Proptech lessons from the US

I was honoured to attend the REACH PortCo 2023 event – a gathering of founders from REACH programs around the world and part of Second Century Ventures – the biggest residential proptech VC fund in the world. 

It was truly inspirational to hear from so many founders who now have successful tech businesses after working through the many challenges and hard times – and the incredible highs – that come from launching transformative technology.

The three days in San Diego were full of great conversations and very personal stories that gave me new insights into what being a tech entrepreneur is really like and – because this was being held in the US – on a scale that is vastly different to WA or even just Australia. 

It was a real gift to meet people who have been through similar challenges to what we’ve gone through launching Realtime Conveyancer, and hear advice from those who have already successfully gone through the growing pains of scaling a proptech startup into something much bigger. Here are my key takeaways:

• Be passionate about your vision: The most inspiring stories and successful proptechs are those whose founders are passionate about their technology, the problems their clients have and their vision to fix it. They truly love what they do. 
• Advocate for your industry: Proptechs fix long-standing industry problems but we need to love the industries we serve and ensure our technology is robust, does what it says it will do and genuinely reflects the needs of our customers. 
• Remember why you fell in love: Like any long-term relationship, you can fall out of love from time to time either with your tech or your customers, but it passes. You need to keep reminding yourself about the qualities that brought you together. 
• Don’t listen to your inner imposter: We all have people in our lives in business who will criticise us but often it is the voice in our own heads that is the cruellest. Moments of doubt are normal. 
• Surround yourself with great people: At times when you feel a bit overwhelmed, there is nothing better than genuinely connecting with great people, learning from them and solving the problems of the world – ideally with a margarita! 

Being a proptech founder is a very different world from conveyancing. But it was also interesting to reflect on how well a background and skills in conveyancing have served me moving into this new and exciting field. 

At Reach, I felt like I was part of a family and an exclusive crazy, relentless group who were all coming from the same space and mindset. Just in the same way that when you put a bunch of conveyancers into a room, they all have a shorthand of shared experience, being in a room full of founders gave us a verbal shorthand of knowing exactly what people were talking about with minimal explanation and no judgment. 

The world of startups is a big place and it’s full of people who genuinely want to help each other Realtime Conveyancer is truly honoured to be part of such a cohort.