Proptech Espresso: Recent Episodes
Mark Hurst
Learn everything you need to about Proptech from the real estate professionals, entrepreneurs, and visionaries at the forefront of this evolution. Proptech encompasses the wider digital transformation of real estate as innovators reimagine, reinvent, and rebuild the real estate industry. It considers both the technological and mentality change of the real estate industry, and its consumers to our attitudes, movements and transactions involving the built environment. Are you ready? Join the cutting edge of the Proptech movement on Proptech Espresso.
How has studying graphic design influenced Dillon's career? What led Dillon to land his initial role working in an Apple retail store? How was Dillon able to make the jump to working in Apple's retail development group? What family ties to real estate did Dillon have? Which Microsoft product was Apple using to run its construction projects in the early days of Dillon's career? How is the build process different between an Apple retail store in a mall and one of Apple's flagship stores? Why did Dillon decide to leave Apple and head over to Tesla? How quick were the build times for Tesla's showrooms? How did the Apple Genius Bar influence Tesla's retail showrooms? What was the inspiration for SiteRise? Why did Dillon build SiteRise as a non-user license solution? How is AI being used to make the development process more efficient? What areas of retail and retail adjacent real estate are seeing growth today? Why is retail clustering taking off at the moment? Why is reporting increasingly important for SiteRise?
Dillon Okner - CEO and founder of SiteRise, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss why customer led development has been the key to SiteRise's success.
Should we view proptech as how humans transform physical space into something much more valuable and relevant than just the physical space? Why should building owners consider looking at proptech investment across their whole tech stack, rather than focusing only on individual, siloed solutions? How did Josephine use linguistics as a launching point to get into technology localization? What inspired Josephine to work in a startup after starting her career at Google? What was attractive about the built environment compared to other industries Josephine had worked in? How did Josephine's work around sustainability lead her to join the Carbon13 incubator program? Why has accurate, portfolio-wide building energy modeling become a critical need for asset owners? How has MapMortar automated the labor-intensive building energy modeling process? Why is MapMortar looking to engage with banks and utility providers?
Josephine Bromley - COO & co-founder of MapMortar, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her Google onbcaoarding experience instilled a deep sense of personal ownership that she continues to lean on many companies.
What was Ryan's first academic love in high school? What opportunity did Ryan uncover by responding to a Craigslist advertisement? Why did Ryan decide to return to his original path after an enjoyable stint in consulting? What attribute of MIT culture appealed to Ryan and convinced him to apply to Sloan for an MBA? What part-time job did Ryan land at MIT that gave him special insight into the campus's eccentricities? How did Ryan end up founding a screen writing software business? How did Ryan pivot this failed idea into a lucrative marketplace business? What hard lesson about unit economics did Ryan learn during this period? How did Ryan connect the dots between data, B2B, and climate policy to start a new tech business? What did Ryan admire about Stripe that he applied to the permit data space with Shovels? Why is collecting and aggregating local building permit data so challenging? What insights has Shovels uncovered around permit activity and different types of climate disasters? What is the permit cloud that Shovel's is uncovering that indicates early signal about a larger infrastructure project? How is Shovels providing insight into available trade resources for intensive projects such as data centers?
Ryan Buckley - CEO and co-founder of Shovels, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his early childhood interest in roller hockey exposed him to the parking lots of seminal internet titans like Netscape and Silicon Graphics.
How has proptech evolved over time from solutions about the business of real estate to the automation and digitization of the physical buildings themselves? What lessons did Etrit take away from the hardships of his family re-establishing their lives in the US? How did entrepreneurship in Kosovo differ from what he experienced after moving to Michigan and integrating with the Albanian community? What learnings about the value of the product you are selling got instilled in Etrit when he was young? What lessons did Etrit take away from his experience in door to door selling laundry services? How did working at Chase during college open Etrit's eyes to how to successfully navigate the professional environment? What insights did Etrit take away from listening to an employee interaction with Jamie Diamond? Why is Etrit always trying to learn faster to do the right thing? Where did the initial interest in real estate originate? Why is customer service such a differentiation for KODE? What does having the GSA as a KODE customer mean to Etrit?
Etrit Demaj - co-founder of KODE Labs, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss immigrating to the US and the debt of gratitude he has for the opportunities presented to him because of this.
Should proptech be defined as a real estate specific problem to which a technology solution is applied to? Why can new real estate applications not ignore the workstream they are a part of and the ecosystem they must work nicely within? How is it possible for companies to balance encouraging innovation but not concurrently creating shadow IT departments? Why is the build vs buy decision front and center again for CTOs and other innovation leaders in proptech? Why was it a blessing in disguise for David to start off his professional career as a custody fund accountant? What led David to start a business operations group? Why is bottoms up technology adoption much easier than top down mandates? What led Dave to uncover the opportunity in real estate AP coding? What percent of general ledger transactions originate in AP? Who are the different purchasers of PredictAP? What new insights has the deployment of PredictAP within customers surfaced? In the fast changing world of AI, how do companies differentiate between solutions that demo well and give the appearance of solving a problem versus well architected and researched solutions that truly solve the fundamental business problem?
David Stifter - Founder and CEO of PredictAP, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how we worked at the first social network in college just prior to the early 2000s dot-bomb crash.
What has lead to the increase in 'better' companies succeeding in the proptech space? How did an early interest in climate change lead to a journey within the built environment? What did Tyler discover about real estate development that caused him to focus his attention on this space? How did the USC undergraduate experience prove challenging for a first in his family college student from the suburbs of New Jersey? Why did Tyler not end up finishing his PhD at UC Berkeley? How have many of the most vulnerable members of society ended up with housing in areas of cities with the greatest exposure to climate change risk? What was the premise behind establishing UC Berkeley's Terner Center? Why did Terner Labs decide to spin out of UC Berkeley's Terner Center? Why is there so much friction between housing innovation companies and affordable housing developers? What problems having engineering focused housing innovation companies encountered when trying to bring solutions to market? How have CA state legislatures engaged Terner Labs to understand the levers the state may be able to effect in order to reduce housing costs and increase housing production speed?
Tyler Pullen - Head of Building Innovation at Terner Labs, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his unique professional background enables him to act as a translator amongst the different parties looking to advance industrialized construction.
Why has proptech recently begun to succeed at the operational layer of real estate? How is proptech progressing in solving the industry's more complex inefficiencies? Why did the city of New York call out to James as an undergraduate? How did James develop a passion for real estate while in college? How did navigating the real estate market's cyclical expansion and contraction during the 2000's provide James a unique opportunity to develop predictive insights on how markets move? Why was James attracted to the complexity of the real estate system? How is human interaction with the physical asset of real estate behind James's desire to study psychology at Harvard? What was the level of technology adoption when James first started in commercial real estate? Why are stakeholder incentives so important to understand in technology adoption, both in real estate and beyond? What gave James the confidence to spinout Warehub from his commercial real estate business? Why are modern supply chains rapidly changing the industrial real estate sector? What insights did James and his team uncover during the early days of building their internal tool that have been transformational for the Warehub marketplace? Why was Warehub built to be AI-enabled rather than AI-native?
James Holbrook - Founder and Executive Chairman of Warehub, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his love for finance, operations, infrastructure, and human behavior led to his fascination with the built environment.
What were the entrepreneurial businesses that Marco dabbled in during high school which set the stage for his subsequent tech founder roles? Why did Marco's entrepreneurial sprint wane initially in college? How did studying abroad in South Korea rekindle Marco's sense of entrepreneurship? What viral marketing tactics did Marco use to grow Socials? How was Marco able to bootstrap the development of Socials and grow it into an organization serving over 200 international communities? What changing social media platform preferences among different generations of international university students require Socials to evolve its platform? How did the revenue growth challenges for Socials as it matured provide Marco the opportunity to hand over the leadership reigns? What is the number one concern for international students throughout their program stay? Why are student housing amenities less important for the solution Fuse is providing? How does the location of European student housing differ from US student housing? Has the makeup of offline student events changed since Marco launched Socials to those that are now of highest interest to Fuse clients? How is Fuse gamifying engagement to help build student housing communities?
Marco Nobel - CEO and founder of Fuse, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his passion for electronic music continues to burn within him, including plans for a US tour in 2027.
How is AI disrupting the traditional SaaS solutions in residential construction? Where did Maor's entrepreneurial spirit come from? Why are there so many proptech companies being launched in Israel? What was the first real estate related company that Maor started? Why was Maor's first construction project so memorable? Why was it important for Maor's construction business that he study structural engineering in college? What led Maor to starting multiple residential construction related businesses once he moved to the US? How is the method of construction different between Israel and the US? What did proptech look like in residential construction when Maor first started his business? Why have change orders become such an embedded part of the residential construction process? Why does Maor feel many builders don't know how to value their time? How has integrating technology across vendors been key to Maor delivering successful builds on budget and on time? Why are proptech construction companies developing software solutions for the builders and not the crews of the builders? How was Spacial able to reduce rework by automating engineering plan conflicts? How often do state building codes change as compared to city building codes?
Maor Greenberg - CEO and co-founder of Spacial, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a luxury residential project where a city planner approved conflicting architectural and engineering ceiling plans led to the creation of Spacial.
Why has the acknowledged perception of proptech changed from simply implementing cool technology to ensuring that any technology purchased delivers results? Was the backoffice the starting place for proptech innovation? What were the roots of Adam's entrepreneurial spirit? How did Adam become involved with real estate? When did Adam's professional technology career and the multifamily asset class start to intersect? Who are all the stakeholders within a multifamily ecosystem that have differing internet connectivity needs? Should multifamily internet be considered fundamental infrastructure for these businesses? How is multifamily internet similar to other utilities utilized within the operations of a building? Do multifamily tenant internet needs differ in any way from those that reside in a single family residence? Why is the site survey of a building such an important part of the asset due diligence process for Internet Subway? How has Internet Subway structured its business model to help multifamily operators improve asset NOI?
Adam Bell - CEO and founder of Internet Subway, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how multifamily operators need to have a holistic view of their internet needs across all stakeholders in order to deliver optimal business performance.
Is proptech entering a maturing phase as it shifts from digitization of manual processes to adding automation layers, powered largely by AI? Can reducing upstream rework in construction lead to overall improvements in construction efficiency? How did Scott's senior thesis provide an inspiration for experiencing real estate abroad? Why do early stage construction errors lead to compounding issues later in the onsite build process? How does the level of international building codes compare with those in the US? How do AEC practitioners today stay abreast of changes to city, state, and federal building codes? Why have multiple publishers sued UpCodes to prevent them from making this building codes information accessible? How are insurance companies and property management firms using UpCodes in their daily work? Why are states not collaborating to make building codes more aligned around climate resiliency and offsite prefabrication?
Scott Reynolds - CEO and co-founder of UpCodes, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how participating in a summer college program called Bike & Build led him to develop a deep passion for building homes.
What were the benefits of being a student athlete at UC Berkeley? Why was it so beneficial for Ben to learn the details of the finance behind real estate? Why don't more real estate professionals go back to school and earn their MBA? How are the underlying financial incentives of sustainability programs paramount to their long-term success? Why is the right type of capital some important to match with an infrastructure technology company? What led to Ben getting bitten by the entrepreneurial bug? How had the sustainability space changed in the time that Ben had been focused on his software startup? Why is there such a massive need for financing in the EV space? What factors determined it made sense for 3V to take on the entire utilization risk of the EV charging infrastructure for long dwell properties? Why is level 2 charging the right type of charging for multifamily? Has EV charging become a strategic amenity for multifamily operators?
Ben Kanner - COO and co-founder of 3V Infrastructure, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and razz me about only recently converting to a hybrid car.
Why does defining proptech as the digitization of real estate work well as an umbrella definition? Why is the University of Berkeley a unique collegiate experience? Where does cognitive science and computer science intersect? Why is Berkeley such an entrepreneurial powerhouse? How did the real estate seed get planted with Justin? How did Justin meet his RealtyMogul co-founder? What was the learning curve like for creating one of the first real estate crowdfunding platforms? Why were real estate operators in need of tools like RevolutionRE to help them manage their messy backoffice back and gain insights? What is real estate econometrics? Why was Shareland's vision for getting local real estate exposure without having to purchase underlying real estate assets such a holy grail solution? How did the creation of derivative investment products using synthetic tokens provide the basis for such an innovative real estate investment mechanism?
Justin Hughes - General Manager of Shareland, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how generative AI is creating delightful experiences for Shareland users and assisting in identifying potential transactions.
How does the resident experience tie back to property operating economics? What were the contributing factors to the early serial entrepreneur ventures that David dabbled in? Where did David's early interest in technology stem from? How is the origin story of DoorLoop tied to David's prior startup PracticePanther even though these two companies are in completely unrelated industries? Why is the property management software space filled with so much competition and despite this why are there more entrants each year? How do easy-to-use software development tools fuel the creation of products that are in fact not viable businesses? Why is having a founding team so important when starting a new SaaS business? How was launching in Covd different than expected for DoorLoop? Why is it important to capture customer feedback from all engagement systems and not just through annual customer surveys? How is DoorLoop integrating AI across its solution stack?
David Bitton - Co-founder of DoorLoop, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how real estate investing alongside his parents after college led to a brief career as a realtor and ultimately set the stage for becoming a proptech founder.
Why is access to information a cornerstone component of proptech? How did Zillow and the Zestimate fundamentally change access to home valuations for homeowners and homebuyers? What are the important lessons that athletes can take from losing and positively apply to their professional careers? For Alex, what resonated about the construction industry and the people involved in it? Which lessons stood out to Alex from working as a salesperson for a non-0category leader? What are the similarities and differences between a heavy equipment dealership and a car dealership? Why is equipment downtime so crippling for construction businesses? What insight did Alex uncover as he took ownership of the services and parts business at Flagler? Why are there so few heavy equipment technicians? What percentage of heavy equipment service work is done in the field? Why are the pay economics of technicians so skewed at heavy equipment dealerships? How did Heave change the game for heavy equipment technicians? Why is technician selection by customers such a powerful feature within Heave? What are some of the challenges of building Heave's heavy equipment labor marketplace?
Alex Kraft - CEO and founder of Heave, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss why institutional knowledge of heavy equipment sales and service is so critical for designing a digital solution for this corner of the construction industry..
Can proptech be defined as the modernization layer for the built world? How did the Rabine family business grow from a local mom-and-pop services business to the national multi-business unit holding company that exists today? Why did technology adoption opportunities and business model scalability convince Austin to take a leadership role within the family paving business? What lessons did Austin learn from founding several contech businesses? Why are pavements and roofs the largest ongoing operating expense for a real estate owner? How does the negligence of pavement maintenance result in soaring delayed repair costs? Why was the Rapine Pavement Condition Report so valuable for facility owners? Why was it necessary to rethink the end-to-end process of the condition report to be technology-driven in order to scale this business opportunity. Why did Rabine produce these condition reports at no cost? Why was satellite imagery not a viable option for capturing the necessary pavement and roofing images? What was it about drones and their image capture capability that differentiated them from other solutions that Rabine Companies was investigating? Why did Austin and the executive team at Rabine Companies ultimately decide to spin the SITE business out as a separate independent company? What additional analytics are possible through drones which was not possible with onsite humans? How is SITE utilizing AI in its product suite?
Austin Rabine - CEO and co-founder of SITE Technologies, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his parents' enthusiasm for entrepreneurship played a pivotal role in convincing him to join the family business.
How did the complexity of the protech industry spark Diane's interest in taking on the challenges of building a company in this space? What was it like building an adtech startup during the Internet 2.0 heyday? How is the current AI boom similar to the Internet 1.0 era? Why did Diane jump from adtech to fintech? What has contributed to the technology in the mortgage space being so outdated? Why are the mortgage files created during the origination process unclean and riddled with incorrect information? How have the interest rate cycles and associated hiring/firing sprees contributed to many of the technology challenges that the mortgage industry is facing today? Why have industry regulations obsoleted certain mortgage industry technologies? Why was it important for TidalWave to be an AI-first mortgage technology company? What is the difference between an AI solution and an AI wrapper? Why is a mindset of AI support instead of AI replacement important for CIOs to have today?
