Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
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Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
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Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#2I'd be interested in hearing concrete ideas we can do today. Apartment search just doesn't strike me as a viable new startup. Am I wrong?
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#3You're missing a closing ")" on p class="pad"
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#4I'd be interested in hearing concrete ideas we can do today. Apartment search just doesn't strike me as a viable new startup. Am I wrong?
Aggregation. Aggregate services. Guy who made padmapper.com just aggregated all listings from various sites.
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#5The other big win is the amount of money in Real Estate. When most transactions have fees on the order of 6%, there's a lot of money sloshing around to pick up.
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#6I'd be interested in hearing concrete ideas we can do today. Apartment search just doesn't strike me as a viable new startup. Am I wrong?
I completely agree.
Apartment search is, in my opinion, the hardest rental vertical to try to tackle, mostly because solutions the 2 sided market traction problem have been elusive.
It also seems to be the most common one that founders attempt.
In contrast, rent applications, management software, online rent payment portals are value providing from customer #1.
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#7I'd be interested in hearing concrete ideas we can do today. Apartment search just doesn't strike me as a viable new startup. Am I wrong?
Online rent payment. Rent and taxes are my only regular expenses that aren't automatically deducted from my credit card or bank account. And even the IRS accepts online (albeit manual) payments. In fact, rent is the only reason I have a paper checkbook at all.
It's an easy win on both sides. In exchange for letting me schedule automatic payments, my landlord could get much more timely payments. I think I'm reasonably responsible as folks go, but still occasionally forget to mail a check on time.
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#8This is a classic case of where the kinds of technical founders that cruise HN shouldn't be trying to invent their own thing, but rather find a boring "business" subject matter expert as a co-founder. There are lots and lots of these things, where businesspeople see a gap that can be solved by tech but don't have the skills to do it.
My advice to all the kids out of college who want to be startup founders - don't try to come up with your own idea, because you don't know enough about business or the world to get a good one (hence the plethora of cheap social knockoffs that will never go anywhere). Instead, go find some older, experienced businessperson who wants to solve a problem in a non-technical space they understand deeply, and work with them. You're much more likely to succeed that way.
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#9I'd be interested in hearing concrete ideas we can do today. Apartment search just doesn't strike me as a viable new startup. Am I wrong?
I think you need to think larger than real estate is only finding a place to live.
Who are the actors of this market? Tenants, property manager, property owner, super intendant, etc. What do they need to do? Pay their rent, ask for maintenance, send paperwork, track their tenants, track their expenses, etc.
Their is plenty of stuff that could be done. Now I'm pretty sure some or all of these are already addressed by some company.
Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders
#10I'd be interested in hearing concrete ideas we can do today. Apartment search just doesn't strike me as a viable new startup. Am I wrong?
I've talked to a few startups doing interesting things like loading building designs into 3D game engines and letting real estate agents meet and talk with potential investors/buyers in the space itself. This sort of thing normally gets done by phone, Skype, pre-rendered videos, or rare and difficult to arrange trips to the site or design offices. If an investor is visiting from China and only in the US for 10 days and is checking out a dozen different hotels to fund building, there just isn't much time on the trip side of things. So there's lots of room for improvement.