Proptech Espresso – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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 international relocation consultancy come about? Why was the COVID pandemic so devastating for Oscar's original business? What insight caused Oscar to rethink the business strategy around international mobility and transform the business into a software technology platform for all key stakeholders? Which issues were international students and professionals facing regarding their residencies post move-in that pointed to the need for a holistic real estate management solution? Why are professionals increasingly seeking international work experiences?

Oscar Rubio - CEO and co-founder of Lodgerin, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how attending university internationally helped him develop the necessary expertise to reinvent himself as a relocation expert for students and professionals.

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 technology device vendors? What is Defigo doing with AI to help solve building accessibility issues that handicapped residents face? Why is the ease of Defigo installation a major point of pride for Joachim? What is Defigo's integration strategy with other solution providers? Why is Defigo exploring a white label strategy for its access device solution?

Joachim Stray - CEO and founder of Defigo joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the differences between selling and GTM strategies in the US and Europe, including the relative importance of security between the different regions.

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 hustles did Joseph dabble in growing up and why was it important to ensure these ventures paid for themselves? Why did Joseph forgo a role at Nvidia to continue his PhD track at UCLA? Do overassessment protests result in cities and municipalities getting less tax revenue necessary to balance annual budgets? What does the property tax appeal process look like and why are there opportunities to digitize and scale this? What were Ownwell's initial quick wins from a technology perspective? How do differences around local tax districts impact the information mined and presented to Ownwell's in-house tax protestors? How are the needs of individual homeowners different from those of large commercial real estate portfolio owners around property tax savings?

Joseph Noor - co-founder and CTO of Ownwell, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a chance encounter at a UCLA startup pitch competition brought about the convergence of his computer science studies and family heritage in real estate resulting in the launch of Ownwell.

Why have commercial real estate agents historically shied away from short-term rental needs? What are the issues with subleasing which cause parties to avoid the obvious solution? How can you automate the commercial leasing process which typically takes months and teams of lawyers? How do you build a two sided real estate marketplace where everyone wins? What impact has Amazon had on commercial warehousing in the US?

Brad Wright - CEO of Chunker, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and address the impact of COVID-19 on the global supply chain.

How does the complexity of real estate transactions create an opportunity for technology to improve the overall experience? What similarities exist between the adtech and proptech industries? How can the playing field be leveled for families and individuals that want to purchase homes and build communities? What can be done to empower real estate agents to help their clients in hyper competitive bidding situations?

Lindsay Van Kirk - VP, Sales and Operation at Ribbon joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and address the opportunity for seller agents to support the broader communities in which the live and work by discussing how home sales is much more than just a financial transaction.

Why does being an entrepreneur equip a founder to expect the unexpected? What lessons did Scott learn from losing almost everything in the 2009 financial crisis? What are the unique investment insights that Privy has built into it's solution to help individual investors make decisions? Why should novice real estate investors avoid the lure of gurus and the guarantees that the promise?

Scott Fahl - Founder & CEO of Privy joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and share the many ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey in real estate.

Can the current housing crisis be solved with technology? How have different government policies and social forces contributed to economic and racial inequality in housing? How is the Terner Center advancing innovative policies to influence the way government at all levels is directing money towards creative ways to address housing needs? What successes have the first cohort class from the Housing Lab achieved after the program?

Michelle Boyd - Program Director for the Housing Lab, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and address the need for an equitable recovery from COVID-19.

Michelle Boyd is the Program Director for the Housing Lab, the Terner Center’s program to support early-stage entrepreneurs tackling the high cost of housing. She brings nearly a decade of experience in community and startup finance, organizational design, and urban policy research. Prior to joining the Terner team, Michelle worked as a strategy consultant for the Bridgespan Group, collaborating with nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and foundation leaders across issues of community development, housing, and education. Michelle holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business, an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Real Estate from UC Berkeley, and a BA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. Michelle also serves as a Chamberlin Fellow with the Urban Land Institute.

In today's world, should we still be defining businesses along the traditional lines of product and services? How is proptech evolving and accelerating in India and surrounding markets? Can co-living recreate the missing physical connections of communities that increased internet usage has greatly reduced? Ajay Kumar - co-founder and CEO of TheHouseMonk, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss the path to building an international platform for centralized rental real estate management.


Ajay Kumar has been involved in the real estate and proptech domains for close to 7 years. He started Cozee Homes in 2014 as a coliving and rental management company in India and scaled it to 1,000 rental units under management. After exiting the business in 2018, he set up TheHouseMonk - The operating system for rental real estate. The platform helps property managers streamline their portfolio operations and enhance the tenancy experience. Currently,  100+ companies across 12 countries use TheHouseMonk to manage their business.
Ajay also runs RealEstateXTechnology - A newsletter about 'Modern real estate and the technologies that impact it', which has close to 3,000 subscribers. 

Are differing US municipal codes causing fragmentation challenges and thus preventing broader proptech adoption? Why isn't the home a more integral part of the financial advisor planning process? What causes people to talk about homeownership as a financial investment but in reality don't treat it as a financial investment? Why is financial flexibility so important for homeowners? Joe Cianciolo - Co-Founder & CEO of HomePace, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and much more.


Joe Cianciolo is co-founder and CEO of HomePace, Inc.  HomePace enables consumers to achieve their financial goals by providing them to access their home equity without taking on additional debt or interest.

Prior to founding HomePace, Joe was Head of Business Development at Unison.

Joe was previously an executive at FutureAdvisor where he joined as its fifth employee and first non-engineering hire.  As Head of Sales & Business Development, he was responsible for creating and leading client acquisition and revenue-generating functions at FutureAdvisor, driving the firm's growth in assets under management from less than $10 million to over $1 billion in less than 3 years.  Following FutureAdvisor's acquisition by BlackRock, Joe led commercial strategy and distribution for BlackRock's Digital Wealth Technology platform.  

Joe began his career as an investment banker at Thomas Weisel Partners and also previously led business development efforts at financial technology company SecondMarket (acquired by Nasdaq).

 Joe graduated from Pennsylvania State University with both a Bachelors in Economics and an MBA.  He currently lives in the Raleigh, North Carolina area with his wife Sarah and their son and daughter.

Why is the traditional rental showing experience so challenging and unsatisfactory for all participants? What percentage of a leasing agent's time is spent traveling to and from listings? How are different segments of multifamily leasing managers adopting technology to automate their processes? Chris Kostoulas - co-founder and COO of Peek, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how a virtual first leasing platform enables multifamily managers to rent their units much more efficiently, helping them rethink how all of their assets are shown.

Chris is the Co-Founder & COO of Peek, a virtual real estate tour company based in NYC, that’s providing the most seamless way for leasing managers, brokers, and agents to adopt virtual tour technology across their workflow and more efficiently rent apartments.

 Prior to starting Peek, Chris was an early Uber employee (~300) and one of the first in New York. Chris has built an impressive track record in operations, product and business development-- launching multiple US and international markets for Uber, as well as working cross-functionally on a product team, and working in business development for data partnerships.