In December, it opened a new loan operation division in Dublin, California to accommodate its growth. Larsen and Pawlowski weren't Web professionals looking for a business opportunity to exploit. Rather, for six years they had run a successful retail brokerage called the Palo Alto Funding Group. But both of them did have computer backgrounds. Pawlowski, who is E-Loan's CEO, had worked at Xerox, and Larsen worked as a systems designer at Chevron.
Agents spend a significant amount of time on marketing and trying to get new business.
We cut that out by taking advantage of the Internet for marketing and by doing strategic alliances with other Web providers. Although driving Web traffic to the site is key to the business's success, Larsen points out that the Web isn't always the best choice for advertising. Sometimes Web advertising can be very expensive. The rates and conditions vary widely because the models are so new, and no clear rules are established. E-Loan would like to strike deals where it pays advertisers per actual transaction completed on its site, Larsen says, but federal lending regulations prohibit that.