Diane Yu - CEO and co-founder of TidalWave, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her first interaction with a computer as a child was so magical and set her on a lifetime journey of working with computers.
Are there industries outside of real estate where the asset has as many lifecycles? What were some of the problems that Vikas dealt with at Amazon Robotics while working with AEC professionals when building new logistics warehouses? How did growing up in a family-owned manufacturing business influence Vikas' later career pursuits? Where did Vikas' early interest in robotics come from? Why is system design as important as the underlying R&D in robotics? What is a mobile electronics company? Why was Kiva SYstems fundamentally different from other robotics companies of its time? What realization did Amazon have that led it to the conclusion that it was a strategic imperative to purchase Kiva Systems? How was Amazon able to finally achieve same-day shipping with the integration of Kiva Systems? What insights are needed to change problems that appear to be qualitative to actually be quantitative? Why did it take Vikas 5 years to earn his master's degree from MIT? What event led to Vikas' deep introspection and the desire to work on problems reducing carbon emissions? Why did Vikas not focus on farming as an industry where he could work on decarbonization? What was Operation Breakthrough? Why is solving the missing housing issue not a mass production problem but rather requires a mass customization approach? What is different about Reframe's business model from other off-site construction companies? How is air tightness related to wildfire resiliency?
Vikas Enti - CEO and co-founder of Reframe Systems, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his interest in space and space exploration drove his belief that in the future the most interesting work would be in automation and robotics.
In major real estate downturns, who has all the real estate business? What do real estate agents need to do differently in a real estate recession? What was the innovation that Trulia and Zillow brought to the home buying industry? Why has Zillow been detrimental to so many real estate agents? What middlemen artificially add costs to the home purchase transaction? How did Rob transition from being a vendor of Chad's to being an investor and co-founder in his technology solution? Why has professional honesty been an important cornerstone of Swyvvl's success? How was personal sacrifice necessary for Chad to be successful with its brokerage business? Why are consistent client leads so hard to come by for real estate agents? What has traditionally caused real estate agents to shy away from brokerage CRM solutions in the past? How has Swyvvl flipped the business model for real estate agents in order to create more economically beneficial outcomes?
Chad Link and Rob Brower - co-founders of Swyvvl, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how an early development /design oversight demonstrated the personal integrity and commitment that laid the foundation for a future co-founder relationship.
Should proptech be defined as a technology that solves a problem in the real estate industry? What made programming easier for Eleni than learning to read and write English? Why is computer science considered a creative science? What were the challenges of often being the sole female student in computer science classes? How did Eleni convince her father to switch from investing in commercial real estate to residential real estate? What was so attractive about the opportunity to join Wise Agent? Why was starting a mentorship program for young developers at Wise Agent so fulfilling for Eleni? Why is understanding the economic incentives of stakeholders so important for developers and product managers? How does Eleni differentiate between programmers and software developers? Why is there so much churn in the real estate agent industry and how might better training reduce this? Why hadn't a platform for real estate creators been created before OnTrack Agent? What are the challenges with rebuilding a platform from the original technology it was built on? Why are service businesses so difficult to scale? What makes digital rights management a huge challenge for real estate creators? Why is solving the demand aggregation side of the real estate creator marketplace part of OnTrack Agent's magic sauce? What makes video content so powerful for real estate creators? Why do real estate agent entrepreneurs need to learn such a diverse skill set to successfully run their business? What can be done to further promote women entrepreneurs and leaders in proptech?
Elenis Sommerschield - CEO of OnTrack Agent, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her mother's encouragement convinced her to pursue a degree in computer science instead of dropping out of university and going to culinary school
What inspired Karly and Alena to found Hardline and how did their professional journeys shape the company’s mission? What are the biggest operational pain points Karly saw construction teams face that technology failed to address effectively? How does Hardline define “on-site tech enablement” and why is this an overlooked opportunity in the broader contech space? What were the early customer signals that validated the need for Hardline’s solution? How did time in the field influence Hardline's product design decisions and what constraints did they deliberately build around? Why does Hardline emphasize frontline usability over back-office integrations? How does Hardline think about trust-building with trade partners and GCs in an industry often slow to adopt change? What role did bootstrapping play in refining Hardline’s go-to-market strategy and product-market fit? How has the team navigated fundraising and investor education for a company rooted in field operations rather than data analytics? Why do Karly and Alena believe the next wave of construction technology will be shaped by founders with firsthand experience in the trades?
Karly Heffernan and Alena Tuttle - co-founders of Hardline, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the decisions to pursue passion at work with tech startups over lucrative established professional careers.
Why is creating real value for the end customer critical for startups to ensure a going concern? How has construction become responsible for such a large portion of global pollution? What did Jennifer observe about the construction space that she identified as a process opportunity for differentiating her firm from competitors? Why is there so much mistrust within construction? What about the tangibility of construction was so compelling to Jennifer? Why was starting a construction business during a recession an unexpected blessing? Why was the adoption of BuilderTrends instrumental in Jennifer scaling Scala Construction? What drew Jennifer back to entrepreneurship despite the success of her construction company? Why has the European adoption of construction innovation exceeded the pace of what is happening in the US? What about the Netherlands' historical business culture has contributed to its adoption of innovative construction technology? What factors have driven the circular economy adoption within Europe? Why is performance replacing sustainability in the construction technology vernacular? How has WerkWell established itself as a trusted bridge between European building materials and technologies and the US market? Why is building with resiliency the next frontier for construction in the US?
Jennifer Koster - CEO and founder of WerkWell Holdings, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how an off-the-cuff comment from her father led her to leave the technology startup world and jump into real estate construction.
What are the similarities between the terms 'proptech' and 'I love you'? Why was learning to speak English so important for Oscar? What lessons on entrepreneurship did Oscar learn from being a real estate agent? Why is it important to break out of your comfort zone and put yourself in uncomfortable situations? What did Oscar learn about himself after working as an accountant for several months? Why is making mistakes so critical for entrepreneurs? How did the decision to build an international relocation consultancy come about? Why was the COVID pandemic so devastating for Oscar's original business? What insight caused Oscar to rethink the business strategy around international mobility and transform the business into a software technology platform for all key stakeholders? Which issues were international students and professionals facing regarding their residencies post move-in that pointed to the need for a holistic real estate management solution? Why are professionals increasingly seeking international work experiences?
Oscar Rubio - CEO and co-founder of Lodgerin, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how attending university internationally helped him develop the necessary expertise to reinvent himself as a relocation expert for students and professionals.
How are Norway and the Upper East Side related in Joachim's mind? Why did Joachim decide to pursue a corporate job after initially starting as an entrepreneur? What makes 40 year old entrepreneurs more likely to succeed than some of their younger counterparts? What sparked the entrepreneurial desire within Joachim? How did Joachim and his team turn a customer's bankruptcy into a spinout opportunity for a new product company? Why have shared spaces in multifamily buildings been largely ignored by technology device vendors? What is Defigo doing with AI to help solve building accessibility issues that handicapped residents face? Why is the ease of Defigo installation a major point of pride for Joachim? What is Defigo's integration strategy with other solution providers? Why is Defigo exploring a white label strategy for its access device solution?
Joachim Stray - CEO and founder of Defigo joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the differences between selling and GTM strategies in the US and Europe, including the relative importance of security between the different regions.
Jenna Louie, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer of Ivory Innovations, joins Proptech Espresso to announce the winners of the seventh annual Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability. This year's winners were selected from a record 280+ nominations within Construction & Design, Finance, and Policy & Regulatory Reform. These companies represent the most compelling and novel housing innovation solutions directly addressing the widening housing affordability crisis in the US.
What are the primary differences between Proptech 1.0, Proptech 2.0, and today's Proptech 3.0? In what way did Brian's consulting work quickly change as financial firms navigated the Great Financial Crisis? What was it like to be at the forefront of the technology revolution within investment management that led to quant investing? Why did Brian get the chance to build a reinsurance business from the ground up and how did this work establish his credentials for raising institutional capital? How did a weekend and weeknight personal research project on shared equity in real estate lead to a role at Unison? Why was it important that from the get go the Jubilee Homes solution work within the existing real estate ecosystem? What is a leasehold product and how does this differ from a traditional mortgage? Why is Jubilee Homes focused on markets where there is a high land share percentage for home purchases? What attributes of the residential ground lease asset class make it particularly interesting for institutional capital? Why was it important for Jubilee Homes to build trust with real estate agents? Does the leasehold product work for real estate asset classes outside of residential real estate?
Brian Elbogen - CEO and co-founder of Jubilee Homes, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a conversation with a professor on a recruiting trip around the opportunity to study operations researched tipped the scale in favor of attending Princeton over the Univeristy of Penn.
How does proptech differ for asset classes depending on the customer needs and expectations? Has AI adoption and development todate been more front-of-house or back-of-house? Why are American management consulting firm jobs so sought after by recent university graduates in the UK? What was it like working on a consulting engagement for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London? How did experiencing corporate bloat while on engagements as a management consultant translate into a bias for operating very lean at Zumper? What led Anth to explore entrepreneurial ideas around real estate and technology? Why is hiring the first technical team member so difficult for a non-technical founder? What lessons did Anth learn about online marketplaces from studying the success of Craigslist? Why is it important to make sure you are building a business based on a full solution and not just a feature? What are some brutal learnings for the early GTM efforts of Zumper? Why is professionalization of multi-family still in its early days with lots of innovation still to happen? What consumer AI usage change is now emerging with ChatGPT's recent rollout of real-time web crawls?
Anthemos Georgiades - CEO and co-founder of Zumper, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the difficult evolution he had to work through as a startup CEO once Zumper crossed the $10M ARR level and why this critical leadership change is something that isn't taught at business school.
What was it about political theory that convinced Julie to study political science at university? What was occurring within the technology industry that created an opportunity for Facebook to do things in new ways for consumers which resonated with Julie and drew her to work there? Why was it so fascinating to be leading corporate development for a well-positioned adtech firm during the period of mass consolidation? What about management consulting strategy work led Julie to definitively know she wanted to be a business operator? Why did the autonomy of working at a startup foster a sense of exhilaration that Julie found herself addicted to? How did Tractable allow Julie to work on innovative solutions that brought powerful new technology to the physical world? What did the emergence of generative AI change that reduced the investment companies had to make in bringing solutions to market? Why isn't there a single source of truth for home renovation projects? What are the assorted challenges that contractors face as small business owners themselves while managing a renovation project? How has Block Renovation built technology to enable transparency and trust between homeowners and contractors? Where has Block Renovation integrated generative AI into its solutions? How is localization and deep real estate market knowledge incorporated into each Block Renovation city launch?
Julie Kheyfets - CEO of Block Renovation, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how working with insurance companies revealed to Julie how bad humans are at understanding risk due to our inability to think probabilistically.
What sort of building inspections are required in Europe before a building is taken down? As someone new to tech startups, what were the lessons learned from building the Airbnb for boat holidays from the ground up? What did participating in Antler's startup accelerator program lead to for Ieva? How does circularity in construction prolong the life of a material and prevent it from entering a dump? What are the factors driving the recent surge in interest in circular construction? How is Material Mapper leveraging big data to bring forecasting capabilities to circular construction? Why have traditional construction reuse marketplaces failed to scale in Europe? Why have construction material producers emerged as the first large scale adopters of Material Mapper? How are municipalities leveraging the Material Mapper platform? What new European regulations are being introduced which will drive future opportunities for Material Mapper? Why is Dubai running out of sand needed for new construction and where is it now importing it from?
Ieva Sibilla Strupule - CEO and co-founder of Material Mapper, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her mom's background in architectural investigation coupled with her childhood spent conducting treasure hunts while inspecting historical buildings led to a deep appreciation for the built environment and a desire to preserve the materials used to construct it.
Why is there no user manual to run your house? Are the critical thinking skills you learn as an English literature major valuable in your work and personal life? How did Katie never study in college and become an auditory learner? What about the auditory learning skill set that Katie picked up in college lead to a career in tech? How did a summer job in Manhattan between high school and college lead to an interest in business? Why was developing a streamlined implementation process for a hospital back office software company so critical for sales success? How did promotions from customer sales lead to company executive leadership with golden handcuffs? Why are key man life insurance policies so essential for businesses to have in place for CEOs? How did a home ownership maintenance nightmare on her first property lead Katie to found and build Yarlow? Why is digital storage for home-related items and expenses so important for homeowners? What classic first-time entrepreneur mistake did Katie make when building the initial MVP for Yarlow? How is the trend of PE firms buying up home service profession businesses impacting the service upsell of unneeded services? Where is Yarlow integrating AI into the platform? How is regional customization important for homeowner maintenance and recommendations? Why was it important for Katie that Yarlow be a free app for homeowners?
Katie Shahan - CEO and founder of Yarlow, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a group of college classmates who she did not know convinced her she needed to become an English Lit major.
Has proptech over the last decade or so become largely an attempt by entrepreneurs to throw process optimization software at real estate operations? What are micro-apartments and why did this approach of better space utilization largely fail to take hold within the built world? Why haven't innovations such as moving walls and transforming furniture become mainstream components in multi-family living and residential housing? What is data driven architecture? Why are we designing and building homes that do not match how households are utilizing them in everyday living? How has poor home design led to the urban sprawl dilemma we are currently faced with? How did coliving emerge from the micro-apartment movement and what were the forces that drove this evolution? Why did the shared living properties that historically existed in San Francisco largely disappear? Why did the venture debt that was pumped into the coliving space ultimately doom this model from achieving long-term success? Why has PadSplit been the one bright spot to emerge in the tech driven coliving space? How are housing and mental health directly related?
David Friedlander - co-founder and CEO of Urban Machine, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how the housing needs of current generations are not being reflected in the homes being built and are instead driven by the returns of the capital providers.
Did Bryan coin the term IoT? Does a built world vendor ecosystem framework of Design, Finance, Build, and Use cover all categories? Why do proptech startups take a while to validate and establish? How has Autodesk become so integrated in today's built environment projects? What led Autodesk to invest heavily in construction tech? Why is there almost no payroll in the residential homebuilding industry outside of public homebuilders? Why is timely payment so important for homebuilding GCs? Is there a difference between hard money lenders and private lenders? What is a draw in construction lending? Why is commercial software so much of a greenfield frontier in private lending? How come almost every technology startup pivots from its original idea? Why are robust mobile apps that take advantage of phone hardware so difficult to maintain? What are the benefits to construction finance startup employees personally experiencing a construction job site?
Bryan Kester - co-founder and CEO of Sitewire, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a collection of family member real estate experiences growing up created a likely pathway to a career in the built world.
Did Mark Andreessen's famous essay about software eating the world lead to the term Proptech being coined? How did having family members who were real estate investors, developers, and property tax collectors establish a deep foundation of real estate understanding for a young Joseph? What allowed Jospeh's grandfather, an immigrant hairdresser, to become a land baron in the northeast? Why are the off-the-shelf assessment models used by tax districts inherently flawed? What early entrepreneurial hustles did Joseph dabble in growing up and why was it important to ensure these ventures paid for themselves? Why did Joseph forgo a role at Nvidia to continue his PhD track at UCLA? Do overassessment protests result in cities and municipalities getting less tax revenue necessary to balance annual budgets? What does the property tax appeal process look like and why are there opportunities to digitize and scale this? What were Ownwell's initial quick wins from a technology perspective? How do differences around local tax districts impact the information mined and presented to Ownwell's in-house tax protestors? How are the needs of individual homeowners different from those of large commercial real estate portfolio owners around property tax savings?
