In my first blog post last week I talked about how I often share the learnings of successful lenders, as well as the teachings of the marketplace results. My job at Prosper is to show lenders how to use Prosper and its various bidding tools.  Here are a couple of other learnings to consider.

I (and the successful lenders I speak with) don’t make marginal bidding decisions. If everything looks great in a listing except that the bankcard utilization is just a tad bit higher than you’re comfortable with, or the loan amount seems too high – pass on the listing. There will undoubtedly be another listing around the corner that does meet your criteria.

How to “price” bids is another topic I frequently discuss with new (and many existing) lenders. The most common challenge lenders face initially is being outbid. This is usually due to bidding the “current rate” which in many cases isn’t competitive.

Lenders can avoid the time and frustration of being outbid by bidding an amount they are comfortable with from the beginning. That way, if they’re outbid they know that they gave it their best shot. The smart ones don’t get hooked into bidding again because it looks like a “hot” listing that everyone else is bidding on.

We have a wealth of information available in the Help section under the Lending topic.

Last, but not least, spend some time on the 3rd party applications:
             

These sites have an amazing amount of information and will certainly assist in your success on Prosper.

You can always call or email us questions. We’re here to help you.

My job at Prosper is to show lenders how to use Prosper and its various bidding tools. I speak with dozens of new lenders at Prosper every day. I often share the learnings of successful lenders, as well as the teachings of the marketplace results.

One of the most critical messages I try to share with lenders is to slow down and bid methodically rather than try and pump out 25 manual bids in a single day. Diversification is usually the next topic that I discuss with lenders. Not simply bidding in small increments, which is important, but also diversifying across credit grades and especially loan amounts.

Some users naturally don’t have the time to spend bidding slowly across many listings, in which case I show them how they can create a Portfolio Plan or employ a combination of manual bidding and portfolio plans simultaneously.

While I understand that the idea of Prosper is really exciting, and combined with the prospect of great returns it can be tempting for lenders to deploy their cash as quickly as they can bid it out. However, bidding and being a successful lender on Prosper is more often a marathon and not a sprint. Furthermore, as a new asset class it deserves some time to be researched and understood. Undoubtedly, we’ve all bid on some listings early on that we look back on and say “if I knew then what I know now, I would have never bid on that listing”.

Get comfortable reading the Credit Profile of every borrower you’re considering bidding on. If you’re wondering why a borrower has 8 inquiries in the last six months use the Q&A feature to ask the borrower. In fact, I personally ask ALL borrowers at least one question before I’ll place a bid on their listing. This is an excellent way to get clarification, additional information not in the listing and to gauge the responsiveness of the borrower.

We have a wealth of information available in the Help section under the Lending topic.

And you can always call or email us questions. We’re here to help you.

Greetings from Prosper! It has been a fast-moving three months since I had the opportunity to join the Prosper team to head up Business Development with Chris, John, Kirk and Catherine. Coming from a traditional banking and capital markets background, it has certainly been a change of focus, but I can’t pay enough compliments to the management team here. They are smart, innovative, creative, and collaborative. One of the first things that struck me when I joined is that every Prosper employee is passionate about their desire to make consumer lending better and more financially and socially rewarding.

I will be heading up strategic partnership opportunities and our institutional lender platform. I plan to post updates here as events transpire and appreciate all of the support and inquiries from the Prosper community.

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Adrienne Penake, CFA is the VP of Business Development at Prosper

My job normally requires me to write in funny sounding languages like C# (pronounced “see-sharp”), and SQL (like the word “sequel”). I use strange acronyms like ASP.Net (ay-es-pee dot net), and slay “bugs” with electronic weapons. After a feverish two years in the Prosper engineering department, I feel out of practice writing in my native English!

Taking a moment to breathe from what has been a truly wild ride thus far, let me share a personal insight: that is that people I work with at Prosper are easily the smartest and hardest working people I have ever worked with. We simply get things done. Fast. Very fast. And I’m not one easily daunted by hard work: having served in the Israeli Air Force, instructed in a foreign language, attended medical school, and having raised three children as a single dad for several years, Prosper is an experience that rivals the demands of all of them.

Decisions have been carefully weighed. So much thought has gone into building this marketplace! Hardly a step has been taken without the benefit of extreme consideration. From the day I started, working on a make shift desk made out of a folding table (many employee’s desks are still folding tables by the way!) till today, Prosper has been about extreme thinking matched with unrelenting quality execution. We are not perfect, and of course have made our share of mistakes, but I am oh-so-proud to be a part of where this is going.

Adam Edell is a Senior Software Engineer with Prosper.com