Kayser runs online surety bond provider, a spinoff from VAMortgageCenter.com
The company’s website says it is now the nation’s top surety bond producer, with more than 25,000 bond types. Surety bonds are generally required to obtain a license or permit in any city, county or state, and purchasers range from mortgage brokers and auto dealers to doctors, construction contractors and janitors.
A surety bond is basically an agreement between three parties: the principal, who has the primary responsibility to perform an obligation; the surety, who has the secondary responsibility of performing the obligation if the principal fails to perform; and the obligee, to whom the obligation is owed.
Kayser’s company does not provide bail bonds, a type of surety bond obtained by criminal defendants.
Costs vary widely, particularly for high-risk applicants, but premiums usually cost between 1 and 4 percent of the needed bond amount for a typical applicant with a good financial history.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, what does SuretyBonds.com do, and how did you get the idea to get into this business?
Our goal at SuretyBonds.com is to create the path of least resistance for our clients at the best price. We have streamlined the underwriting and issuing processes to the point where we can essentially get 90 percent of the license and permit bonds across the country in your hands within less than 24 hours. We are improving our processes and adding more markets every day to be able to offer better pricing and faster service so that we can be more competitive in this space.
A couple of years ago, a group of us sat down and looked for new industries that we might be able to start. Naturally, we started with ideas tied to the mortgage industry because that is the area we had all been working in, and we might be able to leverage some competitive advantage. Turns out there are a lot of mortgage broker surety bond requirements across the country. Although there was no true competitive advantage with our industry ties, we did some research, found a great domain, and it’s been downhill ever since.
Your website is at the top of the Google search results for surety bonds. Is that what drives most of your business?
Ninety-nine percent of our business is driven from Internet search. We are now starting to get some referrals, and we have some strategic partnerships set up with various professional associations. But for the most part, search traffic is what is driving the bulk of our business.
We would like to think that we got SuretyBonds.com for a good price. Some people might think the cost is high, but like you said, beginning with a good domain is a very important piece of SEO starting out and even more so in the future as competition increases in the space.
We have one of the best search marketing teams around behind the scenes that makes sure our site is showing up in various searches and our traffic is converting into new business. One of my partners in this venture, Nathaniel Broughton, was instrumental in the search marketing success of VAMC.com. He has put together a small team here to carry that success forward, and so far they are dominating the surety niche online with relative ease.
You recently opened a new office on 1200 Rogers St., but your business has been operating since February 2009. Where were you before and why the new office?
I was really fortunate to meet Brant Bukowsky, co-founder of VAMortgageCenter.com, my sophomore year of college. I started working with Brant and Nathaniel in the marketing department for VAMC shortly after. I learned a lot not only about search marketing but also how to test an industry and ultimately how to start and run a successful business.
The team at VAMC sees so much potential for growth on top of what they have already done that they wanted to focus their efforts exclusively on building the mortgage company so they could try to do some really big things. So Nathaniel and I decided to build SuretyBonds.com separate from VAMC. We were originally in a very small space next to the VAMC marketing department, but with our increasing demand for office space, we decided to move to an office where we had ample room for future growth. That was less than three months ago, and we now have six full-time employees, four part-time employees and more requests for bonds then we can handle at this time.
We hear VAMortgageCenter.com is a pretty fun place to work. Do you miss the atmosphere there, or are you just glad to be running your own business?
You cannot find a better place to work in this town than VAMC. I had a really great time working there, and I still miss the atmosphere and the people a lot. I am forever grateful for the opportunities they gave me and for the education I received while I was there from some incredibly smart people. I owe a lot to not only Brant and Nathaniel, but also to working with Brock Bukowsky and Nate Long on some projects that taught me a lifetime of lessons about how to run a successful company and, more importantly, how to treat your employees.
Luckily, a lot of what people love about VAMC has carried over to the SuretyBonds.com office. We strive to keep the same atmosphere and employee morale at SuretyBonds.com. (Someday, I hope to have as many T-shirt designs.)
You’re already a pretty successful young entrepreneur, but this isn’t even the first business you’ve started. Can you tell us about your other venture(s)?
I am assuming you are referring to M.U. Bail Bonds. I started that in college just days after I turned 21 (the minimum age to be licensed in Missouri), and it was a really fun ride. I still own it, but now I have licensed agents across the state dealing with most of the day-to-day operations. I had a lot of fun doing it in college and was able to help out a lot of really good people in tough situations, but it was time to move on.
Coincidently, a bail bond is a surety bond instrument with the same core fundamentals. The bail bond industry is going through a tough time right now. A lot of Missouri judges and courts are cutting out bondsman and allowing defendants to post bail with the court. On the other hand, states all across the country are instituting new surety bond requirements for businesses in various industries every day. While one industry is shrinking, the other is growing; it just made sense to branch out to something new
Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?
Keep on the lookout for employment opportunities with SuretyBonds.com. With our unique business model, we will continue to bring jobs that normally would be spread out all over the country right here to Columbia. I expect that we will be in a position to do quite a bit of hiring in 2011, and it is important to me that we continue to find and retain top talent as we grow. If you think we might be a good fit for you, please do not hesitate to send me your resume at [email protected].