Benjamin Schieken: The Hardest Part of Growing a Two-Sided Marketplace (And How We Did It)

Welcome to Market Movers: Building Brands & Links with Linkifi!
Your go-to podcast for transforming your business into an unforgettable brand where branding meets SEO and link-building. I’m Chris Panteli, Co-Founder and CEO of Linkifi, and I’m joined by my co-host and Co-Founder, Nick Biggs.

In this episode we welcome Benjamin Schieken, founder and CEO of Fincast. a privacy-first mortgage tool that lets borrowers shop, verify, and save without handing over their data. Fincast turns one confusing offer into a one-to-many bidding process, then shows clear savings and trade-offs.

 

Key Talking Points

✅ The Real Problem. Most borrowers cannot tell if an offer is good. Offers mix rate, points, fees, and timelines. Confusion creates expensive mistakes over 30 years.
✅ “Rate” Is Not Everything. The real comparison is rate plus cost over your expected time in the loan. Optimize to monthly payment, upfront cash, or lowest total cost.
✅ Bidding Marketplace. Upload an offer, Fincast normalizes the details, anonymizes you, and invites multiple lenders to bid directly against your exact structure.
✅ Primary vs Secondary Markets. Best price comes from the lender that needs your product today on the secondary side, not whoever happened to quote you first.
✅ Measured Impact. Fincast sees over 1% rate spread in real deals at times. On average, about 12% of loan amount in total savings is findable. Roughly 27% already have a great deal, the rest leave money on the table.
✅ Compliance and Flexibility. Rules like LO Comp can limit discount wiggle room, yet product-market matching still unlocks better pricing.
✅ Privacy by Design. Fincast redacts PII, compares offers, and lets you choose if and when to engage. No lead-gen spam.
✅ Go-to-Market. Started by helping people on Reddit with unbiased guidance, earned evangelists, then layered social proof, PR, and partnerships with an embeddable widget so users can “Fincast” offers on trusted third-party sites.
✅ Retention Loop. Buyers return to refinance when rates change. Word of mouth compounds through real savings stories.

 

Quotes from Benjamin Schieken

📢 “People just want to know. Am I getting a good deal or leaving money on the table.”
📢 “The right lender is the one whose secondary-market demand perfectly fits your loan today.”
📢 “We normalize the offer, we anonymize the person, then let lenders bid. Simple, fair, and transparent.”
📢 “A smart mortgage choice is rate plus cost plus time. Not rate alone.”
📢 “We are a value-creation startup. Borrowers win. Good lenders win. The market gets cleaner.”

 

Actionable Insights

🧮 Compare the Whole Deal

• Gather an official Loan Estimate. Compare rate, points, fees, credits, MI, and term against your expected time in the loan.
  
  
• Calculate breakeven for any points paid. If you will move or refi before breakeven, do not buy them.
  
  

🔧 Set Your Preference

• Pick one optimization: lowest monthly payment, lowest cash at close, or lowest total cost over a realistic horizon. Re-price the offer for that goal.
  
  

🔐 Protect Your Data

• Use a privacy-first comparison. Share PII only when you choose a finalist. Avoid broad lead forms that trigger endless calls.
  
  

🏦 Force Competition

• Put your structured offer into a bidding environment. Ask lenders to beat your exact structure, not a generic rate table.
  
  

🔁 Revisit at Rate Moves

• Re-run the math when rates drop or your horizon changes. Refinancing can reset the optimal mix of rate and cost.
  
  

 

About Benjamin Schieken

Benjamin Schieken is the founder and CEO of Fincast. Previously a partner in three B2B SaaS companies, he turned his focus to consumer finance after seeing how hard it is to shop mortgages fairly. Fincast gives borrowers clarity, confidence, and control by matching real offers to real lender demand.

📬 Connect with Fincast and Benjamin: gofincast.com · https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-schieken/ 

 

🚀 Build Your Brand with Real Links

At Linkifi, we help ambitious brands scale organic visibility through digital PR, brand storytelling, and SEO strategy. Book your FREE strategy session today:
🔗 https://calendly.com/linkifi/pr

 

👋 Connect with your hosts:
👉 Chris Panteli on LinkedIn
👉 Nick Biggs on LinkedIn

 

🎧 Listen to more Market Movers episodes:
🌍 https://marketmoverspod.com