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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

#71
I currently work at a Real Estate startup. It's a very interesting space with an enormous amount of opportunity for innovation including search, mortgages, notaries, inspections, document delivery/storage, legal, moving, CRM, etc.

If any ruby/rails engineers in the bay area are looking for a new gig send me an email. I'm trying to hire people!

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#72
post #64
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's the Dirty Jobs of tech, fuck what's cool, do what pays the bills. The best part about doing what pays is that the next generation of college kids are trying to disrupt Facebook (Snapchat/IG, God I'm getting old), rather than fuck with your massively profitable app doing lead gen for mortgage origination, that no one outside of your outside sales team has ever heard of, nor do you have to deal with whether…

Something I've said for many years, long before I decided to do my own startup... "Jobs suck. That's why they pay you. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have to pay you." It's advice I would give the friends of my teenage children, and friends of mine in their 20s who were trying to decide what to do when they grew up (lots of them artists/creatives who were frustrated with poverty). So if you're doing a startup, the…

Definitely agree, my goal is to be wealthy. eg. The rich have money, the wealthy have time.

That's basically what I'm doing in the finance space, got a domain expert on the sell side with money, I know the compliance side and how to relate to both labour and money (as well as code). Hired a designer so it doesn't look like crap and a coder so I'm not going to be stuck at the keyboard forever.

Btw, your company looks really interesting, just signed up for your list.

As they say, don't dig for gold, sell shovels.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#73
post #39
post #2

I'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?

A hardware/software solution that improves the current notary journal by adding location data, biometric identification & backups. Right now, title company notaries go through multiple journals a year and journals have been lost.

I like this idea. However, the money notaries make is so low, I doubt they would purchase a dedicated device. However, if you made a touch-screen app where the client could sign it, take a picture of their ID, and the rest, you might be on to something. Build it, then get one of the notary associations to adopt it.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#74
post #8

This 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…

So the funny thing for me is I'm the one who works in commercial real estate, know the problems deeply, and have little technical experience other than reading HN. So how do you reverse cruise HN to find the technical cofounder to build out the solutions to our RE problems? I literally sit within a company run by excel spreadsheets, talk on a phone with brokers, manage market information via printed pdfs of comps, ma…

Cruising HN probably isn't the place to find founders, honestly. Where do you live? Is there an established startup community there? Make friends in IT, and get introductions. Go to meetups.

Meanwhile, narrow yourself down to a single problem that you think offers maximum opportunity and minimum scope and risk, something that can be tackled with a MVP (minimum viable product). Design workflows. Learn wireframing. Create a business entity. Do everything you possibly can on your own that advances the project without actually writing the code. The farther along you are and the more viable it looks, the easier it will be for you to get a coder to help you.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#75
post #8

This 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…

So the funny thing for me is I'm the one who works in commercial real estate, know the problems deeply, and have little technical experience other than reading HN. So how do you reverse cruise HN to find the technical cofounder to build out the solutions to our RE problems? I literally sit within a company run by excel spreadsheets, talk on a phone with brokers, manage market information via printed pdfs of comps, ma…

Learn to code. At least enough to prototype ideas.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#76
post #72
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I've said for many years, long before I decided to do my own startup... "Jobs suck. That's why they pay you. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have to pay you." It's advice I would give the friends of my teenage children, and friends of mine in their 20s who were trying to decide what to do when they grew up (lots of them artists/creatives who were frustrated with poverty). So if you're doing a startup, the…

Definitely agree, my goal is to be wealthy. eg. The rich have money, the wealthy have time. That's basically what I'm doing in the finance space, got a domain expert on the sell side with money, I know the compliance side and how to relate to both labour and money (as well as code). Hired a designer so it doesn't look like crap and a coder so I'm not going to be stuck at the keyboard forever. Btw, your company looks…

It'll look a lot more interesting once the next rev of the website comes out, but right now I'm deep in coding mode. :) The code is telling me a lot about the product. Looking to go into beta in late spring at this rate. Drop me an email and I'll tell you more!

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#77
post #8

This 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…

So the funny thing for me is I'm the one who works in commercial real estate, know the problems deeply, and have little technical experience other than reading HN. So how do you reverse cruise HN to find the technical cofounder to build out the solutions to our RE problems? I literally sit within a company run by excel spreadsheets, talk on a phone with brokers, manage market information via printed pdfs of comps, ma…

I've done a ton of this type of stuff for the medical and insurance industry. I'm not looking to be a technical co-founder but if you need input I could definitely tell you what you need and what to look for.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#78
post #68

Very true, I'm currently experiencing the same problems. I am a medium size landlord in NY, owning a nice mix of 1-4 family homes, a few mixed use commercial buildings, and an apartment building. I mostly buy homes, renovate, and rent out, but occasionally resell as well. My technological needs as a landlord are completely unmet with affordable and worthwhile solutions. It is unmet to the point where in the last year…

What is your contact information ?

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#79

The counterargument is that there are so many financially entrenched interests, you'll find you can't make any headway against them. I can't count the number of tech people I've heard say they want to create a website that will get rid of the horrible broker system of renting apartments in NYC. But that requires convincing landlords to do something different, and so far they have had zero financial incentive to do so…

If the renter isn't paying the broker, they can spend more on rent.

I am living in my 6th apartment in the NYC area, and my 4th in Manhattan proper, and I still haven't paid a broker. Thousands of dollars is too much to pay people for opening doors.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#80
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the funny thing for me is I'm the one who works in commercial real estate, know the problems deeply, and have little technical experience other than reading HN. So how do you reverse cruise HN to find the technical cofounder to build out the solutions to our RE problems? I literally sit within a company run by excel spreadsheets, talk on a phone with brokers, manage market information via printed pdfs of comps, ma…

Learn to code. At least enough to prototype ideas.

That's why I suggested wireframing. You don't need to learn to code in order to design a site for someone else to code.
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