Proptech Espresso

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.