Episodes

Are there industries outside of real estate where the asset has as many lifecycles? What were some of the problems that Vikas dealt with at Amazon Robotics while working with AEC professionals when building new logistics warehouses? How did growing up in a family-owned manufacturing business influence Vikas' later career pursuits? Where did Vikas' early interest in robotics come from? Why is system design as important as the underlying R&D in robotics? What is a mobile electronics company? Why w...

In major real estate downturns, who has all the real estate business? What do real estate agents need to do differently in a real estate recession? What was the innovation that Trulia and Zillow brought to the home buying industry? Why has Zillow been detrimental to so many real estate agents? What middlemen artificially add costs to the home purchase transaction? How did Rob transition from being a vendor of Chad's to being an investor and co-founder in his technology solution? Why has professi...

Should proptech be defined as a technology that solves a problem in the real estate industry? What made programming easier for Eleni than learning to read and write English? Why is computer science considered a creative science? What were the challenges of often being the sole female student in computer science classes? How did Eleni convince her father to switch from investing in commercial real estate to residential real estate? What was so attractive about the opportunity to join Wise Agent? ...

What inspired Karly and Alena to found Hardline and how did their professional journeys shape the company’s mission? What are the biggest operational pain points Karly saw construction teams face that technology failed to address effectively? How does Hardline define “on-site tech enablement” and why is this an overlooked opportunity in the broader contech space? What were the early customer signals that validated the need for Hardline’s solution? How did time in the field influence Hardline's p...

Why is creating real value for the end customer critical for startups to ensure a going concern? How has construction become responsible for such a large portion of global pollution? What did Jennifer observe about the construction space that she identified as a process opportunity for differentiating her firm from competitors? Why is there so much mistrust within construction? What about the tangibility of construction was so compelling to Jennifer? Why was starting a construction business duri...

What are the similarities between the terms 'proptech' and 'I love you'? Why was learning to speak English so important for Oscar? What lessons on entrepreneurship did Oscar learn from being a real estate agent? Why is it important to break out of your comfort zone and put yourself in uncomfortable situations? What did Oscar learn about himself after working as an accountant for several months? Why is making mistakes so critical for entrepreneurs? How did the decision to build an internationa...

How are Norway and the Upper East Side related in Joachim's mind? Why did Joachim decide to pursue a corporate job after initially starting as an entrepreneur? What makes 40 year old entrepreneurs more likely to succeed than some of their younger counterparts? What sparked the entrepreneurial desire within Joachim? How did Joachim and his team turn a customer's bankruptcy into a spinout opportunity for a new product company? Why have shared spaces in multifamily buildings been largely ignored by...

Jenna Louie , Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer of Ivory Innovations, joins Proptech Espresso to announce the winners of the seventh annual Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability. This year's winners were selected from a record 280+ nominations within Construction & Design, Finance, and Policy & Regulatory Reform. These companies represent the most compelling and novel housing innovation solutions directly addressing the widening housing affordability crisis in the US.

What are the primary differences between Proptech 1.0, Proptech 2.0, and today's Proptech 3.0? In what way did Brian's consulting work quickly change as financial firms navigated the Great Financial Crisis? What was it like to be at the forefront of the technology revolution within investment management that led to quant investing? Why did Brian get the chance to build a reinsurance business from the ground up and how did this work establish his credentials for raising institutional capital? How...

How does proptech differ for asset classes depending on the customer needs and expectations? Has AI adoption and development todate been more front-of-house or back-of-house? Why are American management consulting firm jobs so sought after by recent university graduates in the UK? What was it like working on a consulting engagement for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London? How did experiencing corporate bloat while on engagements as a management consultant translate into a bias for operating ve...

What was it about political theory that convinced Julie to study political science at university? What was occurring within the technology industry that created an opportunity for Facebook to do things in new ways for consumers which resonated with Julie and drew her to work there? Why was it so fascinating to be leading corporate development for a well-positioned adtech firm during the period of mass consolidation? What about management consulting strategy work led Julie to definitively know sh...

What sort of building inspections are required in Europe before a building is taken down? As someone new to tech startups, what were the lessons learned from building the Airbnb for boat holidays from the ground up? What did participating in Antler's startup accelerator program lead to for Ieva? How does circularity in construction prolong the life of a material and prevent it from entering a dump? What are the factors driving the recent surge in interest in circular construction? How is Materia...

