Our "Open Secret" Strategy
By Andrew Wang, CEO
Introduction
Valon's (open) secret strategy is simple. Often, Silicon Valley overvalues growth rates and undervalues durability. Chasing high growth, boom or bust ideas can pay off handsomely, but the outcomes have extreme variance and it leaves untouched a class of problems that could shape the world.
At Valon, we started out with a fundamentally different question: where does entrenched complexity suppress competition long enough for there to be an outsized, no, astronomical reward for the patient, methodical, and relentless team? We deeply appreciate the certain greed in humans and fear of failure that prevents decade-long grinds irrespective of the potential size of outcome. But those instincts also create a massive spread between what seems impossible and what is merely unattempted. Override that and you'll find massive overlooked opportunities.
Mortgage servicing - a $100 billion market encumbered by regulatory complexity, breadth of product coverage necessary to be effective, and heavy reputational emphasis - fits squarely into that thesis. The casual innovator passing by is quickly deterred by the numerous barriers and examples of failures. In contrast, to us, the overwhelming complexity is music to our ears and conquering that is both our enduring moat and innovation.
Our playbook is neither novel nor mysterious; it is just rarely executed with the discipline needed to win. Our secret isn't hidden - it's just hard to copy. We pick the problems most teams call impossible (mortgage servicing is just the first), iterate until they look obvious, and then watch the market retroactively say it always was obvious. That compounding loop, hard to start and harder to keep spinning, is how we plan to unlock the next wave of value and build a generational company.
Where Complexity Suppresses Competition
Mortgage servicing is a $100 billion industry running on infrastructure built before the internet. The dominant systems, MSP and Loanserv, are decades old and patched together with manual workarounds. Every new regulation adds friction, and every exception slows the system further.
Most startups have avoided this space because it is too complex, too regulated, and too unforgiving. For us, that is the opportunity. We built Valon to prove that even the most constrained industries can be rebuilt from first principles when you have the discipline to do the hard things right.
Building Proof from the Ground Up
To build the right system, we had to run it ourselves. Valon became a fully licensed, nationwide mortgage servicer approved by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae to understand every rule, audit, and operational edge case firsthand.
Valon Mortgage powered by ValonOS
That decision was painful by design. It forced us to internalize the complexity we set out to conquer. The result is a best-in-class servicer operating at national scale, with industry-leading margins, reliability, and customer satisfaction. We built the company that could handle the hardest problem, then turned those learnings into software.
Scaling from Operator to Platform
Now we are scaling ValonOS, the system that powers our own operations, into a B2B SaaS platform for the entire industry. Major servicers are deploying ValonOS to modernize their cores, replace legacy systems, and run with the precision we have already proven in production.
This is the inflection point. We have validated the model. Now we are building the platform that others will depend on, and every person who joins us helps define how it scales.
Our Playbook: The Anti-Wedge
Most companies start small and expand outward. We did the opposite, starting with the hardest problem first. By operating the full system ourselves, we earned trust where others could not, creating a foundation that scales cleanly into new products and markets.
Our moat is the discipline to execute what others avoid. The compounding loop is simple: solve the impossible once, prove it works, and then repeat it across regulated industries that power the economy.
An AI-Native Operating System for Regulated Industries
Mortgage servicing is just the beginning. The same principles of trust, compliance, and precision apply to every regulated industry constrained by outdated systems.
ValonOS is designed to become the foundational operating layer for those markets, where correctness, auditability, and automation are non-negotiable. We are building the system of record for the industries that keep the world running.
Define Our Next Chapter
We have proven the model. ValonOS works, and now we are scaling it across the industries that power the economy. The next chapter depends on builders who see complexity as opportunity and precision as power. Joining now means shaping how we expand, how we build, and how we define enduring success in regulated industries.