WikiLoan, Inc., operator of a financial social network, yesterday presented its history and progress to shareholders.
CEO, Mr. Garibaldi stated, “Remember, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steven Jobs? – They all started out as the proverbial ‘two guys in a garage’ creating a business that they believed would transform antiquated models. We started out like them – Two guys in a ‘garage’, with a vision to replace an old platform with a 21st-Century one. We overcame tremendous obstacles, spent over $1 million and 20,000 man-hours, to create this new platform that we believe will take the lending business to its next evolution. Like us, Gates and company, recognized a time to raise capital and bring on seasoned management into their ‘garage,’ so their creation could go to the next level.”
He continued, “The boldness, relentlessness and uphill battles to uphold a belief are exhausting, and that’s why just a few brilliant entrepreneurs get to the finish line. And, that’s also why some archaic institutions, such as banks, remain in business instead of making way for the new century’s platforms, such as WikiLoan. If we’re able to close on the financing to bring in the big management and close on the acquisitions we’re targeting, we believe we’ll be on our way to realizing our (garage) dream of becoming a billion -dollar company.”
According to the press release, overall traffic is picking up swiftly and the company is starting to see momentum on the website with new borrowers and lenders signing up every day.
The peer-to-peer lending business plan executed within the corporation began on January 18, 2008. The company was in development for close to two years as Swap-a-Debt, Inc. After beta testing the software thoroughly and spending more than $1 million, the live version of the website finally launched as www.wikiloan.com on December 21, 2009.
“The biggest hurdle for us was to build a software to rival the biggest players in the market on a budget that was a fraction of the competition. Other companies such as Prosper.com raised as much as $40 million to get their companies to where I believe WikiLoan is today,” commented Edward C. DeFeudis, Founder and President of WikiLoan, Inc.
WikiLoan’s founders, Mr. DeFeudis formerly of Merrill Lynch and Mr. Garibaldi formerly of IBM, managed the process to build WikiLoan’s robust 100% proprietary peer-to-peer lending platform. Many more modules already developed for the platform will be activated as the company continues to execute its strategy. During the process of development, WikiLoan used more than 20 programmers, 4 attorneys, 2 accountants, and several consultants. The company still retains 5 programmers, 2 attorneys, 1 accountant and several consultants. WikiLoan could hire as many as 8 full-time employees over the next year.
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