030: Predictive Analytics for Brokers – Steve Wayne of ProspectNow.com

Background on Steve Wayne of ProspectNow:

Steve Wayne is the founder of ProspectNow, an online database of millions of commercial properties that enables its users to close more deals with less effort. Steve has grown the company from an idea, into a nationwide platform with thousands of customers and millions in revenue.

Prior to launching ProspectNow, Steve successfully sold retail shopping centers in Northern California at Marcus & Millichap. Having millions of dollars in transaction experience, Steve understood the need in the commercial real estate industry for an all-in-one database. Using his 10 years of expertise within the software industry, and relying upon the knowledge he gained from founding three other successful technology companies, he set out to make the search process easier for commercial agents. Steve holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Arizona. He resides in Los Altos, CA with his wife and two sons.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[0:50] His company ProspectNow helps real estate people to close more deals by identifying properties that are most likely to be listed for sale or refinanced.
[1:24] He was a Commercial Real Estate Broker.
[1:34] The first problem that he had, when he was in the industry, was to find out who were the owners.
[2:10] It took him 9 months to get his database together.
[2:29] He sold the database and that when his business started.
[6:31] He studied Mechanical Engineering and realized he was interested in Computer Science.
[6:45] After he graduated, he worked in a Supply Chain Management Software company that sold data and information.
[7:37] “I know it would work because I knew how painful the need was for me.”
[11:54] His first full-time hire was right after he raised money.
[12:05] “If you make a mistake and you raised a small amount of money or none at all, that mistake doesn’t have far reaching consequences. You just learn.”
[13:38] The expansion of the company started when they moved to residential.
[15:41] Any product or features that they added he always make sure that it’s available nationally that it could scale.
[17:48] The company transitioned from a pure data company to a more of analytics company.
[18:26] “We want to help the real estate industry, we want to help brokers and agents, we don’t really want to compete with them.”
[21:24] It’s not the idea but how you take actions.
[21:50] They got about 3000 customers, from big banks down to the individual residential and commercial real estate brokers.
[24:23] While they were growing, they ran out of money.
[26:49] “It’s a lot about just how I interact with the person, it’s a gut thing for me.”
[29:12] The company focused heavily on the engineering side.
[31:34] “If you’re building a business in a right way, selling it will be hard.”