The Founder's Room

Today we interview Aston Haslam - A 28-year-old Manchester-based property investor discusses his background in e-commerce and building a property portfolio focused on social housing and supported living, plus his property community, the Members Club. He explains how the problems of not knowing what’s happening inside managed properties led to creating DAXOME, a hardware-and-software platform using in-home sensors, CCTV and AI to monitor humidity, safety and behavioural patterns, trigger alerts, and help prevent issues like damp and mold, leaks, and excessive heating use.

The episode covers DAXOME’s rollout in around 15 houses, plans for streamlined installation and manufacturing, the target market of social and supported living providers, pricing (about £900+ install and £50/month), scaling challenges around installation cost and grants, bootstrapping with a sweat-equity build, and the founders’ goal to sell the company within 3 to 5 years.

Chapters:
00:00 Meet the Founder
00:44 Property Pain Points
02:46 What DAXOME Does
04:08 Alerts and Compliance
06:28 Five Year Exit Plan
07:39 AI Bubble and Moats
09:02 Launch and Testing
10:51 Hardware Scaling Vision
13:04 Target Market and Niching
14:35 Pricing and Revenue Model
18:32 Bootstrapping and Team
21:09 Private Resi Use Cases
24:26 How the Partners Met
26:04 Three Partner Skill Split
27:55 Why Partners Beat Solo
29:51 Fast Decisions Need Balance
31:52 Two Growth Needle Movers
32:19 Grants And Install Costs
33:30 Personal Brand Awareness
36:09 Scaling Installs With Vans
39:47 Funding Strategy And Order Book
41:46 Quickfire Lessons And Wrap