Why is there no user manual to run your house? Are the critical thinking skills you learn as an English literature major valuable in your work and personal life? How did Katie never study in college and become an auditory learner? What about the auditory learning skill set that Katie picked up in college lead to a career in tech? How did a summer job in Manhattan between high school and college lead to an interest in business? Why was developing a streamlined implementation process for a hospita...

Has proptech over the last decade or so become largely an attempt by entrepreneurs to throw process optimization software at real estate operations? What are micro-apartments and why did this approach of better space utilization largely fail to take hold within the built world? Why haven't innovations such as moving walls and transforming furniture become mainstream components in multi-family living and residential housing? What is data driven architecture? Why are we designing and building home...

Did Bryan coin the term IoT? Does a built world vendor ecosystem framework of Design, Finance, Build, and Use cover all categories? Why do proptech startups take a while to validate and establish? How has Autodesk become so integrated in today's built environment projects? What led Autodesk to invest heavily in construction tech? Why is there almost no payroll in the residential homebuilding industry outside of public homebuilders? Why is timely payment so important for homebuilding GCs? Is ther...

Did Mark Andreessen's famous essay about software eating the world lead to the term Proptech being coined? How did having family members who were real estate investors, developers, and property tax collectors establish a deep foundation of real estate understanding for a young Joseph? What allowed Jospeh's grandfather, an immigrant hairdresser, to become a land baron in the northeast? Why are the off-the-shelf assessment models used by tax districts inherently flawed? What early entrepreneurial ...

When understanding the definition of proptech, why does it make sense to look at who the definition is serving? How did a mechanical engineering student make their way to the Boston tech startup scene? What was it like building a social networking company during the pre-Facebook days? Why was Boston the wrong place to try to raise capital for a consumer technology startup in the early 2000s? What was the difference between Amazon and most other e-commerce companies during the post dot-com days? ...

Does exposure to family entrepreneurship at an early age impact the likelihood of pursuing a startup later in life How extensively is fractional ownership touching the different real estate asset classes? Why is it important to get experience receiving a lot of "NO's" when pursuing a startup idea? Why is it important to find a champion when introducing a new product to a corporation? How did helping stand up the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) during COVID at Capital One prove to be an invaluab...

How did an Environmental Sciences degree lead to a career in sustainability? How did attending DesignX at MIT sow the seeds for TULU? Why did Yael become a minimalist? Where did the name TULU originate? Why did TULU believe fast experimentation was extremely important when building an MVP? What did TULU learn early on about customer preferences and did the usage data bear this out? How is the TULU app helping it become a data driven company? Why are brands and retailers partnering with TULU and ...

What was it like to be involved with the European proptech scene as it started to gain momentum and formalize into a tech space? How did a Latvian trait of resourcefulness continually re-enforced by his grandfather inspire Mikus to provide real estate agents with tools to help them create visualizations themselves? Why did the first wave of VR tools and solutions lead to bespoke and niche visualization projects for high-end real estate? When brainstorming ideas for his next company, what drove M...

How did an investigation into 3D printing houses spark an interest in real estate? On ICON's first marketing flyers, what price did they believe they would be able to sell their 3D printed homes for? Why does Germany build denser housing than the US? Why are there so few books on real estate development? What makes local city real estate decisions so difficult to identify and analyze? How does the age/maturity of a city influence the types of real estate decisions being made? What unintentional ...

How did an early career in consulting shape an understanding of the need to deliver both on time and at the highest level of quality? Why is it important for entrepreneurs to be able to step into the shoes of their customers every single day? What are some of the challenges of long-term business planning that the quarterly reporting cycle for public companies creates? How does investing in real estate provide more predictability on outcomes vs other alternative investment markets? Why is communi...

Does construction tech end once occupancy of a building happens? Why is it important to be able to professionally reinvent yourself? What was the draw to the clean tech space after spending time in the aerospace industry? Why has construction insurance costs ballooned? What can GCs do to mitigate risk and thereby help keep insurance costs in check? Why has water become such a larger driver of construction related insurance costs? What have been the drivers of IoT device adoption on the construct...

What was it like growing up as part of a multi-generational family construction business? How did being immersed in the family construction business provide unique benefits while working on Bryce's master degree in college? Why were the inefficiencies that Bryce observed in the asphalt industry such a professional draw for him? How do you change the image of the construction industry as being unsexy, consisting of long hours, and lots of callouses? Why has the adoption of technology accelerated ...