Joseph Noor - co-founder and CTO of Ownwell, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a chance encounter at a UCLA startup pitch competition brought about the convergence of his computer science studies and family heritage in real estate resulting in the launch of Ownwell.
When understanding the definition of proptech, why does it make sense to look at who the definition is serving? How did a mechanical engineering student make their way to the Boston tech startup scene? What was it like building a social networking company during the pre-Facebook days? Why was Boston the wrong place to try to raise capital for a consumer technology startup in the early 2000s? What was the difference between Amazon and most other e-commerce companies during the post dot-com days? Why were the capital markets so apprehensive about initially participating in a shared equity product? How long did it take Point to get an agreed upon rating methodology for the shared equity product? When did Point issue its first investment securitization? How does the efficiency of the mortgage market today make it difficult to disrupt debt coupon products? How much in origination should the HEI product be doing annually?
Eoin Matthews- Chief Business Officer and co-founder of Point, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how helping a friend with the down payment on their first house and unexpectedly getting their money back led to the conviction that there was an incredible opportunity for a shared equity product to help homeowners.
Does exposure to family entrepreneurship at an early age impact the likelihood of pursuing a startup later in life How extensively is fractional ownership touching the different real estate asset classes? Why is it important to get experience receiving a lot of "NO's" when pursuing a startup idea? Why is it important to find a champion when introducing a new product to a corporation? How did helping stand up the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) during COVID at Capital One prove to be an invaluable work experience? What about the mortgage industry value chain makes it difficult to create products that c reates pathways to more affordable homeownership? What is novel about the equity vs traditional debt structure that Quarter is championing as an instrument for homeownership? Why did Quarter feel it was important to go with a pari passu fee model? How has a focus on compliance shaped the product development timeline for Quarter? Why is education so important for a new home ownership instrument like Quarter?
Shannon Diesch- CEO and co-founder of Quarter, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how participating in a high school food science challenge led to an opportunity to collaborate with NASA and its astronauts.
How did an Environmental Sciences degree lead to a career in sustainability? How did attending DesignX at MIT sow the seeds for TULU? Why did Yael become a minimalist? Where did the name TULU originate? Why did TULU believe fast experimentation was extremely important when building an MVP? What did TULU learn early on about customer preferences and did the usage data bear this out? How is the TULU app helping it become a data driven company? Why are brands and retailers partnering with TULU and how was this strategy envisioned from the very beginning? How many different ways does TULU incorporate surveying into its platform? What surprising usage/consumption patterns have emerged with TULU? How is TULU supporting creators and work from home employees?
Yael Shemer - Chief Customer Officer and co-founder of TULU, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how her education in environmental science and sustainability initially led to a feeling of slight depression about the state of the world, but that she was able to change this perspective and identifying ways in which she could make a positive change on the environment.
What was it like to be involved with the European proptech scene as it started to gain momentum and formalize into a tech space? How did a Latvian trait of resourcefulness continually re-enforced by his grandfather inspire Mikus to provide real estate agents with tools to help them create visualizations themselves? Why did the first wave of VR tools and solutions lead to bespoke and niche visualization projects for high-end real estate? When brainstorming ideas for his next company, what drove Mikus to want to build a subscription business that is applicable during the entire lifecycle of the customer? Why do SaaS businesses allow companies to justify spending resources/investment on customer satisfaction while project based businesses do not? What makes smartphones an inferior product to capture real estate scans? How will real estate digital content requirements continue to grow over the long term? Why are quality real estate images hard to capture? Why are real estate agents interested in creating and controlling the real estate visualization content they create?
Mikus Opelts - CEO and co-founder of Giraffe360, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how attending art school inspired him to pursue visual information and storytelling that naturally led to the creation of his first startup and set off a career in real estate visualization.
How did an investigation into 3D printing houses spark an interest in real estate? On ICON's first marketing flyers, what price did they believe they would be able to sell their 3D printed homes for? Why does Germany build denser housing than the US? Why are there so few books on real estate development? What makes local city real estate decisions so difficult to identify and analyze? How does the age/maturity of a city influence the types of real estate decisions being made? What unintentional action created a lot of interest in ReZone's launch? How many real estate decisions are being made at the city level weekly? Why are researchers so interested in the data that ReZone is producing? How are advancements in AI making ReZone's analysis possible today?
Daniel Heller - CEO and co-founder of ReZone, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how starting a business with friends during high school was such a positive entrepreneurial experience that it continues to be revisited amongst them to this day.
How did an early career in consulting shape an understanding of the need to deliver both on time and at the highest level of quality? Why is it important for entrepreneurs to be able to step into the shoes of their customers every single day? What are some of the challenges of long-term business planning that the quarterly reporting cycle for public companies creates? How does investing in real estate provide more predictability on outcomes vs other alternative investment markets? Why is communication challenging for condos and HOA boards? How has email contributed to the challenges of task management? Why is UI becoming less of a focus in the age of AI? How do you break down the walled gardens of property management to unlock data insights? What are the opportunities for sentiment analysis around communication for property management?
Lindsay Liu- co-founder and CEO of Super joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how her college roommate friendship built the trust that was necessary for a successful startup co-founder partnership.
Does construction tech end once occupancy of a building happens? Why is it important to be able to professionally reinvent yourself? What was the draw to the clean tech space after spending time in the aerospace industry? Why has construction insurance costs ballooned? What can GCs do to mitigate risk and thereby help keep insurance costs in check? Why has water become such a larger driver of construction related insurance costs? What have been the drivers of IoT device adoption on the construction site? How is technology adoption on construction sites different from the rates that you see in other industries? Why is technology adoption becoming a competitive advantage for many early adopters of technology within construction? Why is the data from the interconnected job site so valuable for construction companies? Why is the outlook for construction so bright?
Alex Fuentes - EVP Strategic Growth at Brickeye, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share the unique coop program of the University of Waterloo engineering department that exposed him to a wide variety of industries including power generation, consumer electronics, manufacturing and aerospace to name a few.
What was it like growing up as part of a multi-generational family construction business? How did being immersed in the family construction business provide unique benefits while working on Bryce's master degree in college? Why were the inefficiencies that Bryce observed in the asphalt industry such a professional draw for him? How do you change the image of the construction industry as being unsexy, consisting of long hours, and lots of callouses? Why has the adoption of technology accelerated in the last couple of years? How did Bryce become a simultaneous serial construction entrepreneur? Why did Bryce decide to exit his other businesses and focus on his software startup? What sort of compliance issues are part of infrastructure construction projects? How does weather impact infrastructure construction projects? What unique part of Pavewise's sales process has resulted in a 100% prospect conversion rate? Why have word-of-mouth referrals been such a strong source of sales leads for Pavewise? How has Pavewise integrated AI into its solution?
Bryce Wuori - co-founder and CEO of Pavewise, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how participating in research projects across his 20-year career in asphalt has given him unique expertise, making him one of the few recognized asphalt scientists in the U.S.
Is robotics the ultimate tool for giving humans superpower capabilities? Why are snake robots Kevin's nemesis? What prompted Kevin to learn to code? Why is it transformational to bring robots out of the lab/factory and into everyday human environments? How did a summer job in construction provide the basis for focusing on bringing robotics into the built world? What robotic research project with the US military inspired the movie Big Hero 6? Why did the idea of soft robots ultimately not prove to be a good basis for robots in the real world? What is it about surface paint prepping that makes this task so difficult and at the same time such a big opportunity? How did speaking with hotel owners about renovations lead to the concept for Canvas? What are the staggering rates of long-term medical issues construction workers experience due to either accidents or repetitive motion jobs? Why have robots in construction historically not been developed for use in the interiors of buildings? What is the meaning behind the company name Canvas? How are Canvas robots helping to bring drywall workers into the construction industry? What are the constraints that construction robots have to deal with that manufacturing robots do not? Why do construction tech startups need to fully understand the economics of the skilled trades they are impacting when exploring a new technology to bring to market? What causes construction to be such a distributed system? Why is achieving commercial reliability so important for construction robotic companies? What do robotic construction tech companies need to understand about hardware production cycles?
Kevin Albert - Founder & CEO of Canvas joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discusses how a frustrating second place finish in a high school bridge building competition left him with a chip on his shoulder and fueled a career in wanting to design and build things.
Why is there so much bespoke design happening with real estate development projects? What is meant by design productization? Why have some companies championed vertically integrated construction? What was Katerra's business model and secret sauce? Why is innovating in construction tech so difficult? What are the challenges for VCs when considering non-software investments in construction tech? Why is the construction industry facing major challenges when manufacturers are investing in industrialized construction and developers/contractors want to do more prefab work? How is the labor crisis impacting the construction industry? Why is the transition to offsite construction critical in a shrinking labor pool environment? When evaluating the space, how are construction robots commonly segmented? Why is changing the established behavior of architects as it relates to building design and construction tech so challenging? What is a coordinated construction model? Why is the logistics related to offsite construction so tricky?
Justin Schwaiger - General Manager US at Kope, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how observing the effects of earthquakes locally and internationally in his youth was a major factor in steering him into a career where he could impact and improve the built environment.
Why can long tenures in industries stifle innovation? How did John and his wife end up in Mountain View, California? What were some of the memorable dates that John took his wife on? Why was it beneficial to write business plans on any idea that John researched? What prompted the research and launching of Sara Schools Music Program? Why was the concept of leasehold improvements so frustrating to John? What lessons and struggles came with running a service business? What divine inspiration did John receive while processing his frustrations with the commercial leasing process? What types of research was John doing to form the education foundation necessary to build the wall system he was told to create? How did the initial funds become available to start prototyping the wall system? Why is it important to bring low or no-skill workers into construction? What is meant by the category 'Productization of Construction'? How can construction benefit by focusing on circularity and sustainability? How is Låda Cube integrating with design solutions like Revit to introduce wall standardization into digital wall plans? What are the three (3) R's that Låda Cube allows for? How did a dream about Tesla become so significant for John's Låds Cube journey?
John Fay - Founder & CEO of Låda Cube joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discusses how his curiosity about his entrepreneurial bug led him to explore alongside his wife many potential business ideas before being told to pursue the opportunity that would become Låda Cube.
Which emerging trend caused Skye not to pursue a degree in architecture? What was it like building a startup within Oracle? How did personal experience draw Skye into the proptech space? What realization around purchasing a home was the inspiration for starting Crib Equity? Why are third-party investors interested in helping unknown individuals purchase a home? What are the systemic structural issues that first-time homebuyers are faced with today? Why are homebuyers no longer putting 20% down and what was this average down payment % changed to? Who is a nepo-buyer? Nationally, how long is it taking a prospective homebuyer to save for a 10% down payment? How are real estate agents providing a greater degree of financial advice to home buyers today? What does the landscape of alternative home purchase options look like?
Skye Laudari - Co-founder & CEO of Crib Equity joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how traveling internationally for two years immediately after graduating from college was transformational and helped develop personal and professional life skills that can take most people decades to learn.
Despite many advances in proptech, has it also regressed in certain senses? Why has the technology adoption chasm been so big to cross in proptech? Can proptech solutions hope to introduce change management to companies that still solely rely on Excel to run their business? Why did Kyle see technology as an advantage over his potential commercial real estate broker colleagues? What has it been like launching a technology startup with no prior background in technology? What is an asset operating platform? For asset managers how does saving time result in improved NOI? Why is early customer feedback so critical for designing a successful and scalable solution? Are we seeing the era of brokerage consolidation in the commercial broker space? Is there an issue with having real estate LPs in proptech VCs sway portfolio company roadmaps to benefit themselves instead of designing solutions for the broader market? How does the HBO show Silicon Valley accurately portray start-up life? Why is figuring out a business more than simply bringing a product to market? How is AI going to positively impact the commercial real estate space over the next couple of years?
Kyle Waldrep - Founder & CEO of Dottid joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a major illness in college changed his priorities and closed the door on the professional tennis career path that he had always envisioned.
Is the right way to think about proptech to frame it in terms of how humans live, work, and function in our communities? What is the proptech scene like in Romania? Why were real estate developers experiencing so many issues in their sales process and turning to tech solutions to solve these? What has led to Romania having such a high property ownership rate? Why are Romanian property valuations continuing to grow year over year? What impact is AI having on the real estate industry? Why was it important for the solution Vaunt was building to maintain the feeling of being proud that goes along with buying a property and in no way take away from it? Why have real estate agents historically not been a profession in Romania? What has the introduction of private creditors done to open up access to foreign buyers across Europe? How has word of mouth been instrumental in Vaunt's growth? What has allowed Vaunt to build a valuation index so buyers can appraise their properties on an ongoing basis? Why are foreign buyers purchasing investment homes across Europe? How is Vaunt planning to tap the US market?
Irina Constantin - Co-founder & CEO of Vaunt joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how internships were instrumental in exploring potential career paths and ultimately giving her the conviction to seek out an entrepreneurial opportunity where she knew she would not be bored.
Why has proptech evolved from initially innovating and disrupting the four walls of a physical asset to now primarily encompassing secondary industries such as financing and servicing which are asset light? Does ESG fall under the big umbrella of proptech? What are the benefits of having job experience in an industry and getting the exposure necessary to be able to speak the language of an industry? How was the New York startup scene changed since the early 2010s? What are some of the most important skills learned working in management consulting? Why is culture and cultural fit so important in successful M&A transactions? Is Airbnb a proptech company? What are the challenges of choosing a vacational rental property that will be profitable? Why are most vacational rental properties not a passive investment? How has Summer expanded its product offering to vacational home buyers since its initial launch? Why do vacational rental property owners need better data?
Paul Kromidas - Founder & CEO of Summer joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss why its important for proptech companies to develop relationships with the city officials that the company will be operating in.
Why are many of the most successful real estate agents true entrepreneurs at heart? How is Redfin able to focus on solving the core issues of the real estate agent and in turn solve problems for the homebuying consumer? What has been the driver of more and more homebuyers looking to purchase real estate properties outside the US? Why is purchasing real estate internationally such a black box? What are the primary differences between purchasing a home in the US and purchasing a home in Mexico? Why is working with a real estate agent in Mexico as important for home purchases as it is in the US? Why aren't cross border mortgage products more readily available to international homebuyers? How do marketplace business models make or break growth dynamics for early stage tech businesses? Why are the best real estate agents so relationship focused? What telephony challenges for international real estate transactions has Far Homes needed to build technology to help solve? Why has technology for the real estate agents in Mexico not achieved the adoption levels of their US counterparts? How do you solve for listing aggregation when there is no MS equivalent in international markets? What are the profile types of US buyers purchasing internationally? Are there opportunities to create deeper technological innovation within cross-border home buying?
Chet Kittleson - co-founder and CEO of Far Homes, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how watching the personal struggles and triumphs of his real estate agent mother created a love of home ownership and a deep entrepreneurial drive from these deeply impactful childhood experiences.
Why does coming to terms with the fact that you won't lose everything by becoming an entrepreneur help founders cross a mental threshold for diving into a new venture? How did the term 'burn it to the ground' directly apply to the entrepreneurial ventures of Brandon's family? Why is galvanizing a team and building a great culture central to entrepreneurial success? What was the importance of Geokey being hardware agnostic? Why is it important to use data to make better decisions and to then pivot based on these insights? What are the benefits of having a solid grasp of all functional groups and how they holistically impact an organization? Why is understanding the impact on NOI critical to companies looking to enter the multifamily space? What is the difference between a B2B company and a B2B2C company in the multifamily space? How many times on average does a person in a multifamily unit access their unit daily? What are the benefits of hardware implementations in multifamily? What does it mean to do deep integrations in the mobile access space for multifamily? Are there challenges to retrofitting an existing building for mobile access? What are the critical differences between multifamily and student housing industries that proptech companies need to fully understand?
