E59: Habito Founder - Daniel Hegarty

After dropping out of school with no qualifications aged 16, Daniel Hegarty got signed to the same label as Boy George and went touring with his punk band for just £100 a week. He then spent the next ten years carving out a career as a working musician in LA, writing for and performing with the likes of S Club 7, Robbie Williams and the Sugababes, before returning to the UK to be one of the first employees at Wonga, where he became fully immersed in the world of tech startups.

Dan became frustrated with the whole property buying process after almost losing the house he was trying to buy due to mistakes made by his solicitors. He realised there was huge potential for change in the mortgage and property market, and in 2016, Habito was born.

Habito is a tech startup that is dedicated to ending ‘mortgage hell’ and aims to streamline the whole process, cutting down the average transaction time from 21 days to just 10. Since its founding six years ago, Habito has seen rapid growth, from sorting just 245 mortgages in 2016 to a whopping £4 billion worth of mortgages in 2020. With £80 million of funding raised so far, Habito had recently expanded into lending their own mortgages, streamlining the process even further.

In this week’s episode of Success Is In The Mind, Oliver Bruce sits down with Daniel to ask, how do you set up a business with no experience and raise millions in funding? Was dropping out of school the best decision he ever made? And what does the future of mortgage broking look like?

Watch the best bits here - https://bit.ly/3tqDcyq 

Listen to the full podcast – https://link.chtbl.com/lsgRUCSI 

For more exclusive content visit Oliver's YouTube - https://bit.ly/32eboTi

Sponsor - Capsule Insurance

Produced by: PinPoint Media