[00:00:02] Right now, a modern ventures in the house. How are you? It's good to see your face. How you been? Yeah, likewise then. Great. You can't complain.
[00:00:11] Can't complain. The warm and sunny day in Chicago. So that's always good. We've got about three more left before the fourth cold call. So it's good.
[00:00:21] Yeah. So enjoy. Enjoy a few more weekends outside, huh? That's right. Do they let you outside in Chicago yet?
[00:00:30] Yeah.
[00:00:31] Well, you know, work's been busy, so, you know, I try to get out what I can, but it's it's it's been good. Chicago's return return to normal. I know lots of folks. Lots of stuff happened this summer, actually live downtown, but it feels like Chicago summer. So it's good.
[00:00:47] I know there was a long time, a long stretch. My son had a couple of weddings out there and he was going to go to and there was a long stretch that if you're from Utah, you couldn't get into Chicago.
[00:00:55] That's correct. Well, that's typically how we do it. We like to keep out those times. But I was actually in Utah this summer, so we'll we'll talk about that at some other point. I spent a month in southern Utah, so it's nice.
[00:01:07] And they let you back in. So we're back to. Correct.
[00:01:11] So, Shawn, I think this is a really unique opportunity for a lot of these real estate business owners who are joining us today to to just get insights from somebody like you. You see pretty much every technology company in the state.
[00:01:28] That's how you and I met, of course. And thankfully, we've had an opportunity to get to know you better and work closely together.
[00:01:36] But I just love, like, first of all, anybody out there, if you want to ask questions, now's a great time to start putting questions out there around technologies and what you see being the future, because John definitely has a great perspective on that kind of stuff with everything he sees. But, Shawn, I'm going to let you just kick it off and maybe share from the back side of real estate what is going on in the industry today.
[00:02:03] Yeah, well, it's been quite it's been a quite interesting year. I think first and foremost, like everyone else, when when the second week of March, I think I was at a leading our conference. And, you know, I think it was what Tom Hanks and the NBA got canceled on one day. And I think that was the day we all sort of caught the next flight home in the next couple of months were crazy like everyone else. But from a from a technology perspective, what was interesting is we have to look at all our companies and our portfolio companies like you. Right. It's like we stopped being venture capitalists for a bit and started being operators for a while. And we really got involved with our companies and our portfolio companies saying, how can we help? And I think a lot of investors, you have to sort of triage what you're doing and especially investors like us in real estate. Right. So we know the market cyclical. Certainly no one can can predict a pandemic. You know, how do we help our companies pivot and really be prepared from a cash flow perspective and all those other things that you went through as a business owner? Right. I mean, the first thing that that happens is you're like, okay, what do we do? How do we serve this? And really the question is of sort of how long, how deep. Right. And so when you don't have those variables, it makes it makes it very difficult as a technology owner. And so I think a lot of the tech space had to go through that.
[00:03:26] And I I don't think there's there's so many companies out there at different stages.
[00:03:32] I think everyone, you know, when you're in the real estate industry and you go to an NPR event, you go everywhere, you see a big boost and you can't tell how big companies are, how many people they have, how much money they have in the bank, you know, all these other things. Right.
[00:03:44] And so all of that, you know, we get to see behind the, you know, sort of under the covers as to what's going on. And so, you know, a lot of companies had had to pivot. And I'm sure you're itself is probably one of those things like what do we do? How are we helpful right now?
[00:03:59] And I think it really came down to how can I help agents and brokers like at this second, like one of the things they need right now to help them gauge their business and Sisu is a great thing. Right? If they didn't have insight to their business, they don't know how to pivot. And you and I have talked for years about, yeah, give this this data insight so people can make proactive decisions versus reactive decisions. Right. Because if you're looking at 30 days, most recording is like month end or quarter end or all these other things that if you don't have that right now, you don't know where to pivot to any less. So I need more agents. Am I in a market that is you know, I'm in a market that is still open and doing showings. Are my clothes on and how am I going to rearrange and and really get people in the right place? So I think, you know, shameless plug for Sisu by having that information is it was was highly valuable to, you know, the companies and brokerages and the rest of the industry. And I think from a portfolio perspective, we started. To look for companies that were really adding true value and, you know, after we sort of got everybody stable and some of that market, depending on where where your business is, right.
[00:05:13] If you're in Las Vegas versus New York versus Seattle, that was all different than the way people can interact.
[00:05:18] But that was really what we tried to do. We tried to help our companies the best as possible, help them pivot based on our knowledge, made sure that they had the right amount of funding to get through, however long they needed to get through. And and it was really it was really challenging for, you know, I'm sure it was challenging for everyone. The industries are challenging as an investor to to you have to figure out how to how to be the most helpful.
