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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

#111

Post by nl »

crazygringo wrote: post #24

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…

The author isn't trying to disrupt the industry, they want to build software for the entrenched players. That's what makes it easier.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#112

Post by ezl »

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #87

Firstly I'm the founder and owner of LandlordMax Software ( http://www.LandlordMax.com ), a property management software company. The company has been in business for over 10 years now and has been growing quite well over the years: http://www.followsteph.com/2013/08/07/landlordmax-2012-2013-... The real reason you don't see many new flashy new trendy apps is that creating real estate related generally a hard problem…

@followsteph: a ton of respect for what you've done.

How do you acquire most of your customers?

What channels have been most effective for growth?

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#115

Post by charliecauthen »

eff3x4 wrote: 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…

I would love to discuss your needs with you. Please let me know how I can reach you when you have a chance.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#116

Post by FollowSteph3 »

ezl wrote: post #112
FollowSteph3 wrote: post #87

Firstly I'm the founder and owner of LandlordMax Software ( http://www.LandlordMax.com ), a property management software company. The company has been in business for over 10 years now and has been growing quite well over the years: http://www.followsteph.com/2013/08/07/landlordmax-2012-2013-... The real reason you don't see many new flashy new trendy apps is that creating real estate related generally a hard problem…

@followsteph: a ton of respect for what you've done. How do you acquire most of your customers? What channels have been most effective for growth?

Thank you!

And in terms of customer acquisition, it's the same general stuff, SEO, Adwords, etc. I would like to say there's nothing special, but a lot of it comes from trial and error over time. Knowing what works and what doesn't. What has the highest ROI, etc.

The biggest thing for us though is that word of mouth is really strong, and that's something you can't just buy through normal channels ;)

That's means building a good product, making sure it works, basically taking the time to develop your product rather than just being a checklist of half baked features that are barely working.

It also means you need good customers service. You can't just outsource it to the cheapest provider and throw it over the wall. This is a great differentiator, especially earlier on in your business lifecycle.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#117

Post by graham1776 »

wtracy wrote: post #99
pseut wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Imgur for Excel" is the most disorienting startup summary I've ever seen. We must use imgur differently... or Excel. If any of your ideas would be potentially useful internally too, you might be better off hiring people rather than finding a cofounder.

I suspect he's after something a little like Google Docs? Otherwise, following his description literally, he wants a web-based way to share read-only copies of random spreadsheets.

I think you hit it on the head. Think what scribd and slideshare did for .docx and .pptx

I am constantly searching for datasets from Government websites, market data, etc. Wolfram alpha has the data but its not free. The federal government data is bloated and takes forever to parse. Why couldn't someone post an excel sheet of the data for everyone to use?

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#118

Post by tim333 »

davemel37 wrote: post #105

For those that think real estate tech is wide open, here is a guide of 101 tech startups (and some established ones) I found in the Commercial real estate space... I found these by browsing tags in angellist, crunchbase, and attendee and exhibitor lists of CRE tech conferences, etc... None of this touches the internal tech many large brokerages build for their own workflows... http://www.papershare.com/paper/101-tech…

My papershare asks for a stupid bunch of stuff before it'll let you read anything. For twitter it demands the right to edit my profile and tweet on my behalf for example.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#119

Post by jeffmess »

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #87

Firstly I'm the founder and owner of LandlordMax Software ( http://www.LandlordMax.com ), a property management software company. The company has been in business for over 10 years now and has been growing quite well over the years: http://www.followsteph.com/2013/08/07/landlordmax-2012-2013-... The real reason you don't see many new flashy new trendy apps is that creating real estate related generally a hard problem…

Hi @FollowSteph. You mention that it takes at least 2-3 years to get a good product going. Curiously, how many developers did you have for those initial 3 years?
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