The Challenge
Cobbling together spreadsheets and archaic software, losing confidence in every number
890 Capital was born out of real frustration. Frank’s co-founder, Caleb Pearson, ran a fix-and-flip operation and kept running into the same wall: slow draw requests, delayed appraisals and hard money lenders that made it nearly impossible to access capital when it was needed. They knew if they built a lending business that prioritized speed and simplicity for borrowers, they could build something real.
In the early days, 890 Capital ran on spreadsheets and a workflow management system. Feasible for a loan or two, but increasingly fragile as volume grew. Without an audit trail or version control, there wasn’t a safeguard against the kind of human error that quietly compounds. Frank was constantly double-checking every number he sent out.
“I was constantly petrified that we didn’t have everything in there. Someone deletes a row, and if someone else doesn’t notice it, next thing you know, we’re thirty rows later and we’ve missed it all.”
For a business built on trust, those small mistakes can chip away at something invaluable: credibility.
Before finding Baseline, 890 Capital moved to a legacy lending platform. It was an improvement in theory, but not in practice. The software felt built for a past era — with multi-step processes for tasks like pulling a payoff. Frank found himself consulting training videos just to complete routine operations.
“I’m learning a whole new skill set just to use a technology. That makes no sense. It should be the other way around.”
The Solution
A platform built with the mindset of adaptability, not rigidity
When Frank connected with the Baseline team and saw the platform for the first time, the contrast was immediate. Baseline was intuitive from the start - built around the way private lenders actually work.
Frank describes the onboarding process as collaborative rather than prescriptive: the customer success team pushed back on how 890 did things, getting to the root so that they could help find more efficient paths to the same outcome. The result was more than just a software setup; it was a sharper operating process.
“It was a good tension of: let’s get to what the actual intent is of what we’re doing, not necessarily stuck in our ways of how we’ve done it. If we’re going through three steps to accomplish one thing, how can we just get to that one thing faster?”
Beyond onboarding, Frank found unexpected value in Baseline’s industry knowledge. The Baseline team had built the platform out of their own experience as private lenders, and that context showed up in every conversation. Frank consistently came away from interactions with the team energized about what was possible.
“I always leave every interaction with the Baseline team invigorated — like there’s another level we can go to, we can peel back the onion and get deeper and use this even better.”
The Results
Speed, accuracy and a business Frank is proud to put his name behind
Payoffs in minutes, not hours
One of 890 Capital’s clearest competitive advantages is responsiveness. When a borrower requests a payoff, Frank can have it back to them in under seven minutes. Previously, that same task required manually calculating interest, opening Word to update document fields, cross-referencing a spreadsheet and hoping the math was right. The speed improvement isn’t just operational; it directly shapes the borrower experience and the reputation 890 Capital has built in the Southeast market.
Data integrity that can be staked to the business’s reputation
The shift from manual tracking to Baseline fundamentally changed how Frank relates to the numbers his business produces. Where he once quadruple-checked every figure before sending anything out, he now trusts what comes out of Baseline as fact.
“Just the sigh of relief of knowing that what we have in the system is accurate and being able to trust and believe that what’s in there is what’s real — that was a really big element. I felt comfortable being branded, not sending an email and hoping they don’t find an error.”
That integrity also matters tactically. As 890 Capital moves toward selling loans and raising institutional capital, having a clean, auditable loan tape will be essential. Frank is already thinking about what it means to have his books monthly and being confident that nothing will be off.
“As we move to the next stage — selling loans, raising debt — having that data clean and right is going to be massive.”
One platform for borrowers and investors
Before Baseline, the investor side of 890 Capital was entirely manual. Monthly statements were assembled by hand, and the process of distributing them consumed significant time. Now, 890 uses Baseline’s investor portal to give investors self-serve access to their statements and investment details. They then use that monthly touchpoint strategically.
“I use investor statements as a monthly touch point to talk to our investors. It honestly helps us raise capital…I reach out and tell them, ‘Hey, thank you for your support. This is what your investment looks like.’”
On the borrower side, payment collection, document management and payoff generation are all centralized in Baseline. 890’s CFO handles payment distribution directly in the platform, with a near-one-click process that reconciles with QuickBooks, eliminating the manual reconciliation that existed before.
A team pulling from the same source of truth
Internally, Baseline has streamlined how the 890 Capital team collaborates. Everyone is working from the same reports and pipeline data; no version conflicts, doubled work, or "Wait, did you already send that?" moments. A transaction coordinator now handles loan commitment forms end-to-end within the platform, freeing Frank to focus on the business rather than the process.
Looking Ahead
Closing Fund I and building the infrastructure for what comes next
890 Capital’s near-term goal is to close Fund I at $25 million and use that foundation to launch an evergreen second fund. Beyond that, Frank is keeping an eye on where the biggest pain points and opportunities are in the private lending space, to identify adjacent verticals that should be on the table.
Baseline is central to that vision. Frank sees the platform as something that scales with the business rather than constraining it - and he’s been a vocal advocate for features he wants to see built, confident that the feedback gets heard and acted on.
“I consider this a long-term partnership where as we grow, they grow, and it helps rise all tides. I’m not worried about breaking it. I’m more excited about finding things that could be better, submitting that as feedback, and getting it addressed.”
