Show Notes
Summary
Chris Moreno - Primary Venture Partners
Special mentions
Company: PTAG, FIRE, MIT, Harvard, VSC Ventures, NAHREP, NMHC, CRETT, OPTECH, Blueprint, CREtech, Apartmentalize, GEM, NAA, RET Ventures, Second Century Ventures, iOi Summit, NAR, California Association of Realtors, Flock Safety, a16z, Primary Ventures, Flybridge.
People: Jay Kapoor, Drew Meyers, Vik Venkatraman, Martin Kelly, Brendan Wallace, John Helm, Ashley Stinton, Bob Gillespie, Dave Garland, Tyler Thompson.
Transcript
(Disclaimer: Please be advised that this transcript may contain unintentionally confusing, inaccurate, and/or amusing transcription errors.)
[00:00:00]
Matt Knight: Alright guys, welcome back. Happy fall. Another quick episode with Chris. He and I chat a lot about what's coming up this fall and events we're looking forward to and going to and sponsoring. So I'll keep it quick because it's a quick episode and we got a lot to cover before Blueprint kicks off next week.
Hope you enjoy it.
Welcome back. I don't know if this is our fourth or fifth or whatever episode, but excited to dig in and love to start with. How was your summer? Anything big happened this summer?
Chris Moreno: Yeah, it was great. Fortunately got to take some trips with the family. We got up to Maine, got to see some national parks.
So I love kind of getting off the grid. Seeing some architecture, but seeing some wildlife and wilderness. And we made our annual pilgrimage to California, which was a blast. But yeah, always great to catch back up, Matt. How was your summer?
Matt Knight: Yeah, about the same. I went to California myself and you know, all the camps for the [00:01:00] kids.
My kids are camp age and that's not easy. And, I think summer what's fun from a work perspective is it's so quiet even before all the Europeans are gone in August. I get to like build things. So I was building a few things this summer and that's kind of nice to see. Making progress on things I've been wanting to build throughout the years. You know,
Chris Moreno: it's always good to get away, but I was also like getting back into my routine. It's good for the kids to get back, especially with new schools. So but yeah, man, just fresh off a trip and you wanna hear a little bit more about what you're working on. So what's kind of the top things for you right now?
Matt Knight: Yeah, A lot. I mean with the angel group, as you may know, we've been building more things internally, like a baseball card system where all the angels can sort of know each other and here's your facts and where you're from and here's your LinkedIn and Twitter and all that stuff. Here's investments you've done.
So it's kind of our own little private. LinkedIn, Angelus, whatever you want to call it. So that's been fun to work on that behind the scenes. And then with FIRE, we've been building a whole bunch of stuff with the fall events coming up, which we'll talk about in a minute. We have a lot of initiatives that we are [00:02:00] just opening up to sponsorship for.
So I think we've talked about the mental health one before. We have a big one in academia. We just kicked off with a big event with MIT and Harvard last week, and then lots of stuff and robotics and drones and construction hardware. So just a lot of things that we've been building and kind of getting to where they are, what I would call sponsorable and sponsor worthy.
And now we're flirting with people, kissing frogs and seeing who wants to dance with us. That's where we are. What about you?
Chris Moreno: I love that. love how you go deeper in search of tough areas that founders are working on. Almost like the dirty jobs, as my friend Jay over at VSC would say.
You know, I think a lot of the software companies get highlighted, but a lot of the hardware ones don't. So kudos to you for all the resources you're putting together for FIRE. couple of things I've heard
Matt Knight: before, right? Like there's, I know what the word margin means. I understand why VCs like software and marketplaces.
Right, nothing wrong with those, but we still have physical buildings to build. So somebody ought to pay attention to those pesky [00:03:00] physical products.
Chris Moreno: Hey, I can't finish the buildings for us yet, but they can help. So yeah, I think, going down the rabbit hole for me of real estate.
Couple of things I'm working on , you know, been working on the podcast, the multifamily hangout, which has been a blast every week. I get to interview owners and investors and developers, which has been a lot of fun and hearing people's stories. A lot of people, their first time being on a podcast.
That's been awesome. It helps me to learn be creative. I think number two, I'm really excited about. NAHREP, so NAHREP, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. I'm their entrepreneur in residence and they have their annual conference next week in San Diego. So I'm really excited to get down there.
It's a mishmash of real estate Titans, people who have built billion dollar companies to startups and they'll have VCs there, which is going to be fun. And it's not just Latinos. It's anyone who supports the ecosystem of 44, 000 members. So that would be cool. And I'll have some updates from there hopefully to share.
