Lendio Success Story: Joshua Villarreal of Create the Bridge

I recently caught up with a very busy Joshua Villarreal, CEO at Create the Bridge, a creative agency in Texas that’s passionate about creating work that makes an impact. They’ve experienced incredible growth in 2015 and came to Lendio to help them find and access capital so they could seize opportunities as they expand further into global markets.

The team at Create the Bridge

Tell me a little bit about Create the Bridge.

Create the Bridge is a full-service creative agency that specializes in product development. We were founded on the principle of always delivering best in class products. Our team has a single quality that ties us together: Everyone loves what they do. Our development team enjoys elegant, clean code that is semantic and rich. Not so different from our design team, which seeks expertly crafted architecture, and stunning visuals to accompany one-of-a-kind user experiences. Our marketing team rounds things out by giving a voice to the products we build.

With each project we learn from our clients and refine how we approach our work. We’re dedicated to providing a great relationship from start to finish.

Why and when did you start it?
Create the Bridge was initially founded by Joshua Villarreal, Nathan Villarreal, and Luis Trevino in early 2014 in Edinburg, TX. 6 Months later, Create the Bridge added two other co-founders, Joshua Tyree as CTO and Sara Gonzalez as CCO. The company began to quickly scale by expanding to global markets, acquiring clients from Canada, Stockholm, India, and various cities throughout Europe.

How did you get the initial capital to start your business?
Create the Bridge was bootstrapped and funded solely by it’s founders. It was a tough journey, and thankfully we’ve been able to find funding opportunities such as Lendio.

What keeps you going? What’s the passion that drives your business?
What keeps us moving forward is our passion to create and solve new problems. Working with our partners to achieve their vision is both rewarding in its own right as well as financially.

What did you need funding for?
Our company achieved 300% growth in 2015 and we’re aiming to not only duplicate but surpass that growth margin. The one key element to achieving that is access to capital. Timing is everything, especially when finding crests for ROI in decisions, and seizing opportunity.

Have you seen anything positive from the funding yet?
We’ve used a portion to scale our sales team as well as segmented capital into testing various strategies which may help us compound our sales momentum.

How did you find Lendio?
I’m a huge fan of TechCrunch and recently I saw a client of ours as a featured story and when I went back to find it I discovered Lendio. Immediately I was intrigued to try the platform because it’s solving real problems for companies that may be new or have growth far outpacing their historical borrowing power.

How was your experience with Lendio?
It was great, the software definitely keeps things organized.

How was your experience with your Lendio rep?
It was fantastic, my account manager Mike [Bias] communicated well with me over whichever medium I was available. I didn’t feel like I was being sold. He took the time to learn about our history, understand my objectives, and find the specific financial instruments I was interested in.

Would you recommend Lendio to a friend?
In a heartbeat.

What general business advice do you have for other small business owners?
If you want to succeed, you have to put aside the fear of failure. You also have to accept that certain things are beyond your control. Just pursue your goals and eventually you will discover how to get there. Be prepared to deal with many failures and successes along the way. No matter what happens, keep going forward. In short, it’s about chasing your dreams and making them a reality.