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Should Proptech Founders Launch Fast or Thorough?

The tech industry has built a culture around experimentation, failing fast, and getting to product market fit as quickly and efficiently as possible. When that culture is transplanted to real estate, things literally start breaking. Because real estate developers can’t open a building that’s still being built. This article will explore a framework for when it’s appropriate for proptech to launch quickly.

First, a crash course in what it means to launch a minimum viable product (MVP). The early stages of a startup are essentially a science experiment. The founders want to prove that their product creates value for customers while having the potential to generate profit at scale. The proof requires a lot of data before investors and customers are comfortable with the product.

How I Quickly Launched The Proptech Scout

I launched this blog three days after coming up with the idea to supplement my YouTube channel. There are a few key points that drove the decision to just put out a utilitarian (and very ugly) version of this site.

  • The first step is the hardest. I knew that if I sat on the idea, I might get distracted by something else and procrastinate.
  • The downside is minimal. Launching an ugly website doesn’t cause any serious harm. Dissatisfied visitors may feel like I wasted 4 seconds of their time before clicking away. But those are clicks I wouldn’t have gotten if I kept perfecting an unpublished website for months.
  • Nobody cares. I barely had a reputation in proptech, and if I had pre-written a year’s worth of content and released it all at once with a glorious launch party, nobody would show up. A reputation is built over a long period of time.
  • The idea would evolve over time. I had a very fuzzy roadmap in mind when I launched. But after I launched, I kept coming up with new ideas and features, and within a month the site ballooned to 800 pages. The Events list, VC directory, Proptech Directory, and Choose Your Own Adventure Glossaries are ideas that built on each other as I learned more about what the proptech landscape looked like.
  • Early customer feedback is critical. I’ve been talking to a lot of proptech founders ever since I launched. They value my content and we learn from each other. This informs my future strategy and content. If I didn’t just put something out there that indicated how I could help them, I wouldn’t have had any of these meetings.

Should Proptech Launch Fast?

Many successful entrepreneurs advocate for a fast launch, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all framework. For many proptech products, it’s simply bad advice. Deploying a product in real estate tends to have much higher stakes than launching this blog.

I’ve published several articles about the risk levels of different kinds of proptech products. If I condensed this article into one nugget of advice, it would be this:

If you’re a proptech founder working on a low risk proptech product, then launch as fast as you can.

You will be able to find early customers more quickly if your product has very little downside. You will be able to try something a little different with each new customer. And your repeat customers will get a continually improving product.

When Proptech Should Launch Thorough

The launch strategy changes quite a bit when the proptech product can pose significant downside risk to the customer. If a proptech product or service requires prolonged involvement or heavy integration with a property, do not launch until your product is sufficiently refined and can perform well over its entire life cycle. Launching fast in these cases is reckless. Because if your product is not ready and it fails before its intended operable life, you’re going to have a lot of pissed off customers and serious reputational damage. The worst case scenario is that you’re going to negatively affect property values, customers will sue you, and your business will fail.

Instead, you need to launch thorough. This doesn’t mean to hole yourself up and only go public when you think the product is perfect. Talk to as many people as you can as you’re developing your product. Talk to investors, potential customers, and people who work in the space. Or just reach out to me on LinkedIn and let’s chat.

If you quietly develop it without any outside perspective you’ll find out all your product’s flaws when it’s too late. And at that point, if I review your product, I won’t have anything good to say about it. My Proptech Scout Standards exist to protect customers from bad products. So don’t be shy. Go seek constructive criticism!