I think number two is NMHC. I've been really excited, you know, [00:04:00] obviously to work with them and with. Probably the biggest newness for NMHC is their new initiative, which is called CRET T which is the Center for Real Estate Technology and Transformation. So that's going to be coming up at OPTEC and that'll be launching.
So really excited and want to hear maybe some stuff from you, if there's anything you can share, cause it's still early, but I think to see some innovation, to see some speakers from universities coming out and venture capitalists who are going to come speak on topics. So is there anything you can share yet about what you're doing ?
Yeah. ?Whether it's for NMHC and CRET.
Matt Knight: Yeah. With OPTECH, which is the event in DC in October, I believe we're doing the same thing we do at Blueprint and CREtech where we have a booth of hardware and robotics, I think they call it our futures lab or something like that, whatever it is, it's basically meant to be the same petting zoo we do at all of these events.
And it's been interesting seeing which subset of our friends in construction and hardware. Exclusively to multifamily because obviously that's the only people that are at OPTECH. If you, if you don't know optech, if you're listening to [00:05:00] this, it's operations technology, it's the big tech conference, in my opinion, for multifamily in the fall.
If Apartmentalize is kind of the. Larger one OPTECH seems to have the most decision makers at it. And if you disagree with that, let me know, but it's a little different flavor, but kind of same concept of let's get tech in our apartment buildings. So that's my take. And I don't know if you disagree with it.
Chris Moreno: Yeah. think the, the biggest shift for this year though, will be that they're bringing people outside . And that's kind of my mandate is to bring people who haven't traditionally been there who can speak on things happening in real estate in general and even from a marketing standpoint. So we have some interesting people from marketing and from the job sector of their impact on overall real estate government, and then obviously how it affects multifamily.
So I think that's, what's cool is it's going to be a wider focus beyond just multifamily this year. which is something I've heard from a lot of leaders as they started going to more conferences, like CMOs and CTOs started going to conferences outside of the multifamily space and going to other sectors, right, to learn unique [00:06:00] takes.
So yeah, I'm excited about it. think again, you know, how do we get unique people who haven't been before and unique stories to tell. I think also, you know, I want to get your take on Blueprint. Blueprint's coming up in two weeks and you always do an awesome happy hour there.
You're very involved there. So can you share a little bit about what you're doing at Blueprint?
Matt Knight: Well, Blueprint always seems to be my biggest event of the year. And yeah, we have a happy hour that's for the Angel Group, and we do it in conjunction with GEM, which is Geek Estate Mastermind Drew Meyers.
So I kind of bring a lot of commercial multifamily people, Drew brings a lot of residential people, and it's our biggest happy hour of the year. I think we had 200 people, but it's Sort of invite only for our members and then for our donors at foundation and which has been fun and getting to know new members and perspective members that people bring their friends.
So we have that. And then we have the booth. Like I said, I might be on stage talking about something that's TBD. But I also have something that you, you mentioned bringing new people to OPTEC. I have an emerging managers track that we're bringing a bunch of up and coming real estate owners to the conference and I have free [00:07:00] tickets for them.
And I also got a villa by the pool at the Venetian where they can hang out and talk to peers and not feel like they're going to get pitched to death in the showroom floor. So, lots of programs we're doing there. And looking forward to just catching up with everybody because everybody seems to go to that event.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, I think what's cool too is like you said, you put a lot of work in the team, you know, Vik and Martin and everyone put some time in. It's one of my favorite events besides NMHC OPTECH and NAA. , I'll be co-hosting a table session, a private one with some owners and going deep on how they're analyzing, investment into their properties and reinvestment redevelopment, et cetera.
So that would be cool. I think, like you said, it's very well done. From the standpoint of the speakers going deep number 2, you've got, like, Brendan Wallace. You've got RET Ventures like John Helm and some other folks who are all coming together to discuss topics, not only for investors, but for founders and for other folks.
So I really enjoy that part of it. I think also the one to one meetings are pretty impactful. So they do a really good job with that. Bringing together the [00:08:00] one to ones and it's all , in a small space. So you're not having to march all over Vegas. And then obviously the Second Century team does a heck of a job too.
So it's been great to see them. I think that's the other thing. I'm looking forward to seeing is, is there new, they have the, I think what I, one of the things I didn't realize Matt was how involved Second Century and REACH is beyond just residential also has a commercial division like Ashley and Bob Gillespie over there.
