Aug 12, 2016
Geoff Arnold, Luis Trejo And Sean Richardson were interviewed for the Contractors Success M.A.P. Podcast, and were very generous with their time and provided some extremely valuable insights for how you can streamline your lien waiver process. The article below is a recap of how it all works.
In January 2016, Geoff Arnold, Luis Trejo and Sean Richardson
started lienwaivers.io with the simple vision of creating a better
way for all parties involved in a construction project to
collaborate in the disbursement process.
With their combined background in construction, finance, technology
and product marketing, the team is uniquely suited to solve this
problem. Their solution is a simple, intuitive, cloud-based
platform that integrates directly with common construction
accounting software without requiring users to re-enter data.
In February 2016, lienwaivers.io launched a private beta of their
platform with a handful of Midwestern lenders and builders, with
great success. The team is now expanding their lien waiver
exchange platform into a full-featured automated disbursement
platform, complete with payments, project budgeting and approval
chains.
While there are a number of construction accounting and project
management packages that support lien waiver functionality,
lienwaivers.io is the first to integrate with common construction
accounting softwares to generate lien waivers in bulk, at an
economical price point.
We launched with our first customer in 7 minutes, generating and
distributing 36 lien waivers in seconds.
A lien waiver is a legal document from a contractor,
subcontractor, supplier, equipment lessor or other party to the
construction project stating they have received payment and waive
any future lien rights to the property. Lien waivers are exchanged
anytime a payment is made.
Once lien waivers are signed and executed they are distributed to
clients, title companies, banks or other financiers for downstream
processing. Currently the lien waiver process is manual, often
paper-based, and leaves valuable data locked away in unstructured
documents. A single missing lien waiver can introduce lien risk to
a project, delay bank draws, and have adverse effects on future
financing. It’s a risk and compliance nightmare, begging for a
technology solution which is lienwaivers.io
■ Do you make payments to your subcontractors / suppliers
/ lessors with an accounting software such as QuickBooks?
■ Does your lender or the owner of the property require lien
waivers?
■ Are you spending multiple hours creating, sending and
tracking lien waivers?
How can you tell if someone is a good fit for your company?
■ Making payments to vendors (examples of this are general
contractors, banks, and/or title companies)
■ Spending multiple hours creating, sending and tracking
numerous lien waivers every month
■ Open to adopting new, timesaving technology to improve
current inefficient processes
■ Using a construction accounting system such as QuickBooks
to make payments
Many contractors are hyper focused on building quality
homes/buildings, providing superior customer service and
controlling cash flow, as they should be. Sometimes there are
elements in business that don’t provide a lot of visible value but
are protecting your company in the background. Lien risk is one of
those elements. Every time a payment is made and a lien waiver
isn’t returned in exchange, lien risk is introduced. This can
create legal liabilities throughout the project.
It is not uncommon for contractors to only send selective lien
waivers or avoid them all together due to the large amount of time
it takes to create, send, and track them. lienwaivers.io makes the
process of protecting your company from lien risk easy by
seamlessly integrating with your accounting system.
Email: go@lienwaivers.io
Website: lienwaivers.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lienwaivers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lienwaiversio/
LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10554315
Geoff Arnold, CEO
Geoff is a fintech and adtech veteran with 15+ years of
professional software engineering experience. Geoff wrote and sold
his first piece of commercial software at the age of 15. Geoff is
an alum of Intent Media, a venturebacked startup in NYC, where he
helped grow a team of 7 to 150+ worldwide, and led a team of 53
software engineers as VP, Technology.
Luis Trejo,
CRO
Luis is a CPA with 12+ years in the finance, tax and accounting
world. Luis previously managed the financial direction of a large
regional construction company. Most recently Luis led a social
media marketing startup through acquisition as their finance
chief.
Sean Richardson, CPO
Sean is a product and marketing guru with a passion for
startups. Sean cofounded and led product development for Pushlee, a
mobile retargeting platform for the $482B US gas station and
convenience store industry. Pushlee was nominated for New Startup
of the Year for the Silicon Prairie Awards in 2014. He is the
founder of the Base 3 entrepreneurial conference and President of
the Startup Sioux City board.