AI, SBA 504 Loans, and the Next Wave of Small-Business Finance

B-Side Capital CEO Chris Myers joins OmniAI’s CEO, Tyler Maran to map where lending, customer acquisition, and AI are headed.

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SBA 504 Lending, Explained

B:Side Capital is one of the larger Certified Development Companies in the U.S, specializing in the 504 SBA loan program for small-business owners that want to buy owner-occupied real estate.

Most of their demand comes from established companies looking to improve their capital efficiency by owning the real estate they operate out of, rather spending on rent:

“Our borrowers are rarely startups. They’re established manufacturers, wholesalers, or service firms looking to own the building they work from.”

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Why Real Estate Builds Exit Value

The 504 structure helps owners add tangible assets to their business that are well understood and valued by investors, making it easier to attract buyers and sell at a better price in future.

All too often, a business will just die when the owners retire as they're the main value driver and there is no exit value without them. Chris's father-in-law's business is a great example:

“My father-in-law runs a world-renowned classic-car shop. Great business, but the value is tied up in him and his brother. By financing the real estate, you create a tangible asset that survives the owner.” - Chris

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Moving to a Sales Culture

Getting a 504 loan approved can be a little tricky as there are three parties involved:

“A 504 deal always has three parties: the borrower at 10 percent, a bank at 45 percent, and the CDC-us-for the remaining 45 percent. You need all three pieces to unlock the SBA guarantee.” - Chris

Banks would traditionally receive inbound enquiries from new and existing customers and partner up with a specialist CDC lender to facilitate the loan (like B:Side). This meant that B:Side's approach mostly focused on building close ties to the bank, rather than sourcing deals directly, but this is changing because CDC lending is becoming more competitive and crowded over time:

“We built a Client Relationship Officer role and pushed hard on outbound BD. Our bankers still source most loans, but now we’re expected to bring business to them too.” - Chris

B:Side have adapted their model by adding demand generation and sales teams, and Tyler agrees the customer acquisition focus is similar in tech-startups:

“It all comes down to customer acquisition. The best customer is the one you already have, but you still need net-new demand every quarter.”

Educational content is a big factor in B:Side's demand generation strategy which calls on Chris's media background and aims to attract borrowers at the earliest stages of considering a 504 loan:

“I wrote for Forbes ten years and hosted a show on MSNBC. Today we publish The B-Side Way, a blog on leadership and market conditions. The content fills our funnel and feeds socials, too.”

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Building “B-Side Assist”

Winning new customers through sales and marketing is one thing, but retention and account growth is equally as important. Providing a great experience through software and AI tools utilized correctly is already helping B:Side build longer lasting, growing customer relationships:

“We’re launching B-Side Assist, an AI financial-management platform. Connect your bank accounts, get cash-basis accounting instantly, then ask in natural language: ‘What should I worry about this month?’” - Chris

The goal is to use this position, with all the borrower's financial data in one place, to become a partner that helps identify opportunities on an ongoing basis in the background, rather than being just a commoditized provider of capital that the borrower only engages at the application and approval stages of the loan.

“Because we see their data, we can proactively say, ‘You’d qualify for cheaper SBA capital right now.’” - Chris

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Banking Meets LLMs

B:Side have earned a strong reputation built on 35 years in business, and Chris's goal is to ensure they utilize this new technology in a way that compliments their long history and trusted position:

“Our industry is as slow and boring as it gets, but B-Side is the exception. We’ve adopted a nimble, tech-based mentality while respecting 35 years of trust.” - Chris

Both agree that neither AI nor humans are 100% accurate and in a high stakes environment like a loan decisions, accuracy must be reliable and consistent.

The biggest challenge is going to be cultural, not technical according to Chris:

“Tech will hit 100 percent. The real work is prepping people. In three to five years we should handle 10-to-20× today’s volume with the same headcount. That mindset shift is harder than the code.” - Chris

At Omni, we are already seeing small teams AI-first companies operating at lightning speed and Tyler believes it's inevitable they'll start to unseat incumbents who don't innovate:

“We might see two-person firms running hundreds of AI agents, competing with 50-thousand-employee incumbents.” - Tyler

Key Takeaways

• SBA 504 loans turn operating companies into real-estate owners, building exit value.

• Customer-acquisition power is shifting from banks to CDCs that create direct demand.

• Content marketing remains a low-cost moat, even in regulated finance.

• B-Side Assist shows how lenders can bundle AI analytics to deepen lifetime value.

• AI + humans can unlock 10-to-20× productivity.