In this Alumni Spotlight Q&A, Mark DeMitchell reflects on the experiences that led him from Santa Barbara City College to University of California, Santa Barbara and ultimately into entrepreneurship. He shares how studying Economics and his involvement in UCSB’s Technology Management Program shaped his approach to innovation by emphasizing experimentation and deep customer insight. Mark also discusses his early career in the Southern California advertising world, where collaborating across diverse teams clarified his strengths and motivated his transition to the Bay Area startup ecosystem. Now serving as Co-Founder of Nestment, a first-time homebuyer advocacy platform, he reflects on building a mission-driven company focused on affordability and access, and looks back on UCSB as the place where his entrepreneurial foundation first took shape.
You started at community college before transferring to UCSB. What was that transition like for you, both academically and socially?
I went to SBCC before UCSB, and the relationship at that time between the two colleges was pretty tight, so the transition was super easy in terms of the logistics of doing it. I felt supported the entire way, both by City College and UCSB. I had really clear expectations on what courses and how many credits I needed to transfer to UCSB. So academically, I felt pretty good about the transition.
Socially, I lived in the dorms, in Tropicana, my freshman year. So I was pretty embedded inside of Isla Vista with friends who both went to UCSB and SBCC, so socially it was very easy as well. I felt like I was in the community already.
As an Economics major, were there any particular classes that shaped the way you think today?
Oh man, I had a lot of really good classes. I found all the classes pretty interesting and intriguing. I’d say the most interesting one was either called Crime and Economics or Black Market Economics, but it really changed how I look at the world and my perspective on things that I might not see on a day-to-day basis. It really challenged how I view other places in the world, other types of people, scenarios, conflicts, government types, et cetera. So it really helped mature my critical thinking skills in a way that I wasn't expecting from a class like that.
You mentioned being a part of the TMP program. What made that experience so impactful?
Yeah, so the TMP program was awesome. I loved the Econ department coursework, but I really, really loved the TMP program more than anything. I think it was just so much different than traditional coursework in the fact that it was entrepreneur-focused. All the classes encouraged experimentation, and they were very tangible and connected to the real world. I think they allowed you to be creative in a way that the standard Econ coursework wasn't. I think just the fact that it was so connected to the real world made it very innovative.
After graduating, you spent your 20s working in the ad agency world in Southern California. What did that chapter teach you?
It taught me a lot about myself and who I am in terms of patience and what skills I have that are like my superpower and what skills I don't have. I think it taught me, more than anything, that I'd be okay with payoffs. The types of people and backgrounds in the ad agency world are pretty wide-ranging. I think it taught me how to work with very different groups and types of skill sets. There are teams for everything, from strategy to creative to business development to engineering to analytics. So you're working with different types of brands and personalities every single day.
What ultimately motivated your move to the Bay Area in your 30s to immerse yourself in the entrepreneurship world?
I think back to being in the ad agency world and realizing it wasn't for me. There was a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of layers in the ad agency world. Even though it’s a creative field, it felt very restrictive. You had to get everything signed off on, which makes sense, but I was looking for something a little more dynamic — something where I could use all my skill sets, not just one specific one. So I think that was kind of the catalyst and driving force behind wanting to move to the Bay Area.
How did your background in economics influence your approach to building a company?
I would say, more than anything, actually, the TMP program was way more applicable in terms of what I learned about entrepreneurship at the end of the day. I think the TMP program taught me to talk to people — to talk to customers before doing anything — and that's still true today. I see so many entrepreneurs up here that don't talk to prospective customers before they build or do anything to save time and money. So the TMP program was really good at making sure you go out and talk, talk, talk to people and get feedback before you do anything.
For those who may not be familiar, what is Nestment and what problem were you hoping to solve when you co-founded it?
So Nestment is a first-time homebuyer advocate. We are home-buying coaches for first-time buyers. We focus on first-time buyers and getting them through the entire process. We also help second-, third-, and fourth-time buyers who come to us and want our support.
It’s really like having a wedding planner for buying your first house — they’re with you every step of the way, helping you discover lending options or buying strategies and affordability strategies that a lot of first-timers don't know exist. So we're in your corner the entire way through the buying journey.
The problem we were trying to solve in our mission when we launched was affordability. The average age of a first-time buyer is now 40. Having lived in San Diego, Santa Barbara, LA, and San Francisco, I never thought home ownership was going to be in the cards. I thought it was going to take 20 or 30 years to save in a way that would allow me to live in any of those places. That was kind of the emphasis for starting Nestment — exposing first-timers to all these alternative buying strategies and lending options that most people don't know exist and making home ownership much more accessible and within reach.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in the early days of starting the company five years ago?
Yeah, there were a lot. Thankfully, we started by talking to people before we built anything and got a really good sense of people’s main pain points, problems, and anxiety around wanting to buy a home but not knowing where to start. So thankfully, we really spent a lot of time talking to people for the first six months to a year before we did anything.
I would say one of the biggest issues was that we had a really solid team, but it was hard to find a good product designer. I think initially, in the early days, we probably went through four different product designers. That was our hardest position to hire for. Now we’ve had one for three years, which is awesome, but finding a good product designer was difficult. We didn't realize how difficult that was going to be.
As a Co-Founder, what does your role look like day-to-day?
Yeah, day to day, outside of the title co-founder, I really don't have an official title. For the past three years, I've been in charge of figuring out a new program, initiative, or experiment that we want to run.
I’ll give you a good example. We wanted to try building a four-week accelerator for first-time buyers, where they get education once a week from experts, have homework, and complete a final assignment. We had never run an accelerator before, and I had to figure out not just the curriculum and assignments, but also all the backend operations to make it work — building a community on a platform, scheduling experts, tracking who’s done what, who’s showing up for sessions, and who’s completed assignments.
We ended up having 300 people at our first accelerator. After that was such a success and I got it going, we hired a full-time director to run the experience. So really, it's about getting these new things up and running and then hiring somebody who's better suited to make them even more successful. I kind of just move from project to project.
What advice would you give current UCSB students who are interested in starting their own business?
I would say go through the TMP program, first and foremost. Even if it's a small business or a tech startup, it doesn't matter what kind of business. The TMP program will give you room and resources to experiment, learn, and make mistakes before you invest time and money into starting your own business.
If you don't go through the TMP program, I would say work for a founder or co-founder and learn from them for a couple of years so that you don't make those mistakes on your own time and your own dollar.
Also, really understand your customers’ pain points and problems. Be obsessed with the problem your customers have, not the solution you're bringing them. Be very obsessed with the problem and the pain — know it intimately.
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