[00:05:41] Yeah. So, I mean, to give a Sisu example of what you're talking about, John, we we had commission management in our platform at the time, and the rest of it was really around reporting and knowing your business visually.
[00:05:55] But there were a lot of automation's that people were asking for and a big part of that was task management and document management. So they could eliminate some of the expenses from other software is out there. We're that's to pivot. We did right away. And immediately, you know, we probably have 70 percent of our customers using our task management at an extremely high level now. And that's something we did when covid hit. It was on our plan, but we just had to accelerate the the development of that.
[00:06:26] So, I mean, I think sort of the biggest insight was, you know, Brian, we've talked about this again for years is nice to have or you need to have.
[00:06:34] Right. And when when brokers and agents are sort of when they're forced to look at their systems and the amount of expense because no one knew how long, how deep. Right. So what are the things that I need to manage my business every single day? And that's what I talk to. You know, I talk to a thousand companies a year, at least write at some formal level. And I always ask the same question like, are you a need to have all your nice to have?
[00:06:59] And if you aren't a need to have, then you better figure out how to be a need to have. Right. And and, you know, and so those were those were things I think, that were really important in the venture space. If you want to become a venture backed company and you know, you fundraise, it's it's difficult. It's difficult to get to those, you know, and you have to be able to tell the right story. And as a as a there's so many new companies that are coming out all the time. And so as a broker, how do I know which ones are real, which ones are and which ones are going to be around those type of things? You know, those are the tough questions that the industry has to ask, you know, and that's why we are we have a lot of brokerages that are not only personal investors in modern, but sort of want that help and the insight that we could bring them in. We say, look, when they called me, I said, look, I know Brian. I know he's got the you know, this is a product and, you know, and they're going to be around for a while.
[00:07:55] And this is the traction they've had. And it's been it's been really cool. Brian, you've got a great story of when we first met each other. You know, it felt like a couple of screens and and you and Frank had this idea and we said, how are we going to make this bigger? How are we going to make this huge? Right. And how are we going to how how are you going to get to the point where you are today and even beyond? And I think know that's really some of the lessons for me. I have a lot of agents or brokers that sort of have this idea that I do. I want to help fix the squeaky wheel, like there's this problem that I have. And it's probably the impetus for your you know, there's this problem that I have I got to solve for for my wife and like, how am I going to do it? Right. And so, you know, it's really it's really starting to think a little bit bigger and how to become one of those one of those companies and not one of those products or niche products.
[00:08:53] We've talked about this a lot before, right?
[00:08:56] A company, not a product. How do you how do you how do you build your company? So if an event like this happens and yes, this is once a century, but, you know, as cycles turn around, like, how do you become relevant and how do you stay relevant to your customers? How do you become sticky with with your customers? And and so, you know, a lot of those things that that you've built are questions that that we ask of all of these companies that are here, because there seems to be one little small niche in there somewhere. Someone's trying to solve that. Right. And that's that's that's not always the biggest market and the best way to start a company.
[00:09:31] So, yeah, I remember when I met Yushan, we were just.
[00:09:36] Getting ready to launch our dashboard's, I think we were the smallest company you've ever done anything to do with it modern.
[00:09:42] So I'm I'm really excited to see where you've come today and all the progress that you know, that you and the team have made. And, you know, it's a really good venture capital story because you're right, you were the youngest of the youngest.
[00:09:58] But like the the the early. The earliest. Yeah. That we that we've taken on. And but you had a grand vision. And, you know, I think that's what entrepreneurs need to look at, is there's an obvious problem. I'm solving something here, but how do I make this bigger than than just, you know, than just then just an energy product that that some other company could build if they want it to? Right. We've always sort of talked about that as well. And so it was interesting.
[00:10:27] So, yeah, stepping outside of of Sisu, maybe just on a broader scale, what what are some of the exciting up and coming technologies out there that you see?
[00:10:37] I mean, you have people here that love technology that are wanting to know what are some of the up and coming things. So maybe you can share some of them just in two or three of the really cool companies that you see coming out here and making a big dent in the next year.
[00:10:53] Yeah, so so the way that we look at investments is really systematic. And we say, what is the business challenge that brokers and agents and franchise owners have that are not unique to real estate? Right. So how do I how do I have these companies that that are really relevant?
[00:11:14] And again, this talks about it doesn't have to be outside of real estate. Like people use buzzwords, Brian. Like I like. Right. Like what's that? Right. Everybody throws it in there. Right. But how does a guy what does a guy do in real estate? Right. And so how do we apply to to the functions, whether that's search or predictive analytics or those type of other things?
