Happy Sunday!
I’m in Latvia this week speaking at Baltic Fintech Days, and subscribers here will be the first to receive some of my on-the-ground coverage and conversations from across the European fintech ecosystem.
A while back, I wrote about homeownership startup Foyer and its partnership with Nayya as part of the growing conversation around housing affordability and financial wellness benefits. As someone deeply interested in the evolving homebuying tech stack, I was excited to reconnect with Foyer founder Landy Liu for this edition of 5 Questions.
Here’s Landy’s 5 Questions.
MEET LANDY LIU
Landy Liu, Founder at Foyer
Landy Liu is the founder and CEO of Foyer, a fintech platform helping the next generation navigate the path to homeownership through financial wellness, savings, and employer benefits. Before launching Foyer, he led insurance and settlement businesses at Better and previously worked in structured credit at Credit Suisse. Today, he is focused on making homeownership more accessible at a time when affordability challenges are reshaping the American dream. Landy is also a fellow Penn alum.
Landy Liu
5 QUESTIONS WITH LANDY LIU
1. What’s the problem you saw that others underestimated — and how did it first show up in your own life or work?
In 2022 I saw that the problem of home affordability was going to be persistent and painful for the next generation of Americans. I realized that new infrastructure was necessary to on-ramp first-time homebuyers to life's biggest purchase. Personally, I encountered this when I set out to purchase my own home in 2022. I had money saved in a 401k, an HSA, but not much set aside for my home. I didn't even fully understand how much I needed. This inspired me to create Foyer a "401k" for homeownership.
I saw the problem of home affordability was going to be persistent and painful for the next generation.
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2. What category do people most often mislabel you as — and what’s the truth?
Most people consider Foyer to be a financial product for homeownership. This is partly true but purchasing a home is as much an emotional decision as it is financial. Foyer helps our members build savings but also confidence through education and a suite of real estate services that members can trust will save them money on the transaction.
3. What is a decision the company made that slowed growth or limited optionality in the short term, but ultimately strengthened the business model or customer trust over the long term?
Early on we invested in building a dedicated savings vehicle that offered FDIC insurance through a partner-bank. This involved a technology, operational, and legal investment. Ultimately this has strengthened our business model as we now own the savings journey towards homeownership.
4. What’s a decision you made that hurt short-term momentum but preserved your long-term vision?
Another decision that may have slowed our short-term momentum is building out a marketplace of services for the transaction - mortgage and real estate agents - in product. This may have slowed the growth of our savings vehicle but has preserved our broader vision of providing first time homebuyers a singular homeownership journey that saves them money and time.
Foyer helps build our members build savings, but also confidence.
5. Share one metric, study, or real-world data point that validated (or disproved) your original thesis.
We have shown now that we can speed up first-time homebuyers goals by 9 months. We know this because we ask our members to set a goal at time of onboarding and time and again we see that Foyer get's people ready for homebuying faster.
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Till next week,
Ilona
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