Brandon Peterson - co-founder and CEO of Geokey, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how being part of a serial entrepreneur family that has started more than 50 businesses across multiple industries, sees that success many times boils down to having a good idea that solves a problem and surrounding this idea with a team of great people who want be part of the journey.
Why is it important to include supply chain in the proptech tent? How do asset lifecycles contribute to the complexity of the real estate industry? In what ways did a class in entrepreneurial marketing at Harvard Business School cause a reset of notions around who can be an entrepreneur? How did a personal experience with a shipping oil spill in her backyard cause Kathleen to rethink how commerce and the environment need to interact? Why does the built environment provide such a large opportunity to impact sustainability? What are the different impact buckets that fall under the sustainability umbrella? Why was a product catalog of building materials and sustainability data forming a single source of truth desperately needed across multiple stakeholders in the built environment? Who are the constituents of Ecomedes' three-sided marketplace? How has the federal government taken the early lead in driving standardization and reporting of real estate sustainability? What circumstances led to there being over 100 different sources certifying and testing building materials? Why is building an API an important strategic initiative to broaden the distribution of impact awareness data? How will generative AI help a broader group of people engage with Econmedes' sustainability data?
Kathleen Egan- co-founder and CEO of Ecomedes, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a missed opportunity to be a Disney Imagineer led to a career in consulting that enabled her to cultivate her broad interests as an intellectual dilettante.
What macro factors motivated Eric's initial decision to enter the construction field right out of college? Why is it so difficult to drive change within the construction industry? Is technology adoption within the commercial construction sector finally starting to the hit the adoption hockey stick? What are the cost advantages of using technology in pre-construction to minimize in the field problem issues? Where is the bulk of cost in construction projects? Why are back-office construction technology solutions easier to develop than in the field solutions? What are the two technology levers driving in the field construction innovation? Why are construction field crews so supportive of robotics innovation? What are the primary categories of construction robotics currently being used in the field today? Why is deconstruction better environmentally and economically as compared to demolition? What is meant by the term urban mining? Why are field tests so important for construction robotics? How do lumber mills participate in the partner ecosystem for reclaimed lumber? Why would a lumber rental model make sense for the construction industry? Can contaminated wood be reclaimed? Are there reclaiming opportunities for Urban Machine robots outside of the construction industry?
Eric Law- co-founder and CEO of Urban Machine, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss why reclaimed lumber hitting price parity with virgin lumber is such an important milestone for the construction circular economy.
How are many investors today differentiating proptech and construction tech? Is entrepreneurship genetic or learned? Why are the siloed dynamics typically involved in construction processes? What are the realities and challenges that residential homebuilding laborers face on the job site today? Why do we need a supply side solution to the housing crisis? How is BotBuilt's robotic system optimizing for cost efficiency? Why is velocity important in building momentum for a new startup brand and how did participating in YC help this? What factored into BotBuilt's decision to bridge the gap between what is happening today in home construction and then pursue what is possible in the future using robotic manufacturing? How does the type of lumber (driven by cost) factor into the panelized framing products being produced today? Why did BotBuilt choose to target custom home builders to begin with? How quickly can framers complete a home with BotBuilt's penalized system? Why is understanding construction culture so important for technology startups within this space? How has robotics become more normalized in construction over the last few years?
Brent Wadas - co-founder and CEO of BotBuilt, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss why he joined the military later in life, the leadership skills he developed while serving in special operations, and how he has translated this experience into the lofting goals he is pursuing with his team at BotBuilt.
How are smart cities and proptech-related terms? Which other investing domains typically fall under smart cities? What are all the different real estate asset classes that airports manage as part of their operations? How do the sizes of typical multifamily properties differ in North America compared to Europe? Does vertical transportation differ in European vs North American multifamily properties? How has the rise in interest rates provided a shock to startup tech entrepreneurs and reminded them of the need to be profitable? Where has all the real estate data on properties historically been locked up? How can asset owners unpack the real estate information in PDF documents and digitize them at scale? What are the benefits for tech startups to have a service offering while perfecting their SaaS application? Does a service offering increase the stickiness of a SaaS solution? How can implementing a Chat-GPT solution remove the gatekeeper problem? Are the US real estate markets much more transparent then their European counterparts? Why have real estate investment managers only made the beta of the market and not created any alpha? How has office evolved into a lazy real estate asset class and will it need to change going forward given the impact of work from home on corporation's office footprints? Will new technologies like Apple Vision Pro and smart glasses disrupt different real estate asset classes?
Robin Rivaton - CEO of Stonal joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how European Union and country policy mandates are impacting the real estate industry and driving change for the better.
What was it like to work at WeWork during its hypergrowth phase? Which businesses outside of the WeWork mothership were Aleks involved with? What did Aleks learn about the right cost of capital for different business models while at WeWork? Why are boutique hotels generally not profitable? What serendipitous introduction led to the Cuby Technologies co-founders meeting? How do the start-up costs for an industrialized construction company differ from that of most other proptech companies? Why has construction efficiency been decreasing over the last couple of decades? How are construction companies planning to overcome a continued reduction in skilled labor in order to meet the chronic housing shortage? What are some of the scaling challenges for volumetric construction and how does this differ from the scaling challenges of 3D printing? Why is the manufacturing world moving towards a distributed network of localized manufacturing vs giga-factories? What was Ryan Homes doing in the 1950's that is similar in nature to what Cuby Technologies has innovated on? How are Tesla and Cuby Technologies similar? What are some of the benefits of using steel in the residential homebuilding process? Why does Cuby Technologies fall under the deep tech umbrella?
Aleks Gampel - co-founder & CEO of Cuby Technologies, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a childhood fascination with big city building architecture led to a career in real estate development and proptech.
How do investors in businesses fundamentally differ from operators of businesses? What is intellectually compelling about building and running a business that has not been done before? Are there unique challenges for high-growth proptech businesses? Why do proptechs need to fundamentally understand how humans value where they live? What are the ripple effects within society of having a massive lack of housing supply? Why are smaller entry homes not being built by production homebuilders? What are the reasons there are no scale builders for infill housing today? Why is prefab construction well suited for infill housing? What is driving the ADU revolution? Define missing middle housing and what policies are local jurisdictions passing to stimulate the creation of this needed housing stock? What are the different pathways to homeownership that adding ADUs creates? Does Villa create a competitive advantage by owning the permitting process? Why do investor/operator groups represent a big opportunity for Villa? What changes at the GSEs are stimulating demand for asset capital investment? Which principles of e-commerce has Villa applied to homebuilding?
Sean Roberts - CEO of Villa, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how consumer psychology is underappreciated as a driver of consumer behavior and sentiment for how individual consumers look at real estate.
Are we in the early days of proptech or have we moved into a period of real estate technology maturity? Why has it taken so long for deeper technology solutions to be introduced into proptech? What are the parallels between automobile manufacturing advancements and building automation advancements? Why have mentorships become a cultural tenant at PassiveLogic? When designing solutions, why is it important to allow yourself to be a novice again and design the right solution for the problem at hand? How have buildings become the most complex robotics systems by orders of magnitude? What is a fully autonomous building platform? Why are real estate owners and operators now starting to invest in digital transformation strategies? How do building automation and autonomous buildings differ? How is the growing issue of lack of skilled labor impacting building operations & maintenance? Where and what type of AI is finding success in the built environment architectural world?
Troy Harvey - Co-founder & CEO of PassiveLogic, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how an engineering job in high school at an electronics engineering consultancy led to an unorthodox college timeline but a clear focus on what problems he was passionate about working on.
Does it make sense to be thinking about proptech as the technology that real estate companies should be building but can't? How is the digital transformation of media companies relevant to real estate owners and operators? Have we already entered a transition point where we are moving from the flat two-dimensional web (screen) to the spatial web (location)? Is the real world becoming the canvas for the digital world, and if so, isn't real estate a huge player in this transformation and the lynchpin to ultimately make this scale? What is unique about outdoor advertising that makes it the one area of traditional advertising that is still growing? How are digital asset rights positively impacting property valuations? Are the tokenization and fractionalization of real-world assets impacting property valuations? Is there a marketplace today for the trading of fractional shares of digital asset rights?
Dominic Collins - CEO & co-founder of Darabase, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how an early role at a prominent magazine company allowed him to identify opportunities to exploit the disruption of print media and set the stage for a career helping companies successfully navigate digital transformations within their industries.
Do investors or customers drive the naming of tech sectors? Will co-buying be rebranded as mommunes or boommates as shared housing continues to explode? Why leave the Bay Area to experience winters and explore self growth? Which traditional routes of homeownership are now showing up as alternative modern options? What does the phrase act with urgency and maintain patience mean and how does it apply to start-ups? How can homeownership be hacked? Why might people buy their second home first? What is Gen Z learning from watching Millenials struggle to achieve homeownership? How do you define the drunken walk of the entrepreneur? What are the different strategic ecosystem partnerships of the Nestment platform? What are the five points of friction in co-buying? Why have agents historically shied away from assisting or suggesting co-buying transactions? What makes agents important in the co-buying process? Why is participating in the home finding so important to first-time homebuyers?
Niles Lichtenstein - co-founder and CEO of Nestment, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and shares how experiencing a parent passing at an early age influenced his perspective of homeownership and the financial options afforded to homeowners.
Is the correct definition of proptech the application of all things technology to real estate in order to achieve improved business results in the 21st century? What are the benefits of working on large built world infrastructure projects on multiple continents? Why did Arunabh switch from working for multinational firms to starting his own company? What are the supply chain challenges of hyper-local residential renovation? Why switch from real estate development into real estate investment? How is Western policy regarding real estate different from that of developing countries? Why do multifamily investors need a decision support system for their portfolios? Why is real estate analysis still so reliant on Excel? What are the challenges of data ingestion and integration in the real estate industry? How is AI being implemented within real estate data insights? Why is it important to move from pure data visualization to data insights for real estate data analysis?
Arunabh Dastidar - Co-Founder and CEO at RealSage joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the decisions that led him to set aside a likely career in computer science to forge a new path to study civil engineering and physical real estate.
Why did the pace of social impact work cause a career pivot to technology and data analysis? What makes culture so important in company building? What were some of the technical hurdles that needed to be solved in order to stream audio from satellites? Did the lack of challenges while working at the DoD set the stage for a professional move into entrepreneurship? How did a lack of female technology mentors also contribute to Masha's desire to start her own company? What was the opportunity in commercial real estate finance that Masha observed that screamed out for a technology solution? What happened to the commercial lending startup that Masha co-founded during the COVID pandemic? How did participating in Toptal Network during a career break lead to the opportunity to work with AvenueOne? What is the attraction of optimizing the operations of a hard asset that drew Masha into working extensively with AvenueOne?
Masha Sharma - Head of Product Engineering at AvenueOne, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how experiencing the immersive audio environment at XM Satellite Radio (SiriusXM) headquarters caused her to turn down a more lucrative job offer to work in an office and culture which she absolutely loved coming to every day.
What is the definition of industrialized construction and how does this fit within proptech? Which benefits to construction should be realized with the adoption and ongoing innovation of industrialized processes? How does American foreign policy on energy relate to housing? How did a student group at MIT help shift leadership from traditional energy to sustainable energy? What is building science and how does it relate to energy? Who famously said "building energy efficiency isn't the low hanging fruit, but the fruit that has fallen on the ground and rotted"? Why has building energy efficiency historically been so catastrophically bad that it is nothing short of a tragedy? Where are energy efficient buildings best built? How does the reindustrialization of the US economy intersect with the future of housing? What are the 2 major things causing headwinds against the industrialization of construction in the US? Why does housing and real estate need to be a product vs being a project? What is causing trade unions to start to shift their resistance towards industrialized construction? Why are the margins of general contractors in real estate so small relative to other industries? Why have industrialized construction companies over the last 100 years typically failed to survive for more than a few years? How is ADL Ventures working to partner large industry leading companies with smaller companies to drive innovation in and around cleantech? What is an industrialized construction epicenter and why will this be a game changer in creating success in industrialized construction?
Nolan Browne - founding partner of ADL Ventures, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share a fascinating story about the Hershey family and their largely unknown success in industrialized construction.
What challenges does the range of real estate asset classes present to technology innovators? Does an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges faced by the built world provide a beneficial approach? How did the concepts of ecosystem revival intersect with real estate during graduate studies at Stanford? Why has curiosity to improve the impact humans have had on the planet been a driving force for pursuing a career in the built environment? How did a diversity of educational backgrounds and expertise form the foundation of problem resolution at Kit Switch? What are the challenges of keeping people in mind when solving for built world issues? What is the Ivory Innovation Hack-A-House Competition and what did participating in this lead to? How did having a sponge mindset at Stanford help create opportunities? What does "Lighting up your soul" mean and how did it help set the business course for Kit Switch? How has bespoke construction led to many of the challenges around real estate adaptive reuse? What is the premise behind productized interiors for real estate? Why is room flexibility important for newly constructed real estate? Having been recently selected to participate in the Terner Center's Housing Lab, what does Kit Switch hope to achieve during this program? What opportunities exist for cities to reimagine their urban planning efforts and take advantage of more intentional urban mixed-use real estate?
Candice Delamarre and Armelle Coutant - co-founders of Kit Switch, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the challenges and the benefits of starting a physical construction product company during the onset of the COVID pandemic.
Where do proptech and construction tech intersect and where do they diverge? What was life like growing up in a family homebuilder business in Finland? What entrepreneurial ventures did Harri get involved with as a kid to enable him to buy Christmas presents for his family? Did Harri's initial foray into software coding lead to a lucrative early professional career? What pulled an independent entrepreneur back into the family homebuilding business? How do you build credibility with the workforce of a family business when you haven't spent your entire career there? Why are the processes within homebuilding so siloed and manual? What did Harri see in BIM that led him to believe this would be transformational for the homebuilding sector? Why did Harri acquire the code of a CAD solution company? What were the early results of Harri's homebuilding company eating the dog food of the software code they had purchased? Why did GBuilder introduce environmental impact reporting in its solution? What are the benefits of a digital twin for homebuyers when purchasing from a builder that has digitized the end-to-end building process?
Harri Majala - CEO & founder of GBuilder, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a special bond with his uncle led him to chase a dream of earning an economics degree from the Helsinki School of Economics.
Are WeWork and Airbnb proptech companies? How did attending SXSW influence and create a desire to participate in the startup technology sector? What large data problem was Wines.com facing and how was this similar to data problems the MLS is resolving? How do you get a product management job without even knowing what product management is? Why do great technology companies fail if they cannot create a monetization strategy? How do unsuccessful startup experiences create a fire to do the startup cycle again but the next time around to do it right? Why is it that so many startup technology companies repeat the common mistake of not doing enough market research? What skill sets do you develop when going deep on market research to understand and become an expert on global industries? How did market research on smart homes lead to a job opportunity at Keller Williams? Why was Keller Williams so interested in bringing in experts from outside of real estate? What are some of the common misconceptions about real estate agents and their use of technology? Why are there so many agent personas in residential real estate? What about today's environment makes it ideal for innovation within real estate? Why has there been a shift in younger generations going to talk to lenders before they talk to real estate agents? What opportunities exist to expand partnerships with credit unions that at their core focus on member benefits?
Adi Pavlović - CEO of Newzip, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share a story about his early days at Keller Williams investigating the technology investments happening within real estate and how his conversation with the leading market research firm at the time helped to shape what was and what was not included in the early definitions of proptech.
Does proptech have a fixed definition or is it in a constant state of evolution? What makes Los Angeles a particularly challenging real estate market to have success in? How did a customer focused approach of relentlessly seeking opportunities for clients create success despite a limited track record in the luxury home market? Why is building relationships the cornerstone of success, whether as a real estate agent or as a tech entrepreneur? How do the sales cycles of luxury real estate differ from the typical house transaction and how does this mirror an enterprise sales process? What is the tech stack for a highly successful luxury real estate agent? Why don't brokerages focus more tech development and spending on lead generation? Has the proliferation of technology become overwhelming for the average real estate agent? What was missing in the CRM world for real estate agents that Rila helps solve? Which business scaling issue does Rila help solve for real estate agents?