[00:11:34] We obviously covid as has changed a lot to the digital to the digital side. Right. So so how do we do that? But I also there's some other just like broader themes like work remotely like what is that? That's not a real estate only problem, but it but it's certainly applicable to real estate. Some of the things that we've been hearing for years that have sort of come to fruition now is like is security like how do I we've all heard about title company breaches and we've all heard, you know, and now that everyone's working from home, from their, you know, from their own network and all these other things, but all the sensitive information that that we have that we now have and that information is all over the place and and not all digital. And we're all working on Zoome and we're doing all these other things. So cyber security is a really big thing that how do we enable brokers and agents to to assess, mitigate and actually ensure cyber security. So I think it's just an interesting overall trend that you're going to see. We do have a company that so we went out and said, let's go find a company that's very specific to us, to small and medium sized businesses. So shameless plug. But but the company is called the Girls GURPS. And so they said, how do we help the real estate industry be more secure and insure themselves against potential data breaches? And we've seen everyone from Keller Williams to DocuSign to, you know, what happens to big companies.
[00:13:07] But how does how does even Bryana Sisu? How do you how do you guard against that? Right. And so very specifically focused on the real estate industry to be able to, again, assess, because usually what happens right. Is people that they click on bad links and they do all that stuff and then all of a sudden data is exposed and you don't want the headline risk. Right. Black Greylord, anyone wants is to be on inmind. Right. With with where the data breach for the company, especially as much data as we all have. So I think that's a that's a very sort of relevant topic outside of real estate. So work from home Tool's I think is is definitely a space that we've looked at. And there the other thing that we've that we've looked at is benefits in general and so benefits, health care, things that are that that us is tend not, you know, that ten, ninety nine contractors don't get that to take that take for granted. Right. So how can we provide. A full suite of benefits for contract workers, right? So all those real estate agents part time. So that's a theme that is again and health care is such a big issue. Now know as of covid. Right. And we have an election coming up and, you know, all of that stuff. And so we recently looked at a company called Stride Health, which provides really health, dental vision, life insurance, tax information, all under sort of one under one portal.
[00:14:38] And so you can take are they when you say that, Sean, are they looking at making it so that companies like real estate teams, real estate brokerages who have all these ten, ninety nine consultants, basically, they don't have they may have a few employees, but mostly ten, ninety nine. Is is this empowering them to have better solutions? Is that what you're talking about here.
[00:15:05] Do they so, so integrated into health care Diego so any of the marketplaces that are done. So Brian goes on, there is a self-employed person puts in, you know, five to ten pieces of information automatically get your subsidies. You don't to wait till the end of the year, you know, and and able to purchase, you know, able to purchase health insurance or an especially open enrollment is coming in a month from now. Right. And so, you know, how do you get that? And so most agents don't have it or they have to get it to your spouse or, you know, there's just other ways to do it. And it's just hard. Like, I don't know if anyone's ever tried to go through one of the marketplaces. It's just it's confusing. It's difficult.
[00:15:41] So, like, how do you how do you do that? And then, you know, how does Brian get dental and vision and life insurance? Those are the things that people just expect. Right. When you work for a company, I have those. Right. And so how do you do that? But you have this company, Power Zober and Post Maids and all those other you know, they've got almost two million users on that. So I think, you know, I think that is a that is a thing that, again, isn't real estate specific, but super applicable to this space and to put some technology behind a process that's just really difficult and confusing, I don't know.
[00:16:15] So those are that's the thing is, I think when most most of us think about real estate technology, we're thinking more along the lines of CRM or document management or now at this point, something like Sisu. But yeah, but you're talking like things that maybe the rest of us here wouldn't think about.
[00:16:36] So let's think about it. How many how many CRM did does everyone need? And no, not everyone CRM is out there, but like, do we need another CRM like a hole in the head? Right. Like when people come to me and say, hey, I have this great CRM or this great transaction management company. Great, like added to the, you know, added to the bucket and there's a million there and what makes you different and all those other things, right. So how do you we are looking at things to empower agents to do more business. You know, we're looking, you know, and we're you know, we're looking at other things. We I'll mention one other, which I thought was interesting, is where investors in a company called Easy. And so, you know, they are sort of an alternative to an IBRD. And we said, look, I buyers' some people love them, some people don't. But like, how do you handle them?
