What brokers actually told us they needed (and why we built Olmo around it)

30 April 2026 · Admin

Before we wrote a single line of code, we spent 3 months listening.

That might sound like an unusual place to start, but it's the most important thing we did. Because the mortgage broker market is full of technology that was built by people who understood software but had never sat in a broker's chair. The result is tools that are technically functional but practically frustrating — and brokers and networks who've learned to work around them rather than with them.

We didn't want to build another one of those.

So we talked to brokers. We talked to networks. We asked them what a good day looked like, what a bad day looked like, and — most importantly — what was getting in the way. We did that for a year and a half before Olmo launched in February. And the same things came up, again and again.

"I spend more time on admin than I do talking to customers."

This one stung. Because brokers are good at their jobs — they understand mortgages, they build trust, they help people make some of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. But the systems around them were eating their time. Chasing documents. Updating records across platforms. Duplicating information that should only ever need to be entered once. Hours every week that should have been spent with clients, lost to process.

"It's not easy to use."

This sounds simple. It's not. Ease of use isn't just about a clean interface — it's about whether a tool fits the way you actually work. Brokers weren't asking for something dumbed down. They were asking for something that didn't require a manual, didn't slow them down, and didn't make them feel like the software was designed for someone else.

"We're working across too many platforms."

Logging into one system for client data, another for documents, another for compliance — and none of them talking to each other. The fragmentation wasn't just inefficient, it was creating risk. Things getting missed. Audit trails falling apart. Brokers spending time reconciling systems instead of serving clients.

"Our current supplier just doesn't listen."

This was perhaps the most telling. Not a feature complaint, but a relationship one. Brokers and networks had been raising issues and asking for improvements for months — sometimes years — and getting nothing back. No response, no roadmap, no acknowledgement that their problems were real. They didn't feel like customers. They felt like an afterthought.

Everything we heard went directly into how we built Olmo. Not as a wishlist we'd get to eventually, but as the foundation. A platform that reduces admin, works the way brokers work, brings everything into one place, and is built by a team that actually picks up the phone.

We're not perfect. But we're listening. We were before we started, and we will be long after launch.

That's the whole point.