Episodes

Why has hospitality tech only recently started to address the short-term rental space? What unique hospitality challenges do short-term rentals face but traditional hotels do not? What are the scale advantages of launching a startup in the US vs Europe? How does speaking to hundreds of customers synthesize the underlying problems they face? Why are there so many different needs amongst mom & pop property managers? What prompts many property managers to release the software they build for interna...

As an entrepreneur, what are the measures of success beyond an outsized financial exit? Which parties win most often in company sales? What is the attractiveness of real estate for a former tech founder? How will the lack of discipline in real estate investing be exposed by a bear market? Which real estate asset classes were most impacted by COVID? How does the ability to improve NOI contribute to proptech solution adoption? Proptech investor Zain Jaffer joins Proptech Espresso to answer these q...

Why do entrenched incumbents afford newcomers the opportunity to think about industry problems differently? How can established companies foster an ongoing entrepreneurial mindset? Why do entrepreneurs benefit from a lack of industry knowledge? How has data transparency and transaction process clarity empowered the homeowner in Canada? Does caring the most about the transaction result in homeowners selling above similar agent-led transactions? Lindsay Skabar - co-founder & CMO of Bōde, joins Pro...

What are the myriad of layers and people involved in getting a successful real estate deal done? Why is there an information gap on how to successfully build a downpayment for a home? Why have lenders historically neglect long term prospective customers? What are the creative ways in which people can obtain financing in order to purchase their first home? How can technology accelerate the savings for home down payments? Pat McLoughlin- co-founder of Digs by OJO Labs, joins Proptech Espresso to a...

How is the shift in the way people are living and working driving interest in the short-term rental market? What defines turnkey short-term rental investing and why is the appealing to prospective investors? What are the differences in serving mom & pop investors versus professional investors in the short-term rental space? What are the toughest scale challenges that short-term rental investors face when expanding their property portfolio? Trent Hawthorne - COO of Rabbu, joins Proptech Espresso ...

America's housing affordability crisis needs innovative solutions. Fortunately the Ivory Prize was established to spur this exact innovation, supporting companies and groups working on ambitious, feasible, and scalable solutions addressing this complex issue. The Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability focuses on solutions from three categories: construction and design, finance, and public and policy and regulatory reform. Abby Ivory and Jenna Louie from Ivory Innovation join Proptech Espresso to ...

How is technology evolving the full value chain of real estate assets? What are the technology categories that make up the built world? How do the unique needs of different real estate asset classes increase the complexity for developing vertical software solutions? Why have paper processes and human errors traditionally made insurance compliance the bane of property owners and operators? How does the friction from insurance compliance reduce transaction volume in and around real estate? Omri St...

What is GIS and why is this technology so important for real estate? Why is city planning at the core of almost every aspect of real estate? Why is lead follow up for sales people, inside and outside of real estate, such a struggle? What is conversational AI and why does it make sense to use this tech for sales lead follow up? How is the predictive analytics branch of AI being used in proptech today? Nate Joens- co-founder of Structurely, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and dis...

How does the scale of European and US proptech initiatives at the city level compare? How does the mix of proptech funding across residential, commercial, and retail differ in the US versus Europe? What are the seven key challenges of real estate that individuals and cities face regardless of geography? What inspired a physical manufacturer of door lock technology to innovate and create an entirely new SaaS platform to re-invent the smart lock industry? How has the door been transformed to be th...

How do the realities of a home being sold influence the spectrum of staging opportunities? How has virtual staging impacted the home selling process? What are the different relationship dynamics at play between the real estate agent, client, and stager when working on a sale listing? How does location and proximity come into play when considering staging services? How is Stagerie leveraging tech as a means of removing emotion from a highly emotional process? Nora Crosthwaite - founder and CEO o...

How solving key management issues for commercial markets unlocked (pun intended) multiple residential property management opportunities? How did technical innovation force a classic start-up pivot from PointCentral's original lockbox product? What are sensory buildings and how do IoT devices enhance these buildings to deliver improved resident experiences? How does PointCentral leverage its parent company Alarm.com's technology innovation to exploit opportunities in its established markets? Nate...

What is placemaking and how does this concept intersect with proptech? How has location data emerged to significantly improve decision making by expanding what is known beyond the limited data contained within the four walls of a building? What are location scores and how are these the backbone of Local Logic's product suite? Sara Maffey - Head of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Local Logic, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her desire to work withi...

