Beyond the Box - Exploring the New Paradigm of Real Estate, Technology and Capital

Introducing Perch, a digital real estate ecosystem that helps people get into homes faster and build wealth through real estate after they’ve become homeowners. CEO and Founder, Alex Leduc was convinced that real estate was destined for a digitized future but it hasn’t been evolving fast enough to keep up with the market. Through his passion and determination, Alex was able to create this brilliant solution by taking the time to put in the groundwork before fully committing to the business (including going through food courts and asking strangers for feedback on the concept!).

Listen here as Alex takes Mike McAra through his entrepreneurial journey and how Perch can help make homeownership less of a dream and more of a reality.

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

Water. It sustains all life and is the most important commodity! Conservation efforts are a global effort but it can be hard to know how you can make an impact. That’s where Watrix comes in. 

Lynette Keyowski sat with co-founders, Uri Sokolov and Yaniv Frydman on today’s Beyond the Box episode to learn how they are tackling this Global issue of water conservation and flood mitigation. To top it off, Watrix is one of REACH Canada’s Class of 2022 companies and hails from Tel Aviv, Israel!

With a simple product that easily installs onto any water system, the team is addressing the most costly problem for properties everywhere, while helping conserve one of  the most precious resources we have, they truly are making the world a better place for all!

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

Coming from a computer engineering and construction background, CEO and Founder, Sam Mehrbod, took the golden opportunity to marry together his love of technology and real estate by creating Roomvu. Roomvu is a marketing platform that tailors localized content specifically for agents. Sam found that data within the market was extremely important to real estate professionals but not everyone in the space has access to the data nor the resources to create the content from the data.  

Watch/listen now as Sam tells our host Lynette Keyowski how Roomvu is skyrocketing agents’ productivity and sales by taking the time-consuming workload off of their backs so they can focus on the more important work… helping their clients! 

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

It’s been a while… Did you miss us? We missed you…and we have a question for ya! 

How do you manage your online identity? As one of the most sensitive assets we have, it’s always top of mind and should be dealt with care on every level. When it comes to tech, it's even more important that identity is dealt with the utmost care which brings us to Certn, our guest on today’s podcast.

In this episode of Beyond the Box, Mike McAra had the privilege of speaking with Founder of Certn, Evan Dalton. Certn is a people data company that helps business owners and companies know who they’re bringing into their business, either customers or employees. They also help financial institutions risk assess clients, no big deal! 

Listen now to the incredible story of how this Canadian company started out and came to be the fast-growing and innovative business it is now. According to Evan, it is all about being fluid and pivoting!! 

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

Ever wanted to know what the “Best kept secret in Proptech” was….? Keep reading to find out!! 

Sasha Hryciuk, CEO and Founder of Loft47 immediately saw an issue that needed quick resolving when she entered the real estate industry in 2010. Now, she is actively alleviating that pain with her CRO and partner-in-crime, Tracy Simmons. 

Loft47 is a seamless online platform that helps brokerages manage and track their back-office systems. Previously, brokers had to oversee their own financial data independently or contract a third party to provide that service, both options taking up considerable resources. Though either was possible, Sasha knew there had to be a more efficient way of covering all bases. Stepping back from real estate, she took a peek into the tech world and she learned what was available and what could be done. 

Listen now to learn how Sasha, Tracy and the team tackled such a colossal and widespread problem that many find “boring”. You will NOT guess what they achieved by simply collecting feedback from brokers!! 

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

“If you are starting a business today and you are not just making money but you are also not looking after the planet or its people, you are doing a huge disservice to not only yourself but everyone else.”

 

This was the realization that CEO and Founder of Rise had after reading “Let My People Go Surfing”, written by Yvon Chouinard, CEO of the strongly mission-driven company Patagonia. As he followed his passion for entrepreneurialism and found issues with his own renovation experience, Matt knew immediately that sustainability should be at the forefront of his business plan. In today’s Beyond the Box we take a deep-dive in learning how Matt started what has become the defacto online wikipedia for all things sustainable home renovations!

 

Matt dives in and explains how Rise is not only an e-store that provides sustainable house-building materials for all who are looking to build or renovate in a more eco-friendly way but also a key resource for all (homeowners and real estate agents included) to discover and learn about sustainable building materials. By offering us the tool to self-educate and fill the gap that Matt experienced firsthand, Rise continues to trailblaze the path forward on sustainable living through their online courses and media while also making it easy and efficient to be environmentally mindful. 

 

Listen here to know more about Rise and how you can make a true difference in the world: 

 

Educational courses: https://www.buildwithrise.com/continuing-education 

 

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

Led by the charismatic and well-read Hassan Riggs, Smart Alto works hard to acquire and nurture leads for high-performing agents with the help of Inside Sales Agents (ISAs) who work around the clock. Put another way, they have quickly become the lead qualification superpower for agents!

 

Entrepreneurial since childhood and growing up in a service-focussed family, Hassan realized early on how important relationship building truly is. Speaking from experience, he explains how customer-facing skills are extremely underrated and shares the wisdom of his Mom who said “IQ will get you good grades but EQ will make you wealthy”.

 

Find Hassan on Instagram and Facebook for more enlightening conversation topics!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RealEstateMarketingMastermindGroup/

 

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

Our host Mike McAra had the pleasure of sitting down with  Lucas Rotter, CEO and Co-founder of Valcre (NAR REACH Commercial Class of 2021). Valcre is an appraisal software solution that helps alleviate the pain of managing appraisals. It can be a hassle collecting and aggregating all the important information you need to create an appraisal report and Valcre does it all for you! 

 

Lucas discusses his previous experience with this painstaking process and how he was able to develop the technology to solve the issue with a strong executive team. New technology is always difficult to introduce to an old-fashioned industry (appraisal offices being a massive part of that ecosystem) but in Lucas’ case, it was definitely worth pushing for!

_______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

As many startups start a new quarter and look towards the year ahead, raising capital may be top of their 2022 To Do List. Today, we look at investments from a VC firm’s perspective through the eyes of Prashant Matta, Partner at Panache Ventures. 

Prashant has a unique Global perspective on current trends from his past travels before eventually returning to Canada and kicking off Panache in 2018. He and Mike McAra discuss what seed rounds look like as the market fluctuates, how founders need to be mindful of firms’ investment theses (not all VCs are the same!) and how each geological region has different skill sets, meaning one is not necessarily better than one another. 

Listen now to gain a more grounded vision of how VCs determine where to put their money and what founders should truly be cognizant of when looking to raise.

 _______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.

On today’s Beyond the Box, we are grateful for our colleague, Ashkan Zandieh, EIR for Second Century Ventures, as he walks us through his journey in Commercial real estate. Ashkan is truly a Jack-of-all-trades and the epitome of “you get what you put in”. From starting his career in the music industry to stumbling into real estate tech and making waves by simply “being open to change and constantly disrupting (himself)”. A Forbes article here, an acquisition there, and Ash is now taking his learnings and sharing them with Proptech entrepreneurs in the REACH ecosystem. 

 _______________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: Views expressed in the podcast are not the views of REACH Canada, Second Century Ventures, the National Association of REALTORS® (“Reach”) or its respective affiliates.