Ben Bacal - CEO & founder of Rila and Revel Real Estate, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how respectfully ignoring the advice of his successful real estate agent mother led him to conquer the LA luxury real estate market and sell some of the most expensive homes ever sold in the US.
What is the real estate lifecycle and why is this different from other sectors? Why did Derek experience a rebellious phase during college that entailed exploring career options outside of the engineering track he was ushered down? How does one become a strategy consultant by accident? Why did getting to know a tennis shop customer lead to a career change into real estate development? What else did Derek do to go all in on real estate as a profession? Are the advantages to working in a small family office focused on real estate development? Where did Derek cut his teeth on proptech? What gives one the confidence they have enough knowledge to be a real estate development entrepreneur? How did Derek choose to differentiate himself from his real estate development peers? What are the realities of the underlying economics of the coliving companies that have sprung up in the US? Why do proptech companies have a history of never reaching profitability? Why are there so few technical engineers in real estate development? What are the implications of poor proptech investment decisions for real estate developers? What is the importance of real estate developers asking what could possibly go wrong when considering proptech investments? Why is the so much hubris in proptech? What makes it so difficult to solve the people problems of real estate with software?
Derek Hsiang - founder of The Proptech Scout, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how the fight against a desk job led to a journey of monetizing his passions starting with a brick-and-mortar tennis store and its nascent e-commerce presence, which helped develop his chops as an entrepreneur and strengthen his grit.
Is the headline "Proptech Needs to Die" hyperbole or does it point to a distorted truth? What are the lifecycle stages of ownership and how does this differ by real estate asset class? How did an accounting close process lead to a career interest in data intelligence and analytics? What is the Netflix culture deck and why is Netflix's culture so revered in tech companies? Why was participating in On Deck so beneficial as an aspring entrepreneur? What are some of the challenges faced when transitioning from the corporate employee world into being an entrepreneur? As an entrepreneur how do you decide which opportunities to focus on and which opportunities to walk away from? How did the personal experience of building an ADU during Covid spark the idea for Builty? What were some of the technical challenges encountered when creating a unified set of building permit data across many real estate asset classes? How many municipal building departments are there in the US that permits must be collected from to create a nationwide platform? Why is building permit data not yet commoditized? How many synonyms has Builty identified for ADU in the data it has processed so far? What are the four different data objects that permit data deals with and how is this unique compared to other real estate data?
Kat Gordiienko - co-founder & CEO of Builty joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and gives my favorite answer ever to the definition of proptech (spoiler alert: Kat's answer was "a set of technologies to modernize the real estate industry").
Why did Chase's parents convince him to attend UVA and how has it become one of the best decisions that he ever made? What program offered by the NFL allowed Chase to finish his master's degree? How did a degree in sports administration establish a foundation for Chase's future entrepreneurial endeavors? What is the difference between move-in day and turn at college campus housing? How was Chase able to create a nationwide company helping off campus student housing with turn from an opportunity where he was essentially doing it for free? Why is move-in day so chaotic and unorganized at colleges? How did this opportunity allow Chase to evolve his business into different service offerings that were less stressful and created recurring revenue streams? How has Chase been able to leverage his success and create additional companies under different brands as well as start doing investments in other companies to expand his portfolio beyond the student housing sector? What pain point/opportunity regarding move-in day for property managers did Chase identify and solve? How did Chase leverage his non-traditional tech background to build a successful proptech startup?
Chase Minnifield - Founder & CEO of EZ OS joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a blue-collar upbringing in Lexington, KY where you had to earn everything and nothing was going to be given to you, fueled his success in athletics (leading to a stint in the NFL) and ultimately opened the door for his post athletic career as a multiple time entrepreneur.
What does it mean to streamline the real estate industry? How might AI further seep into the proptech sector beyond content creation and visual generation? Will AI be a part of every company going forward or is this a temporary tech fad? What was it like to work (at the time) in the largest square foot building in the US? Are there unique challenges when working for a company that has both employees and unions? How many roles did Ali apply to at Uber before finally getting her foot in the door? What part of tech startup culture was particularly attractive to someone early in their professional career? Why is speed of execution so important for successful startups? What does it mean to build an end-to-end real estate investment platform? Why is it important for Getaway to be a co-investor on properties with their customers? Do young first-time real investors prefer complete ownership of a property vs a fractional share? Why does vertical integration make sense for the end-to-end real estate investor? What are the advantages of a referral based GTM strategy where you have a complex partnership ecosystem?
Ali Nichols - co-founder & CEO of Getaway joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how a childhood obsession of dragging her parents out to openhouse showings every Sunday planted the seed for a future career in helping others invest in real estate.
Can entrepreneurship be taught in school or does it need to be learned on the job? What sorts of opportunities can you create for yourself by taking a chance and directly immersing yourself in an emerging space? How critical to scaling a business is knowing how to sell? Why is listening an underappreciated aspect of being successful in sales? Can introverted people actually make good sales people? How are entrepreneurs and sales people alike? What is attractive about real estate investing which you don't get from having your head in a computer all day? Explain a "garden city" and why is this structure so unique? What does the tech stack look like for the average real estate agent? Why do real estate agents consider most CRMs to be clunky? What unique factors create an opportunity to provide financial health tools to real estate agents? Why are mobile first solutions for real estate agents seeing better adoption than legacy desktop solutions? What entrepreneurial attributes do successful real estate agents have?How do you productize relevant financial information vs regurgitting existing financial content?
Evan Knowles - Co-founder & CEO of Symba joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his first entrepreneurial software endeavor despite positive outcomes at a small level had inherent structural issues which would prevent it from being able to be scaled to any material level ultimately taught him that sacrifice was necessary to have success.
How did an internship for Senator Barbara Boxer lead to attending George Washington University? What transformative event happened while attending George Washington University resulting in a move back to the West Coast to attend the University of Southern California? How did a family event as a teenager in Ukraine spark an initial interest in real estate? Why leave a promising career in real estate investment banking to move to Hong Kong? How did an investment banking background prove to be a great building block for commodity supply chain underwriting? What factor about supply chain underwriting led to travel to more than 30 countries around the world? Why is Manganese an important commodity component of construction? How wasteful is the process of construction? What percent of carbon emissions globally is construction currently responsible for? What does it mean to be a net zero global community by 2050? How many years of landfill capacity does the US have remaining? What new technology is Palari developing to further accelerate offsite construction? How is Palari creating microgrids for one of its new home communities?
Basil Starr - founder & CEO of Palari Group, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how an interest in skydiving led to a board position at the Jump For The Planet foundation which raises awareness and funds for climate refugees.
How did the desire to be a writer lead to an opportunity to be part of the emerging web 2.0 scene within social media marketing? Why were technical skills in account/brand management roles so valued by digital marketing agencies? What are some attributes of successful startup employees that can also make them not the best college or university students? How have the scope of problems that startups are solving for today become much more complicated than those being built in the early days of web 2.0? Have the barriers to entry for becoming a software startup employee increased or decreased since the early 2000s? What are the benefits of shipping embarrassing products that lack features and has lots of bugs? Why is it so important to have uncomfortable conversations with customers who aren't using your product? How many billions of dollars in deposits as Rhino saved renters so far? Why are thorny technical challenges so motivating for technical founders?
Bryan Woods - co-founder of Rhino, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss his path to web development which came about while growing up as a 90s kid during the glory days of Geocities where he learnt HTML and CSS in order to build websites for multiple groups including his high school track team and a highly popular 2Pac fan website.
How did life on a farm stoke the entrepreneurial spirit of a young kid? What sorts of problem-solving skills were instilled as part of daily life on a farm? How did an advanced engineering degree further complement the entrepreneurial skill set developed growing up on a farm? How did a love for fixing cars and pickups create enough side hustle income to pay for college? What finally compelled a services based entrepreneur to transition to a technology product entrepreneur? How did a teacher dip his toe into real estate investing and property management? What experience with tenants and emotional support animals spark the idea that there must be a better way to manage pet policies for landlords? Is there a reasonability test for determining the validity of an emotional support animal? How big of a business is the online certification of emotional support animals? Today, how many companies are selling online emotional support animal certifications? What restrictive policy did airlines implement to fight the fraud around emotional support animals? How did HUD approach this issue differently than the airline industry? Why have property owners and operators historically been resigned to accepting all emotional support animals? How likely are landlords to collect on damages above and beyond the security deposit? What education can be provided by landlords to tenants on the legitimacy of their emotional support animal?
Logan Miller - co-founder of Landlord Tech, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a career as an agriculture education teacher (which included a diverse curriculum of mechanics, welding, plant science, and construction to name a few) helped create a useful skill of being able to get young people excited about a topic they might off the cuff dismiss as dull and how this has served him well in his professional career while being simple in comparison.
How would one describe the current state of skilled trades in the built world? What are the transitions that the construction industry is facing? How many open jobs in the skilled trades are there at the moment in the US? Why are skilled tradespeople in the workforce aging out faster than new workers entering the profession? How can an increase in diversity within this industry help alleviate some of the resourcing needs? How can we create excitement around the skilled trade profession so more people explore careers in these fields? Is there a pay gap between men and women in skilled trades (spoiler alert, no there is not)? Why are high schools no longer offering courses which help cultivate interest in the skilled trades? Why has it been historically difficult to find/hire women in skilled trades? What is the telehealth but for DIY service that Matriach Build offers? What does it mean for Matriach Build to be a trusted source of truth for home renovation and other real estate related projects? How has Matriach Build become a platform for like-minded skilled tradeswomen to connect and build a community? What are some of the marketplace tools and features that the skilled trades need that aren't being met today?
Lacey Soslow and Gabriella Ainslie - co-founders of Matriarchy Build, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a 20+ year friendship starting in college was strengthened by working together early in their careers and ultimately gave them the confidence to found a company together that empowers women in the building trades.
How has the definition and usage of the term proptech expanded as the space has matured? Why has proptech innovation historically been extremely limited compared to other industries? How did effective data management allow M7 to differentiate itself for other real estate asset managers? Prior to Coyote entering the market, what tools were firms using to manage real estate asset data? Why did M7 decide to spinout Coyote instead of keeping it as a proprietary internal tool? What is the process like to take a bespoke piece of internal software, separate it from the parent organization, and turn it into a scalable platform as an independent company? How was the transition from being the CTO of an established real estate firm to being the CEO of a tech startup challenging on a professional level? What are the greatest technical achievements Coyote has solved during its spinout from M7? How do you successfully transition from appeasing all the customer demands of early adopters to building product to support your platform and saying no to certain customer requests?
Oli Farago - Founder & CEO of Coyote Software, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a corporate acquisition resulting in a difference of opinions led to the unique opportunity to spend six months doing deep thinking on how to correctly build a new asset and fund management platform from the ground up, efficiently and to scale from day 1.
Why is the reasoning from first principles approach so successful in unlocking creative solutions to complex problems? What can you do to differentiate true customer needs from the noise of what customers are asking for outloud? How long does it take the average homeowner to save up their down payment on their first home? Why does the real estate industry thrive on information asymmetry? What is the benefit to the individual investor of cutting out the middlemen currently involved with most residential real estate transactions? How can you achieve transparency with blockchain based transactions without completely forgoing privacy? What is the reason special purpose vehicles in the form of an LLC are commonly used for real estate tokenization? Why is Homebase co-purchasing a small percentage of the homes they are fractionalizing? What are the tradeoffs that Homebase made by prioritizing its legal and regulatory adherence framework? Has the US created significant disadvantages for web3 innovation with its current incomplete regulatory framework?
Domingo Valadez - co-founder of Homebase, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his experience growing up as the son of Mexican immigrants who achieved the American dream of purchasing real estate unknowingly planted the seeds for his passion around real estate and rethinking home ownership.
From a professional standpoint, why do people choose to pursue a career in consulting? What were the travel advantages of working with real estate consulting clients versus other industries? What were some of the challenges with working with international real estate clients? How did the opportunity to evaluate proptech companies come about within a real estate consulting role? How do generalized skillsets developed while working for consulting companies translate to being an executive at a tech startup? What are some of the challenges one experiences when moving from a large consulting firm to a startup? How does one overcome impostor syndrome when working at a startup? What does the role of global head of innovation entail? How robust is the M&A pipeline today given the challenging venture capital funding markets?
Kevin Shtofman - Head of Innovation at Cherre, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a timely decision to pursue an MBA (based on aspirations of becoming an investment banking VP at Morgan Stanley) allowed him to successfully navigate the great financial crisis and establish a career in real estate consulting.
Why can there be value in recreating the wheel when first starting out in a new role? How is it that renting an apartment is a much harder and more involved process than people initially imagine? Why have independent landlords traditionally been a neglected customer base for technology companies? How can customer conversations uncover previously undiscovered revenue opportunities? What insights can be acquired by attending customer meetups during the early days of a startup? How can proptech companies build everything you need and nothing that you don't for their customers? What was the lightbulb moment that convinced this aspiring entrepreneur to leave his paying job and make the jump to start his own company? Why does the independent landlord space have such a surprisingly strong community? What are the benefits of live chat vs a ticketing system for early-stage companies?
Ryan Barone - CEO, CTO, and co-founder of RentRedi, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his first experience of trying to rent an apartment in New York City while an intern at Goldman Sachs planted the seed for a product idea that ultimately consumed him and led to the founding of RentRedi.
What are the synergies between crypto and real estate? Why has crypto traditionally lacked good real world collateral? Is real estate's % of GDP as large in other parts of the world as it is in the US? What caused the housing correction in China after the initial privatization run-up? What are the benefits of decoupling housing ownership and occupancy? Can technology innovation help solve many of the structural inefficiencies that exist in real estate investing? Are there similarities between the debugging process in academia, debugging a startup, and debugging code? What are the uncanny similarities between the stages of a startup and the stages in academia? Why should founders think of a startup as a fluid concept? What makes MakerDOA the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in crypto? Which events contributed to crypto's current deep winter? What are the advantages of being able to offer Robinland's real estate offerings through Reg-D and Reg-S? Why have construction loans been a source of good investment debt on the Robinland platform?
Scarlet Chen - co-founder of Robinland, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her interest in housing and real estate was the result of her parent's regret of missing out on the massive appreciation boom from the privatization of the housing market in China because they did not understand the investment opportunity that real estate represented.
How did partnering with realtors through creative strategies lead to a successful insurance business being built at an early age? What challenges do real estate investors who intend to be landlords encounter when trying to get real estate insurance products? Why is it important today to be where the customer is and not rely on or hope that the customer comes and finds you? How did the opportunity arise to work with many of the most prominent insurance companies? What are the advantages of partnering with complimentary proptech companies to build a distribution channel? How are entrepreneurs wired differently from career employees? Why do so many businesses forget to ask potential partners or customers how they first might be able to help them grow their business? How does cultivating a reputation as a trusted advisor open doors to new and unforeseen opportunities?
Matt Sutika - Chief Insurance Officer of Obie, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and briefly discuss how his dad's community status and financial stability combined with a healthy work-life balance inspired him to pursue a career in insurance.
What is Chat-GPT's definition of proptech? Will Chat-GPT be a future podcast guest of Proptech Espresso? What material value has been generated from the considerable investment in proptech over the last couple of years? Has the use of the term proptech been overextended to the point that almost any company that touches the home is now considered a proptech company? How has a unique bond formed as friends contributed to the successful chemistry as co-founders? Why are traits such as grit and authenticity so fundamental to entrepreneurs? Why do so many proptech founder stories originate from a painful home transaction? What is the number one reason that prevents innovation in the real estate space? What would be possible if you put every bit of real estate data in one place and made it accessible to anyone?