[00:17:21] And so are a sale leaseback platform that we invested in two years ago, knowing that if the market turns, then, you know, how do people get capital there, 14 trillion dollars locked up in in people's homes. It's their biggest it's bigger than their four one case. Right. So if you do have a down market share and how could we empower agents to do more business? Right. And so people can use it as a bridge tool even if they don't sell a home. Brian, if you say, look, I need some cash out, I want to put some money in my business, I don't want to leave my house. Yeah. How do I get you know, how do I get a loan or whatever? I'm self-employed or I can't get a headlock or something like that. Agents could literally go and say, hey, Brian, I'm not going to sell your home, but you've got access capital and no compensation for it. So there's all sorts. We're always looking for different ways. If we bring our partners, you know, we our investors are real edgy and leading our and big brands and all this. If we bring them stuff that's on the trade show floor, we're not very valuable to them. Like I know it's at the new Kids on the Block or, you know, whatever that is. So how do you how do you bring me stuff that that is maybe, like you said, not so, not in other CRM, because we've got ten of them or 50. How do we look at things a little bit different. And I would I would, you know, just sort of as the industry, what of this technology can help you on all different sides of your business? It's not just it's not just, you know, how does it recruit? How does it help you recruit and retain better agents? How does it help you do more deals? Right. Not that maybe nuts and bolts of CRM and transaction management of other things that way.
[00:18:59] Yeah, awesome. So, Sean, I don't think most people are aware about the Modern Ventures passport program and maybe even more so who your investors are. You just mentioned it, but I think it'd be good like you guys are.
[00:19:12] There are a few voices that are just ingrained in the real estate space and you're one of one of the few.
[00:19:18] So maybe share with us a little bit about who your investors are, how you take things to them, just the networks, because there may be people here as well that would maybe add value to your mentor program, things like that.
[00:19:34] Yeah, that's great. Right.
[00:19:35] So, I mean, is this Brian said 70 percent of our capital comes from the industry. And so if I mentioned leading our urology, but our investors, there's there's big brokerages out there.
[00:19:49] You know, I don't know if I give everyone's names and all that and all that, but we we probably cover sixty to sixty five percent of all residential transactions. You know, those five point five million run through our investors. So they, you know, they give us money to say, go find me the stuff that's going to, you know, that's going to happen in the future. So disruption happens. So I know when disruptions coming right. Typically disruption happens to the industry, not from the industry. And so our our investors want to want a window into the future. What else is happening? Show me the stuff. I don't know. I don't know. And so we go out and look for companies and like we said, we found Sisu. And so when we started, you know, like I said, I've always said, how are we going to make this a big thing and could you be in mortgage and all these other places? Right. And so part of what we do is we work with companies at an early stage. We like when we found Sisu and we we connect companies like yours to the industry. So not only are investors, but but we have a mentor network of folks across every franchise, across all the tech companies, you know, mortgage title, you name it, sort of insurance, anything around that touches real estate. And those executives give their time to meet with companies like yours and say, how one, I want to know about the technologies right before they're too big. And and and and so how can I help influence them and, you know, maybe pilot them or maybe say, hey, this is the way it's done in my franchise and this is, you know, this would be really beneficial.
[00:21:29] And so they get early insight companies then get access to, you know, the sea level suites of people that that they would probably take months, if not years to get in front of. Right. So it's tough to get a, you know, a sea level meeting in the space of as an early stage technology company. It's much easier when you know what? When they're they're incented to do that or because they're investors of ours or because they're they're giving their time and they want to beat you, right. And that's it. That's a much different that's a much different meeting than you going in and trying to sell someone that you get one shot to do. Right. It's tough to do that. So, you know, that's really how we work with companies and it's here to foster innovation on both sides. Right. So the industry tends to be slow to adopt. So how do we get the earlier stage companies in front of them? How do they help give you feedback so you can pivot and find the best ways to get to get deals done? And maybe your pricing is not something they'll do and they'll say, hey, Brian, if you price it this way, we'll probably do a deal. And so, yeah, it's not going to work. You know, those type of things versus and it and it just allows the industry to see some things that they would probably skip over.
[00:22:40] Right. And we've got everyone from, you know, from Sisu to home Starbright. So it's you know, we've got big companies, got small companies, we've got people in between. And, you know, you're moving up that chain, which is great. I can't wait to you know, that's as big as some of the other folks. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the way and we're happy to talk to any any companies. I get referrals all the time from from folks in the space. If your brokerage is using something, if you think something's great, love to you know, I'm always open to I never really turn down an introduction. I always want to hear what's what's going on. And I like to talk to earlier stage companies and see how we can how we can help them shape their futures, because the tech thing's not going anywhere. We've only scratched the surface, I think, Brian, and there's really some some really cool business model ideas that are coming out. It's not always, you know, like I said, there's a couple of places where we've I think we've oversaturated and we've talked about CRM transaction management. How many commission systems going to be like the core system? There's a lot. And but there's a lot of stuff that's that's, you know, sort of around the edges that it's going to be it's going to be cool, that's using technology like A.I. or email or some other some other things that that are coming out, even the block chain stuff we don't hear about anymore. Right.
