AmiSight 6/4: I Thought I Knew My Business. AI Proved Otherwise

If you arrange financing for small business owners, you should care what happens after the loan closes. That sounds obvious. But in the brokerage business, it’s surprisingly difficult to know. Many brokers focus on getting a deal approved. They collect a commission and move on. I’ve always wanted to know more. Which borrowers succeed? Which struggle? Are we helping clients obtain financing that positions them for long-term success?

The challenge has always been access to information. Lenders usually don’t share loan-performance data with brokers. Over the years, I’ve pieced together whatever information I could find. But it never gave me a complete picture. Recently, that changed. Every quarter, the Small Business Administration publishes data on its loan portfolio. The agency recently expanded those reports, creating a much richer dataset. For the first time, I finally had enough information to explore questions I’d been asking for years.

That said, the dataset contained nearly a million rows of information. Not long ago, analyzing something that large would have required consultants, databases, and a major investment of time and money. Instead, I uploaded the data into Claude. I isolated the loans my company originated and matched them to referral sources and channels. Then I started looking for patterns.

What I found surprised me. Head over to my 21 Hats column to continue reading.

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