So it was cool last week I got to sync up with the team with Dave Garland and Tyler and everyone and Drew Chicago for the iOi summit. And that was pretty awesome to see all the different founders and investors who were there. I also learned that some of the local NAR affiliates, like California Association of Realtors and others, actually have venture funds where they invest in early stage companies.
So that was a new learning for me. And it was cool to see the the pitch battle with some different companies who actually won some cash.
Matt Knight: I didn't know that there were those funds for the Realtors Association. That's interesting.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was interesting [00:09:00] because C. A. R., the California Association of Realtors, kind of shared they have a person who focuses on early stage and they've made some bets, they did pretty well for their members, and so they actually have a fund now dedicated to it, so I was intrigued by that, and I think you're going to see more folks, now they are looking generally for companies who do have revenue, So they're not like a pre seed per se they're probably more of a seed or a series A investment.
Matt Knight: Well, at some point for a future discussion, we have to talk about all the funds in our space and sort of which ones we think are the best of the best. I don't know that we need to throw shade at anybody that may not be long for this world, but it'd be good to kind of compare notes at some point about the ones that have good reputations that seem to do right by founders and LPs, you know.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, and I think to your point, whether, you know, it's not always the biggest, who's the, the most supportive or the most helpful. Oftentimes I've heard the ones who are oftentimes the smallest check can be the most helpful or resourceful which is kind of shocking to me, but, you know, to your point, I think [00:10:00] what's also cool is how do we engage more funds that aren't necessarily focused on PropTech, but actually focused in another sector can help PropTech or help PropTech founders.
So that's been a new. Way of thinking for me, like the big idea is how do we get more of these funds that have been investing in hardware. good example is like Flock Safety, right? Flock Safety is a hardware software company here in Atlanta And their last round was led by a16z, right? So I think how do we look at other companies or even whether it's Primary Ventures, right?
Not known as a PropTech venture capital firm Or, the team over at Flybridge Capital, right, has made some PropTech investments, but they're not known as a PropTech fund. So that's what I've been kind of thinking about, is you've got the ones that are primarily focused on PropTech, but how do we engage the ones that are in other sectors , that touch on PropTech as well?
Matt Knight: Well, I give them free tickets. And so maybe we can wrap it there. I got free tickets for those VCs if they want to come. I have free tickets for Non American founders, I have free [00:11:00] tickets for pre revenue founders, for female founders, for CTOs, each of these events tends to have types of people they realize they under attract, and part of our deal with them is giving free tickets out to attract that demographic.
So, if we release this in time, and people are listening, and they want free tickets, they fall in those categories. I'm happy to do it.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, I'm happy to share it out with my network. any other topics or you're, you're really interested in right now? You know, the big ideas and maybe something you're going to write about that maybe a call to action for people to help you.
Matt Knight: I will write about a fall events guide in the next few weeks to give people sort of an insider's take, and as far as I'm an insider, on events this fall. And then I'm releasing an office market map probably this week, depending on how the calendar goes. So that's what's coming up for me.
Chris Moreno: Yeah, I think for me, it's continuing to connect with People who are, excited and curious about the real estate space and, companies who haven't traditionally looked at it [00:12:00] as an opportunity and venture capitalists who have kind of shied away from it.
But if anything, interest rates are temporary, right? This too shall pass. And I always say, you know, this area continues to buy, they continue to need it. And especially I think one of the other topics, one of the other big ideas is insurance and how insurance has just completely changed the way upgrades happen to properties.
So funny, Matt, you know, I think one of the things we can maybe go deeper on another day, but. I heard an interesting piece of feedback a couple of days ago talking to a team that was just acquired and they had gone from just a couple hundred thousand units to over 2 million units on their platform and it was the last two years of insurance changes and the way that rates have skyrocketed that absolutely, catapulted their business. And so I think sometimes things that seem like a massive problem and they are a problem and there are major costs and it causes ripple effects. If [00:13:00] you can solve that one problem extremely well.
Cause this company was completely off the radar. I didn't even know they had been acquired. Didn't even know they had, grown by five X. So it's funny how some of these things happen under the radar and they're not flashing in the news. So you may have to write about this company soon.
So we'll connect about that one.
Matt Knight: And We pick it up there next time. I like it.
Chris Moreno: Sounds good. Thanks, man. Well see you in a week and a half.
Matt Knight: Sounds good, man.
Chris Moreno: Cheers.
PropTech Chatter - Round 5 with Chris Moreno