[00:24:01] Right.
[00:24:01] And you guys you guys have some block chain companies, don't you, that you know, we we did talk to we had one in our passport company. I thought it was interesting. We've always sort of shied away from it, which I think was a good idea at the very beginning. We got involved with one to say, let's learn what we what we what we don't know. And there will be applications here with you title. We talked to a bunch of the title ones and transaction management ones. And, you know, I'm not saying that that I think there's there's applicability as it comes on, but we've all sort of seen it's got a little bit quiet because, you know, that what happens in this industry, Brian and others, is the big boys tend to win. And and, you know, as if they don't adopt, it's really hard to get. It's you know, it's really hard to get your company through. So I don't think the first Americans in the fideles and, you know, are going anywhere any time soon. So and I don't think the dilutes and signs are either. So, you know, some of the some of the newer startups in that space using that technology have a have an uphill battle. So.
[00:25:06] Sure. Yes. So, Sean, there there have been a lot of companies trying to displace the agent, though. You've probably seen almost all of them.
[00:25:19] But I mean, this goes this goes way back now. I mean, you're talking about I mean, there are dozens that have tried to displace it and now hire agents. Yeah. But looking into the future and. You know, knowing that it's agents that are here, it's agent I mean, we're obviously pro agent at Sisu, but there are companies trying to displace the agent.
[00:25:42] So what's the biggest threat that you're seeing out there along those lines?
[00:25:47] Yeah, well, we're with you, right?
[00:25:49] Our our our money comes from the industry. So we don't invest in models that are trying to disrupt the agent that would be counterproductive to our capital. So, you know, I get a lot of those and it's just not a place that that we can you know, that we can do. We believe and we believe in empowering the agent. Always have. Always will, you know, on that side. I you know, technology should be adopted to to enable the agent and the agent's role may change. You know, we've seen the agent now is is asked to do much more different things than just search.
[00:26:27] Right. So, you know, typically was was give me me search. But but I don't think.
[00:26:36] I don't think there's an existential threat to agents, you know, I think that the industry will continue to sort of pare down the ones that are going to use technology to enable themselves versus not like, you know you know, I was part of DocuSign. People always say, like, what was the inflection point of DocuSign? And I said it wasn't the agents. It was the consumers said, I am not driving here and I'm not doing this, you know, like. And so. And they pulled the agents along. Right. So I think consumers will continue to pull agents into if I can do this at my job and I could do this by myself and I can go open a 401k by myself and I can go buy a car through Kiva kabana by myself, like you better at least give me you better give me some technology along this process. And so I think the threat to the agents is to lose their business to the agents that are adopting technology and that are working the way that that consumers want to versus the way they want to. Right. There is a lot of agents that are going to do it the way that they've always done it. And I'm not going to do virtual tours and I'm not going to do this and I'm not going to be digital and I'm not going to, you know, have all these documents together. I'm not going to use a digital mortgage and I'm not going to do all that stuff. Well, the agents that adopt that are the ones that are going to just take the business from the ones that are because the consumer is requiring it, because the consumer is always a car.
[00:27:58] Yeah, yeah. And that's that's really our next level here is bringing the consumer into the transaction.
[00:28:05] So Pete asked, how do we get on the calendar for an introduction? You said you're open to any ideas. So how do how do people get a hold of you, Sean, or the best way for them to reach out?
[00:28:17] Yeah. So it's it's Sean SJW. And I don't know if I should do this, but I'm going to show I just I said I said it before. I will, Brian. So Sean Awam at Modern Ventures. Modern's with an E at the end.
[00:28:31] So M0, DCR and E Ventures dot com.
[00:28:37] Ok, Sean, thank you so much for joining us today. I think it's a refreshing change to have somebody in your shoes come in and just share some of your insights with us. Thanks for joining. And you and I need to catch up on a more personal level here in the near future.
[00:28:53] Yeah, I'll tell you about my adventures in Utah. Brian, I'm so happy for your success. Always rooting for you. Whatever you and Frank in the team. Let me know.
[00:29:00] Ok, awesome. Thank you, Sean. Yep. All right. Goodbye.