Zach Gorman and James Rogers - co-founders of BHR (Blockchain Home Registry), join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and briefly discuss how a friendship formed at Tutfs led to mountain climbing together across the globe (where they overcame life-threatening situations), and ultimately building a couple of successful tech companies in the proptech space.
Does the generalization of the term proptech help those outside the industry establish a framework to start understanding the space? How did a background in consulting establish a strong underlying skillset for being a tech entrepreneur? Why is iterative problem solving important when improving processes for complex businesses? What has been the likely cause of poor tenant experience for renters historically? Why is addressing operations for landlords important in providing an improved tenant experience? How do European markets differ from US markets in the residential rental space? What are some examples of differing European rental sub-markets needs? How has a focus on community helped drive the adoption of hococo's tenant experience solution?
William Shaw - CEO of hococo, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a new vision of tenant loyalty can help property landlords and owners move tenants across a portfolio of properties as they transition into different life phases.
Can rental leases provide a pathway for building a career as a real estate agent? How did a high school friendship uncover the emerging co-living scene in New York? Why are real estate investors critical for the co-living business model? What sorts of opportunities are multifamily operators looking for to be innovative? Why would a successful real estate agent make the jump to a risky proptech startup? What is causing fewer and fewer renters to fit the ideal multifamily renter profile? Why do leasing agents have so few tools to help renters that don't fit the desired candidate renter profile? What have been some of the contributing factors to multifamily's slow adoption of technology? How did a chance meeting with a tech entrepreneur lead to a career switch? Why is bad debt such a problem for property owners?
Jesse Schmidt - SVP of Sales at TheGuarantors, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his dad's job running The Real Estate Book for the northeast afforded him his first job as the on-staff real estate photographer for the publication, instilling in him a love for real estate and all the various forms on this asset class.
How does the introduction and application of technology to an industry create a catalyst for change and re-invention? Why did a job at MTV during its heyday lead to a career switch into high finance? How did becoming an intrapreneur create massive opportunities to build new businesses at the intersection of two asset classes? Why can land registry be considered the original blockchain? What has created the trapped equity crisis that American homeowners are experiencing today? How is housing affordability geo-specific? What causes people to think of their home asset differently than traditional financial assets like stocks and bonds? Why is education critical in financial asset decisions? Can you consider EasyKnock a countercyclical business model?
Jarred Kessler - co-founder & CEO of EasyKnock (and author of Death of a Real Estate Salesman), joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his belief in the innate right of human beings to have access to shelter led to founding his non-profit which provides resources to homeowners to help figure out how to keep them in their homes and avoid eviction when experiencing life situations outside of their control.
How can passion projects outside of work and school accelerate learning a new skill? In what ways do government regulations create so many complex challenges for businesses? Why isn't there more effort to invest in regulation reconciliation to alleviate inconsistencies? How has Microsoft leveraged natural language processing techniques and its global data sets to address hyper local and domain specific problems? What is the compelling reason to index every residential property in the world? Why is getting accurate residential real estate data a challenge and how does it differ between the US and other countries? How does reporting data lag contribute to the challenges of providing accurate and specific information real estate reporting? Where are there opportunities for deep learning to help overcome some of the real estate information gaps that we have globally? Why did Parcl choose to build its marketplace platform on web3 blockchain technology? In what ways can web3 technology improve the customer experience? How can computer vision augment the information set for global residential real estate data?
Jason Lewris - co-founder of Parcl and Parcl Labs, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his discovery of analytics and coding during his MBA program led to a career pivot away from business to the emerging discipline of data science and the future opportunities around leveraging machine learning architectures to solve complex data problems.
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What is the difference between a proptech company and a venture backable proptech company? How does mixed-income housing support diversity and improve the chance for income mobility? Why is housing NIMBYism so pronounced in San Francisco and how does this contribute to its rampant homeless issue? What is the definition of affordable housing and how prevalent is it in the US? Is creating affordable housing only a big city issue or do rural cities also struggle with this? Why are there so many misconceptions around the affordable housing opportunity? Are affordable housing and public housing the same thing? Why do affordable component lease-ups take so long to complete? Is there a lack of education about affordable housing in university and MBA real estate programs?
Christine Wendell - Co-founder and CEO of Pronto Housing, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how living in a diverse collection of cities across the US early in her career exposed her to various city zoning approaches which later informed her perspective on the positives and pitfalls of different affordable housing approaches.
What compelled a rising star in GE's management training program to pivot and jump to the real estate industry? How did mortgage servicers look to find positive housing outcomes during the great financial crisis and help keep people in their homes? What is the importance of access to capital for real estate? Are there unique challenges you encounter when taking over a company from a founder CEO? How does a finance professional get deeply knowledgeable about the fundamental technology of an organization so they can challenge and support an engineering team? Are there environmental impact differences between new home construction and renovation? What does it mean to re-invigorate the aging US housing stock? How do speed and scale benefit the real esate investor? Is it possible to recreate the experience of dealing with personal finances for the real estate investor? How does Kiavi help real estate investors make money over 20% more often than other lenders?
Michael Bourque - CEO of Kiavi, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a 15 year career at General Electric gave him the toolset to dig in and understand new and complex businesses, as well as allowed him to travel the world and experience many diverse cultures.
Which industries rely on real estate data beyond the home transaction itself? Why has almost no one heard of RELS? What are the benefits and downsides of being acquired by a co-owner? Why did the appraisal industry need innovation and what was fundamentally broken with it? How did the modern appraisal project come about at Clear Capital and what were there the challenges the team faced? What was it like partnering with the GSEs (Fannie and Freddie) to transform the home appraisal process? Why are floorplans critical in appraisals and why is this a linchpin in the process? What lessons from prior acquisition experiences did leadership apply to Clear Capital's deal with CubiCasa? Were there unique challenges due to the global pandemic around acquiring a company on another continent? Why has the US not digitized floorplans as much as Europe and Australia? What property data attributes are not common today but are likely future elements?
Jeff Allen - President of CubiCasa joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how the freedom granted to him by his first employer to explore housing data led to spinning out his first company building market reports for the broader MLS community.
Has Amazon morphed into a proptech company? Is the US transforming into a warehouse nation? How did getting punched in the face by the 2008 financial recession force a career pivot into managing bank owned real estate assets? What learnings came from working through the foreclosure process with multifamily properties? Were virtual tours happening in New York City as early as 2006? How a lightbulb moment led to launching a startup developing storefronts into touchscreens for real estate companies and landing Ryan Serhant as an early customer? Did the desire to invest in a resilient real estate sector lead to uncovering profitabile opportunities within affordable housing? Are government contracts around real estate a lucrative opportunity and provide a pathway to positively impact local communities? How will blockchain technology revolutionize the financing of real estate in the future? What is the best way to educate oneself about web3? How can helping disadvantaged families get access to safe housing positively impact communities?
Vernon J - Co-founder & CEO of EquityCoin, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a scholarship opportunity to attend a New England prep school led him to uncover a recurring theme of family real estate businesses amongst his peers which he parlayed into real estate jobs during his high school years where he earned monthly commission in excess of five figures.
For those listeners interested in learning more about the intersection of real estate and web3 check out the REw3 newsletter!
How do you evaluate ideas on a quality scale to make sure you are pursuing those that will actually result in a successful business? Does perceived risk impact the willingness of a customer or individual to adopt a new technology? Can the pursuit of one's passion impact the staying power of a tech founder? Should the real estate asset class drive different customer engagement models? What AI initiatives are underway in supporting property management businesses? How does fostering community benefit the broader housing ecosystem?
Demetri Themelis - CEO & co-founder of Knock, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his experiences entering the workforce at the start of the financial crisis shaped his desires to move from investment banking, and dreams of lucrative bonuses, to tech entrepreneurism and the opportunity to create a transformational business.
How was working as a management consultant at McKinsey similar to going to college? What was the intellectual challenge that compelled a deep tech engineer to change careers and go to work for a private equity firm? How essential is indoor air quality to physical well-being? How did trips home to Beijing uncover a rapid negatively changing air quality? Why have human senses not adapted to sense changes in air quality? How much worse can indoor air quality be than outdoor air quality? How did fear of the unknown in the early days of COVID force people to clamor for better instrumentation and cleaning of indoor air? What are some of the challenges of maintaining a retail channel for a consumer technology product? How has the education level around indoor air quality changed over the last couple of years? How can you improve indoor air quality but require minimal time investment from homeowners?
Ray Wu - Cofounder and CEO of Wynd Technologies, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his curiosity as a child led him to constantly take equipment apart and pretend to invent things, creating his later desire to start and build a technology company from scratch.
How did working for a highly ethical financial services company benefit a recent college grad? What practical life skills did jobs in finance and new home sales hone? What compelled a successful financial service professional to pivot and move into the homebuilding space? Why has the homebuilding space historically been reluctant to adopt visualization technologies like virtual tours? Why is there an online pricing transparency issue within homebuilding? What does the ideal customer journey for buying a new home online look like?
Anya Chrisanthon - Chief Brand Office at Anewgo, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her discovery that there were no women producing podcasts about selling real estate despite women being the majority of employees in real estate led her to fill this void.
Is the underlying purpose of proptech to make our lives better by improving the places where we live and work? Why are marketplace businesses so fascinating? How do network effects help create outsized economic value? Why are mercenary founders not as loved in the media as missionary founders? What caused the flurry of services companies working inside the home to fail? Why did working with local service companies prove more successful for Spruce rather than relying on gig workers? How did transforming into a logistic company fundamentally change the success of Spruce's service company partners?
Ben Johnson - Founder & President of Spruce, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how the skillsets he developed as an investment banker allow him to take a set of numbers and craft an entrepreneurial narrative that describes his business in a way that draws investors in.
What compelled a successful construction entrepreneur to pivot and move into technology? Why have legacy construction businesses shied away from digitizing many of their paper processes? What are the supply chain challenges that exist today in construction that technology could help solve? Will construction's increasing adoption of bleeding edge technology draw a broader workforce into the industry? Can the rise of technologists within construction company leadership further accelerate the adoption of technology within the broader construction industry? How does blockchain technology and smart contracts solve the inherent trust issues that plague the construction industry?
Robert Salvador - CEO of DigiBuild, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his humble beginnings working for the family drywalling business gave him firsthand experience into the tough tactics big firms exert on smaller industry players and the opportunities to digitize significant elements of the construction business that will level the playing field.
For those listeners interested in learning more about the intersection of real estate and web3 check out the REw3 newsletter!
How can technology empower the property experience and improve human interaction with the physical space? What stood out from the early success stories of the sharing economy as obvious lessons to apply to the vacation rental space? What are the challenges and benefits of selling to a strategic acquirer? What has been the catalyst for moving the mindset of vacation rental from a transaction to an experience? Why has the vacation rental space historically relied upon a single technology solution to run all aspects of the business instead of vertical solutions that manage specific operational functions? How has the Amazon effect transformed the vacation rental industry? Jeremy Gall - founder & CEO of Breezeway, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his beginnings as a corporate lawyer exposed him to innovative tech companies and inspired him to become a multi-time entrepreneur.
Why can you order food delivery in a few clicks but resolving workplace building issues takes days? How do office environment issues impact productivity for office workers? Will return-to-work be an opportunity or an obstacle for building owners and operators? Where does technology aid employers and building operators in return-to-work? Given that 'returning to the way things were' is not an option, how do you positively convince workers that there are advantages to coming back to the office? What are the advantages and challenges to opening 7 new European companies in quick succession? Eliane Lugassy - founder & CEO of Witco, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how early careers as a lawyer and investment banker proved to be great training ground for being an entrepreneur.
Why is the Austin business environment so compelling for startups? What is iBuying and what innovation has occurred within this space since its inception? Why has Opendoor been successful in iBuying but Zillow and several others have been forced to exit the space? How does real estate data quality impact the performance of national iBuyers? What is the opportunity for local market knowledge to improve the performance of iBuyers? How will the changing macro market conditions impact iBuying? Adam Eldibany - founder of homebldr, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share what drew a data scientist to the world of real estate and the emergent proptech center of the Silicon Hills.
Why has hospitality tech only recently started to address the short-term rental space? What unique hospitality challenges do short-term rentals face but traditional hotels do not? What are the scale advantages of launching a startup in the US vs Europe? How does speaking to hundreds of customers synthesize the underlying problems they face? Why are there so many different needs amongst mom & pop property managers? What prompts many property managers to release the software they build for internal use? Is there an advantage to raising capital from your customer base? Vincent Breslin - the co-founder of Uplisting, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his love for problem-solving launched the entrepreneurial journey of another family member.
As an entrepreneur, what are the measures of success beyond an outsized financial exit? Which parties win most often in company sales? What is the attractiveness of real estate for a former tech founder? How will the lack of discipline in real estate investing be exposed by a bear market? Which real estate asset classes were most impacted by COVID? How does the ability to improve NOI contribute to proptech solution adoption? Proptech investor Zain Jaffer joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the importance of being the type of investor that you wished you had when you were an entrepreneur.
Why do entrenched incumbents afford newcomers the opportunity to think about industry problems differently? How can established companies foster an ongoing entrepreneurial mindset? Why do entrepreneurs benefit from a lack of industry knowledge? How has data transparency and transaction process clarity empowered the homeowner in Canada? Does caring the most about the transaction result in homeowners selling above similar agent-led transactions? Lindsay Skabar - co-founder & CMO of Bōde, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the opportune timing of launching a proptech business on the precipice of a global pandemic.
What are the myriad of layers and people involved in getting a successful real estate deal done? Why is there an information gap on how to successfully build a downpayment for a home? Why have lenders historically neglect long term prospective customers? What are the creative ways in which people can obtain financing in order to purchase their first home? How can technology accelerate the savings for home down payments? Pat McLoughlin- co-founder of Digs by OJO Labs, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the importance of aligning the fundamental needs of users and customers to ensure a sustainable business model.
How is the shift in the way people are living and working driving interest in the short-term rental market? What defines turnkey short-term rental investing and why is the appealing to prospective investors? What are the differences in serving mom & pop investors versus professional investors in the short-term rental space? What are the toughest scale challenges that short-term rental investors face when expanding their property portfolio? Trent Hawthorne- COO of Rabbu, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how solving problems with software and building a company that minimizes the problems you persevered through make for a great startup entrepreneur recipe.
America's housing affordability crisis needs innovative solutions. Fortunately the Ivory Prize was established to spur this exact innovation, supporting companies and groups working on ambitious, feasible, and scalable solutions addressing this complex issue. The Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability focuses on solutions from three categories: construction and design, finance, and public and policy and regulatory reform. Abby Ivory and Jenna Louie from Ivory Innovation join Proptech Espresso to share information about the 2022 Ivory Prize Top 10 Finalists and highlight the industry trends they identified within this year's nominees.
How is technology evolving the full value chain of real estate assets? What are the technology categories that make up the built world? How do the unique needs of different real estate asset classes increase the complexity for developing vertical software solutions? Why have paper processes and human errors traditionally made insurance compliance the bane of property owners and operators? How does the friction from insurance compliance reduce transaction volume in and around real estate? Omri Stern, co-founder & CEO of Jones joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how a professional pain point in an unrelated industry was the genesis for starting a transformative built world platform.
What is GIS and why is this technology so important for real estate? Why is city planning at the core of almost every aspect of real estate? Why is lead follow up for sales people, inside and outside of real estate, such a struggle? What is conversational AI and why does it make sense to use this tech for sales lead follow up? How is the predictive analytics branch of AI being used in proptech today? Nate Joens- co-founder of Structurely, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the opportunity for generative AI to transform the mundane everyday tasks that workers in almost every industry are performing.
