. What does the platform do? How does it help? It really just simplifies and organizes
- 5:21Joshua Talbert: the data for the borrower, clarifies what they need, lets them know in real time what they've
- 5:27Joshua Talbert: delivered, what they have remaining. So they're always clear about that. And also helps facilitate
- 5:33Joshua Talbert: the speed at which the lender can make their decisions because it organizes all the data
- 5:39Joshua Talbert: and the files for them in a way that makes it quite simple for them to understand the deal
- 5:45Joshua Talbert: and get the decision, which is what the small business owner ultimately wants.
- 5:50Joshua Talbert: So I load all my documents into my portal on my Sherpa. How do I connect that to the multiple
- 5:58Joshua Talbert: banks that I'm pursuing a loan with? Really, if whatever bank you're working with and they start
- 6:06Joshua Talbert: a process with you, they invite you to a loan and you're able to connect your information to that
- 6:11Joshua Talbert: institution. So every institution really can also access my Sherpa. Yeah, that's right. The big banks,
- 6:18Joshua Talbert: the little banks, community banks. And if they don't have immediate access, you'll give them
- 6:22Joshua Talbert: access. Absolutely, yeah. Okay. So it really is, it's a file folder for the borrower to organize,
- 6:32Joshua Talbert: transmit information to the lending institution. Yeah, and even communicate through that,
- 6:38Joshua Talbert: securely through that platform. Okay. And like you say, this really increases the efficiency of the
- 6:44Joshua Talbert: process and the speed at which maybe they can get documents. What about SBA lending? No difference
- 6:53Joshua Talbert: there. You're just same bank, but you're doing an SBA loan, which of course sometimes does require
- 6:59Joshua Talbert: additional paperwork, additional time, but it's all still the same process. Same process, yeah. I mean,
- 7:04Joshua Talbert: there is more paperwork, as you said, more data to provide, but it's all right there. Another
- 7:10Joshua Talbert: interesting thing with our platform that is unique and patented is for those borrowers who are not
- 7:16Joshua Talbert: tech savvy, that don't want to go to a portal and have another login, we actually facilitate
- 7:21Joshua Talbert: gathering that information directly over email. So for them, it's just an email exercise, but we take
- 7:27Joshua Talbert: care of all the heavy lifting and getting that to the institution. Okay. And there is a, I'm assuming,
- 7:33Joshua Talbert: is there some sort of scanning process? I'm going to scan my tax returns into my portal on my Sherpa?
- 7:41Joshua Talbert: Yeah. For, for those institutions that, that would look at these files, if they have turned on the AI
- 7:47Joshua Talbert: capabilities of our platform, it's, it's kind of not as everybody's not doing it because they have
- 7:53Joshua Talbert: different levels of fear about what AI is, but for those who want it, we can help classify documents.
- 7:58Joshua Talbert: We can extract all the data from the documents and further simplify that for the institution looking
- 8:03Joshua Talbert: out of the deal. And I have to think that a platform like my Sherpa would be a big help for a small
- 8:12Joshua Talbert: business owner in maybe connecting with multiple lending institutions. Cause I mean, you've got this
- 8:18Joshua Talbert: big file, you've gotten, you've made all these copies. I mean, by the time you've been to one
- 8:23Joshua Talbert: or two banks, you're like, Oh yeah, I'm done with this. You know, you just like, you know, but, but
- 8:27Joshua Talbert: with, but with your platform, it's going to allow kind of a, you know, there's no legwork in this.
- 8:33Joshua Talbert: You just contact another bank and say, look, I'd like to get a, you know, proposal from you on my
- 8:38Joshua Talbert: potential SBA loan. Just connect to Sherpa. Yep. If they're on my Sherpas, then you can do the
- 8:44Joshua Talbert: application process through there and your documents are readily available to apply to that institution.
- 8:49Joshua Talbert: So it really does. It'll, it'll, it may open a lot more opportunities for the small business owner.
- 8:55Joshua Talbert: You're not, you're not just hitting your local banks. You could hit a bank across the country.
- 8:59Joshua Talbert: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I like it. Um, how long have you guys been operating?
- 9:05Joshua Talbert: A company was founded back in 2021. So about five, a little over five years now.
- 9:09Joshua Talbert: Okay. Do you have like a big data point? Like you've helped small business owners get
- 9:14Joshua Talbert: access to a billion dollars or something? Is it? Uh, yeah. I mean, on our website,
- 9:19Joshua Talbert: over 3 billion. Wow. We facilitated. Um, okay. One of our financial institutions is the
- 9:25Joshua Talbert: seventh largest credit union in the country and number one in business and SBA lending.
- 9:31Joshua Talbert: Wow. So we're facilitating all that for them. Okay. So even getting involved in your platform
- 9:35Joshua Talbert: could open a door that the small business owner didn't know about. Possibly. Yep. That's right.
- 9:40Joshua Talbert: Okay. All right. How does one find MySherpa? Uh, just go to our website,
- 9:46Joshua Talbert: MySherpas.ai and, uh, everything you need is right there. Okay. It is Joshua Talbert,
- 9:53Joshua Talbert: the co-founder, owner, operator of MySherpa, an incredible tool, uh, for small business owners
- 9:59Joshua Talbert: to help them access the credit they need to start grow and succeed in business. Joshua, thank you
- 10:05Joshua Talbert: for all you do for small business owners. Thank you for supporting Flagle, being a vendor here
- 10:10Joshua Talbert: at Flagle. And thank you for your time here on Small Biz Florida. Yeah, Tom. Thanks for having
- 10:14Joshua Talbert: me again. And a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. Take care. This is Small Biz Florida. I am Tom
- 10:20Joshua Talbert: Kinnet, your host. It is all about capital access SBA lending here at the beautiful JW Marriott in
- 10:27Joshua Talbert: Orlando. It is the 2026 Florida Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders all gathered here
- 10:34Joshua Talbert: today to talk about small business capital. Stay tuned. More to come. This is Small Biz Florida.
- 10:43Joshua Talbert: That's all for this episode of Small Biz Florida. We hope you found valuable insights and inspiration
- 10:48Joshua Talbert: to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. Don't forget to subscribe to Small Biz Florida on your favorite
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- 11:00Joshua Talbert: Small Biz Florida. So follow us for exclusive content and connect with fellow Florida small
- 11:05Joshua Talbert: business owners. And for even more resources and support, visit our website at floridasbdc.org
- 11:12Joshua Talbert: forward slash podcast. That's floridasbdc.org forward slash podcast. Until then, keep innovating
- 11:19Joshua Talbert: and keep growing. Thanks for listening.