A Call for Hardware and Materials

I like SaaS as much as the next investor, but . . .

If you’ve ever been to a large trade show in our industry, you know the exhibit hall.

CoStar, Yardi, Comcast, and the other huge incumbents have the big booths by the front door.

You have to walk through their displays and dodge junior sales people on the way to all the other booths. (If you turn your name badge around they won’t stop you.)

As an early stage investor, I tend to lurk in the back corners around the tiny, emerging tech companies who can hardly afford a display at all.

You know what I almost never see there?

Hardware. Robots. Green Cement. Steel. Drones. Smart Windows.

After all, we are building physical buildings, right?

We still need steel and the machinery to manipulate it. We need brick and timber and concrete and a dozen other materials. We need heavy machinery to move things around. We are starting to need robots to lay out, inspect, clean, and even assemble.

Why is none of that in our exhibit halls?

Where is the CES for real estate and construction?

I attend our events and drown in a sea of software on flatscreens.

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Don’t get me wrong - SaaS is great. As an investor, I love software margins and scalability.

But one thing that differentiates us from FinTech is we build physical things. We play with both Bits and Atoms, to paraphrase peter Thiel.

Where are all the atoms?

It’s a problem.

And we intend to help fix it.

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Starting last year, the foundation created a program we call our “Petting Zoo.”

It’s a sponsored booth, that includes hardware, drones, living walls, robots, materials, and anything else physical that goes into our buildings.

The idea is that you can go and touch these robots/materials to see and feel how they work. (Side note - Please be gentle. These are startups.)

You can see the booth at least year’s Blueprint here:

It was wonderful and we want to expand it this year.

As of right now, we are working on booths at Housing Innovation Summit in Denver, Blueprint, CRETech New York, and OPTECH in DC.

And we are looking for more participants.

If that is your company or a company you know, please respond to this and I’ll get you on our list.

If you qualify we’ll give you 1) some free booth space and 2) at least one free ticket to the event.

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A few notes so that you know who and what this program is meant for:

1. This is for up-and-coming companies who want to get discovered by building owners, managers, and developers. This is NOT for established, high-revenue companies that could afford their own booth. (If you are tight on budget, we might be able to help you but that’s up to the event manager/owner.)

2. Space is limited. First come, first served. Let us know as soon as possible.

3. If you participate, all we ask if that you follow up with us on how it went - booth visits, leads, paid pilots, etc.

4. The hope is that we get you enough interest this year that you can justify paying for your own booth next year. Try not to see this as long-term free booth space.

If you have any other questions, feel free to hit me up. We want to make this as big and fun as possible. I am always open to feedback or input.

As I said, send me your details if you want to participate in any of the above and I’ll get you on our list.

• Matt

p.s. I know these are not the only important events in our world. If you have other can’t-miss events that we should partner with, let me know.