How does the scale of European and US proptech initiatives at the city level compare? How does the mix of proptech funding across residential, commercial, and retail differ in the US versus Europe? What are the seven key challenges of real estate that individuals and cities face regardless of geography? What inspired a physical manufacturer of door lock technology to innovate and create an entirely new SaaS platform to re-invent the smart lock industry? How has the door been transformed to be the facilitator of an entire customer experience for businesses? Christian Schmitz- Global Lead Shared Living and Coworking at Salto Systems, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how cities are changing to meet the needs and demands of the new generations which are choosing to live or not live there.
How do the realities of a home being sold influence the spectrum of staging opportunities? How has virtual staging impacted the home selling process? What are the different relationship dynamics at play between the real estate agent, client, and stager when working on a sale listing? How does location and proximity come into play when considering staging services? How is Stagerie leveraging tech as a means of removing emotion from a highly emotional process?
Nora Crosthwaite - founder and CEO of Stagerie, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her personal dislike of staging the homes she was selling formed the basis for launching Stagerie.
How solving key management issues for commercial markets unlocked (pun intended) multiple residential property management opportunities? How did technical innovation force a classic start-up pivot from PointCentral's original lockbox product? What are sensory buildings and how do IoT devices enhance these buildings to deliver improved resident experiences? How does PointCentral leverage its parent company Alarm.com's technology innovation to exploit opportunities in its established markets? Nate Wysk- GM of PointCentral, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share his personal journey from aspiring academic to business unit leader.
What is placemaking and how does this concept intersect with proptech? How has location data emerged to significantly improve decision making by expanding what is known beyond the limited data contained within the four walls of a building? What are location scores and how are these the backbone of Local Logic's product suite? Sara Maffey - Head of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Local Logic, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her desire to work within the built environment shaped each step of her career leading up to her obsession with Local Logic.
Why was real estate industry operating like the wild west before the advent of the internet? How has the proptech space transformed over the last 20 years? What are the complexities of zoning in real estate and why is this the invisible hand in real estate development? Is real estate zoning a challenge globally? Are we incorrectly blaming zoning for real estate development issues or are development incentives simply not correctly aligned? Jason Doyle - CEO of Gridics joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a virtual first leasing platform enables multifamily managers to rent their units much more efficiently, helping them rethink how all of their assets are shown.
How and why has the definition of proptech changed over the last ten years? Why is it important for founders to remain involved in sales discussions for early stage companies? What separates good and great product managers at tech companies? Who are some of the proptech companies to keep your eye on during 2022? Russell Smith - CRO of Earnnest, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how buying his first house inspired him to improve the process for future homebuyers.
How can upheaval and uncertainty create opportunities in unexpected segments of the real estate market? What are the benefits of cutting your teeth in new real estate investment areas quickly and at scale? How has technology better enabled home sellers to market their homes? How can for sale by owner and real estate agents work together to have the best experience for all parties in a home transaction? PJ Mitchell - co-founder and COO of Sold.com, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how home sellers today have an ever-increasing range of selling options to choose from that have driven greater transparency around the home sale transaction.
Why are highly regulated industries difficult to innovate in? What are the challenges and opportunities of launching a startup during a global pandemic (while living in lockdown with your co-founders)? What are some of the ways in which real estate photos are underutilized? How has the real estate photo space been positively and negatively impacted by the huge adoption of smartphone cameras by agents Mert Karakus, Mine Kanso, and Ege Ozgirin - co-founders of Oda Studio, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how they intend to utilize photo images and other visual media to solve hard problems in real estate.
How has the role of the residential real estate agent changed over the last 15 years? Over the same time period, how has the technology that real estate agents rely on changed (beyond the demise of carbon copy contracts)? How did the benefits and learnings from traditional door knocking lead to the startup idea for Drop Offer? Greg Burns - co-founder and CEO of Drop Offer, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a start in construction management proved a unique background to educate residential real estate clients and become an invaluable resource.
What is the flip side of crowdfunding for real estate investing? What can be done to increase the transparency in commercial real estate financing options to bring it on par with what is available in residential real estate? How do you successfully build and scale a commercial lending marketplace? How has the aggregation and up keep of supply side rates created an opportunity to carve out a valuable offering where most brokers choose not to engage with? Tim Milazzo - co-founder and CEO of StackSource (and self identified proptech fanboy), joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how dinner conversations with his father around his job as a leasing broker laid the foundation for wanting to innovate the way commercial real estate gets done.
What is a social enterprise and how does this business model support more equitable homeownership? How has information asymmetry contributed to the inequality in homeownership rates? How did the lack of adequate information geared to the most vulnerable homeowners leave them susceptible to predatory scams during the 2008/9 financial crisis? With the wealth of information available online today, what role do homeowner education solutions play in increasing homeownership attainability? How has the pandemic further entrenched the systematic barriers to homeownership entry for underrepresented communities?
Danielle Samalin - CEO of Framework Homeownership, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and explain how a deeply intertwined personal and professional history led to the formation of Framework and a commitment to changing homeownership information access and understanding.
What are the opportunities and challenges of founding and growing a tech company in the midwest? Why has the homebuying process not kept up with the technological evolution of other processes? How has the emergence of iBuyers changed the dynamics for home sellers? What opportunities exist for implementing machine learning techniques into property matching and recommendations?
Jay Cambron - founder and CEO of Guidage (fka Offerbright), joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share his vision for buying and selling residential real estate from an app on your phone.
What integration challenges did hotel channel managers face in the early days of vacation rental marketplaces? Why is live 24 hour guest service a differentiator when the prevailing trend is to minimize human communication? What have been the challenges and advantages of growing a tech company in Canada? Has Europe caught up with the US in technical innovation adoption or does it remain somewhat behind?
Mike Liverton - co-founder and Chairman of Jetsream Hospitality Solutions, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and explain how a career in cellphone e-commerce led to a focus on developing technology-led delightful customer experiences.
How central is real estate photography to the home transaction process? What is the ecosystem of participants and content creation involved in real estate photography? Why has property imagery surpassed property details as the primary reason users surf listing portals? How has COVID accelerated the adoption of real estate photography technology over the past year? Branick Weix, Brendan Quinlan, and Matt Michalski- co-founders of Aryeo, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and entertain us with how a high school job at a golf course construction site led to founding a drone imagery business where early real estate industry adopters sought them out for unique property imagery.
What are the pain points senior engineers contend with when managing hundred million dollar construction projects? Why are Facebook ads and LinkedIn messages not going to crack open the doors to decision-makers and influencers within construction firms? How did going to MIT's Sloan business school provided the opportunity to carve a new path within a construction career? Why has working with clients on construction sites been fundamental to building trust with construction company customers? How do TracFlo's machine learning algorithms benefit construction teams by reflecting real-time change orders?
Khalid David - founder and CEO of TracFlo, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how working alongside his father as an apprentice carpenter on construction sites at a young age shaped his desire to continue the family tradition of working in the built environment.
Why has omnichannel marketing not been as successful within real estate as in other industries? Why have real estate agents historically resisted adopting new technologies into their businesses? How has the elongate sales cycle of real estate been a challenge for lead nurturing for agents? What are the emerging opportunities for social media marketing for today's real estate agent?
Ajay Pondicherry - co-founder and CEO of Block Party, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and explain how his e-commerce background provides a unique perspective for addressing opportunities in real estate.
Why have commercial real estate agents historically shied away from short-term rental needs? What are the issues with subleasing which cause parties to avoid the obvious solution? How can you automate the commercial leasing process which typically takes months and teams of lawyers? How do you build a two sided real estate marketplace where everyone wins? What impact has Amazon had on commercial warehousing in the US?
Brad Wright - CEO of Chunker, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and address the impact of COVID-19 on the global supply chain.
How does the complexity of real estate transactions create an opportunity for technology to improve the overall experience? What similarities exist between the adtech and proptech industries? How can the playing field be leveled for families and individuals that want to purchase homes and build communities? What can be done to empower real estate agents to help their clients in hyper competitive bidding situations?
Lindsay Van Kirk - VP, Sales and Operation at Ribbon joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and address the opportunity for seller agents to support the broader communities in which the live and work by discussing how home sales is much more than just a financial transaction.
Why does being an entrepreneur equip a founder to expect the unexpected? What lessons did Scott learn from losing almost everything in the 2009 financial crisis? What are the unique investment insights that Privy has built into it's solution to help individual investors make decisions? Why should novice real estate investors avoid the lure of gurus and the guarantees that the promise?
Scott Fahl - Founder & CEO of Privy joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share the many ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey in real estate.
Can the current housing crisis be solved with technology? How have different government policies and social forces contributed to economic and racial inequality in housing? How is the Terner Center advancing innovative policies to influence the way government at all levels is directing money towards creative ways to address housing needs? What successes have the first cohort class from the Housing Lab achieved after the program?
Michelle Boyd - Program Director for the Housing Lab, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and address the need for an equitable recovery from COVID-19.
Michelle Boyd is the Program Director for the Housing Lab, the Terner Center’s program to support early-stage entrepreneurs tackling the high cost of housing. She brings nearly a decade of experience in community and startup finance, organizational design, and urban policy research. Prior to joining the Terner team, Michelle worked as a strategy consultant for the Bridgespan Group, collaborating with nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and foundation leaders across issues of community development, housing, and education. Michelle holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business, an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Real Estate from UC Berkeley, and a BA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. Michelle also serves as a Chamberlin Fellow with the Urban Land Institute.
In today's world, should we still be defining businesses along the traditional lines of product and services? How is proptech evolving and accelerating in India and surrounding markets? Can co-living recreate the missing physical connections of communities that increased internet usage has greatly reduced? Ajay Kumar - co-founder and CEO of TheHouseMonk, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the path to building an international platform for centralized rental real estate management.
Ajay Kumar has been involved in the real estate and proptech domains for close to 7 years. He started Cozee Homes in 2014 as a coliving and rental management company in India and scaled it to 1,000 rental units under management. After exiting the business in 2018, he set up TheHouseMonk - The operating system for rental real estate. The platform helps property managers streamline their portfolio operations and enhance the tenancy experience. Currently, 100+ companies across 12 countries use TheHouseMonk to manage their business.
Ajay also runs RealEstateXTechnology - A newsletter about 'Modern real estate and the technologies that impact it', which has close to 3,000 subscribers.
Are differing US municipal codes causing fragmentation challenges and thus preventing broader proptech adoption? Why isn't the home a more integral part of the financial advisor planning process? What causes people to talk about homeownership as a financial investment but in reality don't treat it as a financial investment? Why is financial flexibility so important for homeowners? Joe Cianciolo - Co-Founder & CEO of HomePace, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and much more.
Joe Cianciolo is co-founder and CEO of HomePace, Inc. HomePace enables consumers to achieve their financial goals by providing them to access their home equity without taking on additional debt or interest.
Prior to founding HomePace, Joe was Head of Business Development at Unison.
Joe was previously an executive at FutureAdvisor where he joined as its fifth employee and first non-engineering hire. As Head of Sales & Business Development, he was responsible for creating and leading client acquisition and revenue-generating functions at FutureAdvisor, driving the firm's growth in assets under management from less than $10 million to over $1 billion in less than 3 years. Following FutureAdvisor's acquisition by BlackRock, Joe led commercial strategy and distribution for BlackRock's Digital Wealth Technology platform.
Joe began his career as an investment banker at Thomas Weisel Partners and also previously led business development efforts at financial technology company SecondMarket (acquired by Nasdaq).
Joe graduated from Pennsylvania State University with both a Bachelors in Economics and an MBA. He currently lives in the Raleigh, North Carolina area with his wife Sarah and their son and daughter.
Why is the traditional rental showing experience so challenging and unsatisfactory for all participants? What percentage of a leasing agent's time is spent traveling to and from listings? How are different segments of multifamily leasing managers adopting technology to automate their processes? Chris Kostoulas - co-founder and COO of Peek, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a virtual first leasing platform enables multifamily managers to rent their units much more efficiently, helping them rethink how all of their assets are shown.
Chris is the Co-Founder & COO of Peek, a virtual real estate tour company based in NYC, that’s providing the most seamless way for leasing managers, brokers, and agents to adopt virtual tour technology across their workflow and more efficiently rent apartments.
Prior to starting Peek, Chris was an early Uber employee (~300) and one of the first in New York. Chris has built an impressive track record in operations, product and business development-- launching multiple US and international markets for Uber, as well as working cross-functionally on a product team, and working in business development for data partnerships.
Fueled by a passion for social entrepreneurship, Caroline Pinal co-founded Giveback Homes to empower the real estate industry to turn business into an opportunity for social good. Pinal and team deliver innovation and impact to their network of like-minded real estate agents, brokerages, technology, and service providers. In concert with these companies, Giveback Homes has helped deliver over 200 homes to families in need during the past five years. Pinal worked directly with Concierge Auctions to establish Key for Key, an award-winning social good program that builds a home in Central America every time a property sold at auction.
Prior to Giveback Homes, Pinal worked at TOMS, the business that pioneered the one-for-one model by giving shoes to children in need. During her time at TOMS, she worked alongside Blake Andrews. After a giving trip in Central America, Blake shared his goals to bring a sustainable giving model to the world of real estate. From this idea, the concept of Giveback Homes was born. Pinal has traveled the globe, leading building trips and conducting impact investigations in areas of greatest need.
Born and raised in the Mojave Desert, Pinal studied Journalism at Cal State Long Beach, worked at Fox News and The Walt Disney Company. The path was paved early on for Pinal as she always felt the desire to apply her experiences in storytelling and creativity towards something bigger. Her mission is to guide companies and individuals toward creating more intentional and socially responsible businesses.
What is the rooming house phenomenon? How do you provide housing for segments of the population that cannot afford market-rate housing? Is it possible for landlords to make a profit in the affordable housing market? Atticus LeBlanc - PadSplit founder, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how he is using technology to increase the supply of affordable housing and create a roadmap for affordable housing renters to become affordable housing landlords.
Atticus is the CEO & founder of PadSplit, an online marketplace that leverages shared housing as a tool for financial independence. PadSplit is a public benefit corporation that has garnered national acclaim as a solution for housing affordability, creating more than 1,200 affordable units in Atlanta in the last 2 years. Atticus has been an affordable housing developer since 2008 and has presented on housing solutions at MIT, UC Berkeley, and the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation. He is also the co-founder of Stryant Construction & Management Inc. Atticus serves as the co-chair of ULI’s UrbanPlan Education Initiative, co-chaired the Design For Affordability Task Force in 2018, was a member of Leadership Atlanta’s Class of 2020, and is currently a volunteer with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Atlanta. He graduated from Yale University with a BA in Architecture, and currently lives with his family in Decatur, GA along with 2 dogs and lots of chickens.
JoyHub is a business intelligence platform specifically for professional rental owners, managers and operators. By providing access and connectivity across their existing technology infrastructure JoyHub provides rental operators with a holistic view of their properties, tenants and portfolios. Powered by a proprietary integration layer, JoyHub connects, collects and aggregates data from various data sources to support secure data storage, custom reporting and predictive analytics. With access to data from across their various systems, operators view dashboards, create aggregated reports and develop risk models to capitalize on trends, respond to unpredictability, and maximize NOI to deliver greater overall value to investors.
Victor Hunt is the CEO and co-founder of Astorian, a contractor marketplace for building owners and managers. Victor worked in property management for over a decade at a 5000 tenant portfolio in The Bronx where he was inspired by his own challenges hiring contractors. He and his co-founder started the company from their dorm room at Yale and have raised over $2 million in funding from First Round Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Village Global.
Bobby Bryant is the CEO of DOSS Group INC., the holding company for Ask DOSS, DOSS Pros, DOSS Social Agents, DOSS Home Loans, DOSS Home Warranty, etc... DOSS is a proptech company that's obsessed with creating an End-to-End Fair-Priced Digital Real Estate Marketplace. They are developing a Voice-Activated Intelligent Assistant built into a proprietary search and transactional platform that empowers the Consumer and REALTORS® to ask any question about any property in the world to get accurate, easy, and instant answers 24/7.
