Entreprenista

Patty Arvielo, New American Funding: Building Generational Wealth Without Raising Capital

February 23, 2026

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  • Patty Arvielo attributes her success to being a "taught entrepreneur" who prioritized responsibility and grit over initial confidence, emphasizing that confidence often follows action. 
  • Scaling a large company like New American Funding requires shifting focus from the product to being in the "people business," where honoring diverse perspectives and building a culture of belonging is paramount. 
  • Building generational wealth without outside capital involves reinvesting the vast majority (98% in their case) of profits back into the business to maintain control and avoid reporting to external stakeholders. 

Segments

Patty’s Entrepreneurial Origin Story
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(00:02:58)
  • Key Takeaway: Patty Arvielo did not aspire to be an entrepreneur, initially planning to be a dental hygienist, driven instead by the responsibility to provide for her family.
  • Summary: Her journey began with working entry-level jobs from age 12, prioritizing the highest hourly wage available, which exposed her to the mortgage industry through credit report ordering. She started New American Funding at age 32 after a difficult divorce, guided by her now-husband who served as her first entrepreneurial mentor.
Acquiring and Evolving the Company
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(00:06:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The acquisition of the initial business involved taking over debt and structuring an exit payout rather than a large upfront cash payment.
  • Summary: Patty experienced zero confidence and high fear when first owning the company, relying on savings and her partner’s support. She learned the business by working for young entrepreneurs who were good at lead generation but lacked closing expertise, creating a synergistic partnership.
Synergistic Partnership Dynamics
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(00:12:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Successful business partnerships thrive on complementary skill sets, where partners respect their differences and avoid duplicating roles.
  • Summary: Patty, the people person with sales and operational skills, partnered with her husband, who possessed the vision and business structuring skills. As the company scaled, Patty leveled up to focus on culture and employee well-being, recognizing the need to hire leaders better than herself.
Scaling Through People and Culture
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(00:17:27)
  • Key Takeaway: When a company reaches significant size, success depends entirely on managing people effectively, allowing the operation to take a life of its own.
  • Summary: Patty studies personalities and cultural differences extensively to ensure she is not hiring from a single perspective, viewing her Latina background as a superpower that provides diverse viewpoints. She created the concept of a “culture of belonging” years before it became a common corporate focus.
Authentic Leadership and Empathy
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(00:21:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Authentic, empathetic leadership, which embraces emotion rather than relying on aggression, is a powerful and effective style for women leaders.
  • Summary: Patty shares her personal struggles openly with her 5,500 employees to show she shares their human experiences, contrasting this with outdated, abusive leadership styles. She asserts that leaders do not need to be louder to be heard; tugging on heartstrings through emotion is more effective.
Hiring and Managing Performance
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(00:26:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Entrepreneurs should delegate difficult conversations, like terminations, to leaders whose skill sets align with those tasks, recognizing personal emotional limitations.
  • Summary: Patty admits she is too emotional to fire people, having once paid an employee to let someone go, and instead relies on her president, Christy, who is skilled at being direct and objective. The advice is to hire slowly by taking the interview process seriously, but fire quickly if a bad cultural fit is identified.
Interviewing for Values and Leadership
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(00:29:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Effective high-level interviewing focuses on family values and a candidate’s history of pulling others up, actively avoiding candidates whose conversation is dominated by the word “I.”
  • Summary: Patty prioritizes family passion to ensure value alignment, seeking diverse perspectives including Gen Z for technology and mature leaders for mentorship. She looks for evidence of mentorship and collaboration, viewing excessive self-praise (“the I word”) as a trigger for disqualification.
Succession Planning and Future Goals
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(00:33:50)
  • Key Takeaway: The next major goal for New American Funding is achieving a top-five retail lender ranking, which requires rigorous succession planning as the founders look toward their later years.
  • Summary: Patty and her husband are planning for their 70s, realizing their vision of retirement at 60 was inaccurate, and are relying on their core leadership team (the RVLO team) to execute the succession plan. They have zero aspiration to sell the company, having built it entirely on their own capital.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
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(00:36:35)
  • Key Takeaway: Patty wishes she had recognized her own competence earlier, realizing she was ‘really good’ at her job rather than just ’lucky,’ a realization solidified when a high-caliber candidate chose her company.
  • Summary: She struggled with self-doubt and imposter syndrome without knowing the term, often attributing success to luck. She advises the younger generation to look inward and cherish their unique traits, like being bilingual, instead of constantly comparing themselves externally.
Self-Advocacy in Male-Dominated Spaces
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(00:40:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Self-advocacy is a necessary skill, and women should not accept negative comments in professional settings, recognizing that such behavior reflects poorly on the commenter, not the recipient.
  • Summary: Patty has always been outspoken, even being labeled ‘unmanageable’ for speaking up, which she now honors as a prerequisite for being a CEO. She notes that most men in modern business environments act as cheerleaders for women leaders who speak up.
Building Without Raising Capital
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(00:43:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Longevity and financial security are best achieved by staying privately held and keeping the majority of profits (98% over 22 years for NAF) within the company to compound wealth.
  • Summary: Fundraising can lead entrepreneurs to bleed the company by taking large paychecks too early, whereas self-funding builds resilience, enabling the company to endure crises like the financial meltdown. Being privately held allows for strategic flexibility, such as absorbing losses for future growth, without board oversight.
Defining Wealth and Investments
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(00:46:08)
  • Key Takeaway: True wealth is defined by having the resources to care for family and employees’ health and well-being, not by material possessions like private planes or luxury items.
  • Summary: Patty made it at 50 when she secured financial security for her family across generations, achieved through diversification outside the core business. She advocates for investing in assets that retain or increase value, such as real estate (both commercial and residential), and luxury items like Rolexes or Birkins purchased at retail.
Entrepreneurship as Responsibility
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(00:53:08)
  • Key Takeaway: For Patty, being an entrepreneur means having an undeniable responsibility to reach back and teach the unvarnished truth about business building to the next generation.
  • Summary: Entrepreneurship is a 24/7 commitment where the company becomes part of one’s DNA, requiring constant responsibility for every employee’s well-being. She emphasizes sharing the reality of sleepless nights and hard work, not just the fairy tales of success.