Why was real estate industry operating like the wild west before the advent of the internet? How has the proptech space transformed over the last 20 years? What are the complexities of zoning in real estate and why is this the invisible hand in real estate development? Is real estate zoning a challenge globally? Are we incorrectly blaming zoning for real estate development issues or are development incentives simply not correctly aligned? Jason Doyle - CEO of Gridics joins Proptech Espresso to a...

How and why has the definition of proptech changed over the last ten years? Why is it important for founders to remain involved in sales discussions for early stage companies? What separates good and great product managers at tech companies? Who are some of the proptech companies to keep your eye on during 2022? Russell Smith - CRO of Earnnest, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share how buying his first house inspired him to improve the process for future homebuyers.

How can upheaval and uncertainty create opportunities in unexpected segments of the real estate market? What are the benefits of cutting your teeth in new real estate investment areas quickly and at scale? How has technology better enabled home sellers to market their homes? How can for sale by owner and real estate agents work together to have the best experience for all parties in a home transaction? PJ Mitchell - co-founder and COO of Sold.com, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these question...

Why are highly regulated industries difficult to innovate in? What are the challenges and opportunities of launching a startup during a global pandemic (while living in lockdown with your co-founders)? What are some of the ways in which real estate photos are underutilized? How has the real estate photo space been positively and negatively impacted by the huge adoption of smartphone cameras by agents Mert Karakus, Mine Kanso, and Ege Ozgirin - co-founders of Oda Studio, join Proptech Espresso to...

How has the role of the residential real estate agent changed over the last 15 years? Over the same time period, how has the technology that real estate agents rely on changed (beyond the demise of carbon copy contracts)? How did the benefits and learnings from traditional door knocking lead to the startup idea for Drop Offer? Greg Burns - co-founder and CEO of Drop Offer, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a start in construction management proved a unique backgro...

What is the flip side of crowdfunding for real estate investing? What can be done to increase the transparency in commercial real estate financing options to bring it on par with what is available in residential real estate? How do you successfully build and scale a commercial lending marketplace? How has the aggregation and up keep of supply side rates created an opportunity to carve out a valuable offering where most brokers choose not to engage with? Tim Milazzo - co-founder and CEO of StackS...

What is a social enterprise and how does this business model support more equitable homeownership? How has information asymmetry contributed to the inequality in homeownership rates? How did the lack of adequate information geared to the most vulnerable homeowners leave them susceptible to predatory scams during the 2008/9 financial crisis? With the wealth of information available online today, what role do homeowner education solutions play in increasing homeownership attainability? How has the...

What are the opportunities and challenges of founding and growing a tech company in the midwest? Why has the homebuying process not kept up with the technological evolution of other processes? How has the emergence of iBuyers changed the dynamics for home sellers? What opportunities exist for implementing machine learning techniques into property matching and recommendations? Jay Cambron - founder and CEO of Guidage (fka Offerbright), joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share ...

What integration challenges did hotel channel managers face in the early days of vacation rental marketplaces? Why is live 24 hour guest service a differentiator when the prevailing trend is to minimize human communication? What have been the challenges and advantages of growing a tech company in Canada? Has Europe caught up with the US in technical innovation adoption or does it remain somewhat behind? Mike Liverton - co-founder and Chairman of Jetsream Hospitality Solutions, joins Proptech Es...

How central is real estate photography to the home transaction process? What is the ecosystem of participants and content creation involved in real estate photography? Why has property imagery surpassed property details as the primary reason users surf listing portals? How has COVID accelerated the adoption of real estate photography technology over the past year? Branick Weix, Brendan Quinlan, and Matt Michalski- co-founders of Aryeo, join Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and enterta...

What are the pain points senior engineers contend with when managing hundred million dollar construction projects? Why are Facebook ads and LinkedIn messages not going to crack open the doors to decision-makers and influencers within construction firms? How did going to MIT's Sloan business school provided the opportunity to carve a new path within a construction career? Why has working with clients on construction sites been fundamental to building trust with construction company customers? How...

Why has omnichannel marketing not been as successful within real estate as in other industries? Why have real estate agents historically resisted adopting new technologies into their businesses? How has the elongate sales cycle of real estate been a challenge for lead nurturing for agents? What are the emerging opportunities for social media marketing for today's real estate agent? Ajay Pondicherry - co-founder and CEO of Block Party, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and explai...