Despite over a quarter of American's living in a form of an HOA community, HOAs remain very much a mystery to most of us. Buying into an HOA brings added diligence complexity to prospective homeowners around HOA rules as well as the financial viability of the HOA. Unfortunately, this transactional diligence is very archaic and paper-based. Luckily, our guests today on Proptech Espresso, Jamie Hankinson and Tom Beattie co-founders of Eli Report, are bringing much needed innovation to the HOA space and doing their part to make 2021 the year of Canadian proptech.
Jamie has over 10 years’ experience across technology investment banking, private equity and operations. Before joining Eli, Jamie worked within the private equity arm of an established real estate developer in Vancouver. Prior to this role, he was a technology and special situations investment banker at a prominent boutique investment bank in Vancouver.
Thomas has over 15 years’ experience in financial services and was CEO of fintech startup and FINRA broker-dealer Voleo. Thomas is focused on digital transformation; specifically the application of technology to improve efficiency, consumer protection and education. As a former investment banker and startup consultant, Thomas was involved with the raising of billions of dollars of capital for public and private companies.
Jada Mclean is the Co-founder/CEO of Hurry Home, the platform enabling homeownership of houses valued at $80,000 or less through shared ownership. As an alumna of the renowned Techstars Accelerator and participant of UC Berkeley Terner Center’s inaugural Housing Lab cohort, Jada has been recognized for Hurry Home’s innovative approach to filling in the gap of financing for small-dollar properties. Prior to founding Hurry Home she was an investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Mccoll Partners (acquired by Deloitte Corporate Finance) where she focused on advising companies through mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. She holds a BSE in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Duke University and currently resides in Chicago,IL.
Why have real estate investors finally started trusting proptech solutions with their data? What are the primary operating tools being adopted by real estate portfolio managers? Andrew Flint - co-founder of Occupier, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how the success of commercial real estate owners has delayed the adoption of technology, with younger tech forward leaders now changing this approach.
Andrew Flint is the co-founder of Occupier, Inc., a Real Estate Success platform for commercial tenants and tenant rep brokers. He has 10 years of experience in NYC commercial real estate and 9+ years at the forefront of commercial real estate technology. Andrew realized the need for modern technology in Commercial Real Estate, experiencing the inefficiencies of the industry firsthand while at JLL. In 2012 he joined VTS has the Head of Business Development after being an angel investor and first non-founder user of the platform. Andrew graduated from the University of Colorado in 2000.
Ashleigh Wilson is the Founder and CEO of AuditMate, a vertical transportation software, and management company. AuditMate is on a mission to empower building owners and managers with data-driven maintenance auditing products that radically simplify vendor management and selection. Ashleigh believes that in order to do well, we must start by doing right and is proving this by making vertical transportation management accessible and simple.
**Mr. Novin has over 14 years of experience in the multifamily development sector and has been involved with the development of over 9,000 multifamily units valued over $3.5B throughout California. Iman founded Novin Development to focus on urban infill, mixed-income, and transit-oriented development projects with a double-bottom line commitment to risk adjusted returns and social / environmental sustainability.
Prior to starting Novin Development, Iman worked at MidPen Housing as Director of Acquisitions and at BRIDGE Housing as a Project Manager in both northern and southern California. While at MidPen, Iman lead acquisition efforts across the Bay Area, closing new deals and managing broker and investor relationships. While at BRIDGE, Iman helped secure entitlements and LEED ND certification for MacArthur Transit Village, a 675-unit masterplan community in Oakland among other successful investment and development projects. Prior to BRIDGE, Iman worked in the real estate and planning divisions of Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC, now Civic San Diego) on Public Private Partnership and affordable housing policy initiatives within the Downtown San Diego Redevelopment Project Area, as well as with Keyser Marston Associates (KMA) in their San Diego office.**
Iman has served as Vice Chair of the Walnut Creek Planning Commission, Board of Directors of the Trinity Center, a non-profit homeless service provider, and Board of Director of the Chamber of Commerce. Iman also enjoys helping shape housing policy at the State level as an elected Delegate in CA Assembly District 16. Iman holds degrees in both Structural Engineering and Urban Studies and Planning from the University of California, San Diego with honors.
Abbey Wemimo, Co-Founder, Esusu
Abbey Wemimo is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Esusu, a financial technology platform that reports rental data to build tenant's credit scores while helping property owners increase revenue, lower evictions powered by differentiated data and insights. Prior to Esusu, Abbey founded Clean Water for Everyone, a global social venture providing affordable access to clean water for 250,000+ people in six countries. He also founded a data analytics company designed to gather machine-readable data on NGOs operating in Africa which was acquired in 2014. Previously, Abbey was a mergers and acquisitions consultant at PwC, where he worked on more than 20 buy and sell-side deals valued at over $50 billion. He also gained valuable experience working with Accenture, European Commission, and Goldman Sachs.
Abbey and his work have been recognized in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Quartz, Fortune, Teen Vogue, Vice, Black Enterprise, and Cheddar. Abbey was selected by Queen Elizabeth II as a Queen Young Leader. He was inducted into The Royal Commonwealth Society in 2017 and named to the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. He speaks at global conferences and has presented at the United Nations, the Vatican, the World Food Prize, and Clinton Global Initiative among others. Abbey graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management. He holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School School of Public Service and a Leading Change Scholar from The University of Cambridge.
Samir Goel, Co-Founder, Esusu
Samir Goel is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Esusu, the leadinga financial technology platform that reports rental data to build tenant's credit scores while helping property owners increase revenue, lower evictions powered by differentiated data and insights. Esusu’s renter ecosystem currently covers over 250,000 rental units in 35 states across the United States.
Prior to Esusu, Samir Co-Founded Transfernation, a nationally recognized non-profit that uses technology to ensure that excess food goes toward underserved communities across New York City. Transfernation has rescued over 2 million pounds of food and impacted 1.8 million lives. Samir’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, USA Today, Quartz, Fortune, Vice, Black Enterprise, and he was named to the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Previously, Samir worked at LinkedIn in Customer Success Consulting, Talent Acquisition, and Sales Strategy & Operations focused across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Samir also worked at The United Nations and Venture for America. Samir contributes for LinkedIn, The Daily Muse, Influencive, Mogul, and Quartz. He speaks at conferences around the country and has addressed The United Nations to the Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting. He received his Bachelor of Science from New York University's Stern School of Business.
Krishna is an Associate with Moderne Ventures. Her primary responsibilities include supporting the Passport Program, sourcing new companies, and supporting Moderne's Portfolio.
Prior to joining Moderne Ventures, Krishna was an analyst at Keller Williams Realty International. She worked on technology trends research, sourced startup companies for partnerships, and participated in special projects. During her time at Keller Williams, she even had opportunities to work directly with Gary Keller, founder, and CEO of KWRI. Krishna received her Bachelors of Arts with honors in Sociology and a minor in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.
Proptech Espresso is brought to you by Mark Hurst, owner and operator of HurstX Solutions.
Experienced CEO / senior leader across multiple industries Rick Altizer joined Earnnest in March 2019 from BP, where he was senior vice president of fuel sales and marketing for North America. He was named North America’s Fuels Leader of the Year in 2018 by Convenience Store magazine Prior to BP, Rick served as regional vice president for McDonald's, running a $1 billion region with 500 stores. He also served as president of Jiffy Lube International, vice president of marketing for Shell Oil Company, the first non-founder CEO of organic burger pioneer startup Elevation Burger and president of private-equity-owned McAlister's Deli. In 2020, he was named a RISMedia Newsmaker for his headline-making contributions to the real estate industry as CEO of Earnnest.
Under Rick’s leadership, digital payment maven Earnnest has raised over $5M in capital, increased revenue 15x and has grown staff 5x to 30 employees. Rick’s goal is to present Earnnest as “the one digital payment solution for the built world” beginning with residential real estate in the US.
Soner Hacihaliloglu started his professional carrier as Project Manager at Siemens Ares-account Technologies. After working 3 years in Building Technologies he was appointed as the MENA Region Business Development manager at E-on Ista Holding. During the time he served as a Business development manager he was responsible for the operations in 5 different countries in 3 continents. He set up operations from 0 to 50m Euro revenue in 2 years. Soner has been chosen as one of the best Innovators under 40 and Best young Energy Professional in the MENA region in 2017 and 2018. As of 2018, Soner is the CEO of BEAD Technologies, a company that has been awarded by the UN, Europe Union, Sustainable Management Assotioains as one of the best innovations in 2018.
00:01:12 Who is Soner and what is his professional, international background
00:02:10 How do you define Proptech?
00:03:21 How has the world changed in Proptech since Covid?
00:04:55 The notion of smart cities and how technology will change them
00:07:25 The biggest Proptech challenges facing the industry
00:09:28 How businesses want independence from real estate human interactions
00:10:57 The impact Covid has had on Proptech
00:12:33 Reducing overcrowding in buildings
00:14:49 What can we expect for the Covid future of real estate
00:18:06 Covid exposed international weaknesses
00:20:15 How siloed information limited tech flexibility
As the Chief Executive Officer, Mike Greene is responsible for all commercial activity at ResiShares.
Mike’s fascination with the housing market began with a guest lecture in his undergrad economics class by Nobel-winning economist Robert Shiller. The lecture focused on Shiller’s eponymous home price indices, which first drew attention to the possibility of liquid, geographically-based investment products.
During his 15 years in the securities industry, first on the sell-side and then as the head trader at Bocage Capital, Mike had a front-row seat to the rapid replacement of human discretion by algorithms in trade execution, portfolio optimization, risk analysis, and even asset selection. The implications of this evolution on the housing market were never far from his mind.
Mike left the securities industry in 2017 to focus on this new housing asset class, working with top SFR and whole loan investors at HouseCanary, leading home valuation and analytics platform. Witnessing the organic emergence of the single-family rental ecosystem convinced him that the world was finally ready to see Shiller’s challenge accepted.
ResiShares is the culmination of this career-long dream.
00:38 Who is Mike Greene?
02:09 How do you define proptech?
06:40 Why is proptech important right now and where are the challenges going forward?
08:52 Painful personal experience of real estate
11:01 What to expect the second half of 2020?
14:30 Doing well versus when tough times
16:36 Strategic priorities businesses need
18:22 Covid-19 crisis - How will that impact proptech?
19:37 What can you divulge about Resi Shares?
22:20 How to allocate money?
23:32 What city would you invest in first?
Proptech Espresso is brought to you by host Mark Hurst, owner and operator of HurstX Solutions.
Today's guest on Proptech Espresso is Wendy Gilch. Wendy is the CEO and Founder of Selling Later; an ally for consumers that let’s future home sellers and home buyers connect in advance. In addition to giving time back to consumers, Selling Later also peels back the layers of secrecy within the industry by educating consumers on the selling/buying process. Their unbiased platform creates a safe place for consumers to connect, without selling member information or participating in referrals programs. They believe that referral companies work against consumers and agents, and instead allow direct connections between future buyers and sellers. Their mission is to be a trusted ally for consumers by giving them time and transparency in real estate, while also supporting nonprofits.
Wendy is a graduate of Slippery Rock University (yes, it does exist) and currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and two kids (three if you count their dog). She believes that a successful founder focuses on solving a problem and supporting those that are making a difference in small communities.
Timestamps:
01:29 How is Proptech Defined
02:36 Why is Proptech still unknown?
04:07 What was compelling about becoming an entrepreneur
05:38 Challenges in selling real estate
08:18 A fear of missing out
11:19 How do you know if you have the best agent
14:54 How different groups are monetizing proptech
17:15 Real estate is such an asset class - with money to be made
19:45 Consumers are missing valuable allies
23:04 Determining who and what gets funded
27:23 The race to see who gets there first
30:44 How do we empower home buyers and home sellers
Proptech Espresso is brought to you by host Mark Hurst, owner and operator of HurstX Solutions.
Alex Villacorta is a pragmatic and enterprising Data Scientist with a diverse business and analytics catalog, delivering industry-validated analytical products through proven executive leadership. Engineer of advanced statistical models in both design and production implementation, attaining key intellectual property and multimillion-dollar contracts. Housing industry expert regularly cited in tier one media outlets for predictive housing analytics. He is an expert statistician and business executive combining over 10 years of statistical analysis in both consumer and business analytics with extensive board room communication experience.
00:43 Who is Alex Villacorta
01:40 How do you define Proptech
03:13 How things have changed in history
04:17 What is Proptech's biggest challenges?
05:41 Reason Proptech is so important today
08:52 The driving forces of shelter and safety
09:53 The ultimate vision
12:18 The vilification of models
14:00 Differentiating one's self from the fray
17:12 The tale of two cities
19:59 How covid changes our view of the work environment
24:36 Will people go back to their childhood communities?
27:42 American cities changing during Covid-19
30:17 Sharing homes - the new trends for multi-family and single-family dwellings
Matt is a strategy, innovation, and business development executive with deep experience in housing and community development, finance, and urban policy. He has a track record of creating value and revenue growth through discovering and conceiving new ventures, business planning, managing cross-sector teams, deal-making, and supporting entrepreneurship with a core focus at the intersection of technology and housing. His career experiences in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors support a deep commitment to civic engagement and problem-solving for the common good that brings disparate parties together.
Matt founded HousingTech Ventures to invest in early-stage companies with tech-enabled solutions that have the prospect to increase housing availability, attainability, and affordability. With over 20 years’ experience building businesses in the housing and technology sectors, Matt most recently served as Vice President of Innovation for Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., a national real estate financial services platform serving the affordable housing sector. In that role, he built an investment portfolio of HousingTech companies and led the launch of an online impact investing brokerage.
His previous experiences include serving as a policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and running a federal interagency taskforce on e-commerce; providing business strategy and policy consulting to high-tech and startup companies as Vice President of E-commerce at Infotech Strategies; and co-founding and running a real estate development company in Baltimore, Maryland.
He currently serves as an UrbanTech advisor to Dreamit Ventures, an Ivory Innovations Fellow, and member of the Multifamily Operating Standards Assessment & Improvement Council. Matt has served on numerous non-profit boards and currently chairs the real estate finance committee of Benedictine Programs & Services, which helps children and adults with developmental disabilities achieve their greatest potential and is undergoing a $40 million campus transformation.
He is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (MPP) and Brown University (BA).
00:28 Who is Matt Hoffman
01:57 Why is proptech defined so differently?
02:59 Real estate's impact on society
04:47 Evolution of the industry
06:01 Why is proptech important?
08:25 Market forces
11:13 Changing capital forces
12:21 Force of equity and social justice
14:21 How Covid-19 impacts the future
15:35 Wet, Dry and Scrub encounters
JP is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Data Collective Venture Capital. JP advises several early-stage organizations on GTM and product strategy. Prior to DCVC, JP started a residential lender - SimpleFinance led commercial efforts as EVP, Head of Sales at HouseCanary, and spent a decade at PulteGroup helping to manage the community portfolio, acquisitions, and dispositions. Through his roles, JP’s led partnership with SFR Operators, iBuyers, lobbying groups, governmental and rating agencies, capital providers, lenders, insurers, data providers, and analytics developers.00:30 Who is JP Ackerman
01:42 Defining Proptech
02:44 The Great Recession
04:03 Three stages of proptech
05:58 Are banks getting on board?
07:00 Globalization of the proptech industry
07:58 The most important area of proptech
10:46 Cost considerations
12:09 We still know very little
13:40 Challenges in the industry
14:20 Covid 19
16:18 How the industry has been impacted
19:35 A trend long underway
20:57 Employee mandates for work from home
23:05 How we define community has changed