LendEDU still has a lot of love for Delaware (especially for UD grads)

LendEDU is a student loan rate marketplace and student debt consolidation and refinancing service. Founded in 2014 by University of Delaware graduates Nate Matherson and Matt Lenhard, LendEDU’s seen a steady stream of success, having been in cohorts at both Y Combinator and the Iowa Startup Accelerator.
But they’ve been based out of Hoboken, New Jersey since graduating Y Combinator last year. So where’s the Delaware love?
To date, Matherson and Lenhard have hired only UD graduates. The company has eight full-time employees, including the two founders, and all of them are from UD.
According to Matherson, it’s a big part of why LendEDU has seen consistent success.
“We earned over $1 million in 2016,” he explained. The company has a personal loan comparison tool now, and is set to supplement it in March with tools for comparing credit cards and bank accounts. LendEDU is moving from a marketplace for student loans to a marketplace for making good financial decisions.
Their most recent hire was brought on board to help run their financially focused blog, one that Matherson said drives a lot of traffic and sales to their site. That hire, of course, came from UD.
So, why are they looking to the University of Delaware for employees?
“In 2015, we got into Y Combinator,” Matherson explained. “We were actually still University of Delaware students at the time. Our business was really starting to grow, and we needed to hire more people. The first place we looked was to our college roommates, who we knew were really smart. They knew a lot about our company already, you know, just from being in the living room late at night talking about LendEDU.”
The trend continued. The cofounders naturally knew a lot of recent UD graduates after graduating themselves in 2015 who just happened to fit well with their company culture.
“It was easy,” said Matherson. “We needed to hire people, and they needed jobs.”
Matherson explained how those preexisting connections lead to more informed hires.
“We found that we really knew what we were getting with each hire,” he said.
And yes, the startup is still hiring. Interested? Email Matherson at nate@lendedu.com. It probably wouldn’t hurt to have a degree from UD.