Where is Proptech Headed from the Triple Win Podcast with Andrew Smallwood, VP of Revenue at Second Nature

Andrew (00:01.456)
Hello, professional property managers. Andrew Smallwood here with the Triple Win Podcast, and I'm joined today by my friends and industry expert, Nate Smoyer. He's the host of the Tech Nest podcast. And Nate, I'm sure there's going to be some people who are familiar with you and have heard you before, they're listeners of your podcast. I'm also confident there's going to be people who are hearing your name for the first time and being introduced to you for the first time. So I'd love to just set you up. What should our audience know about you before we dig in today?

Nate Smoyer (00:30.607)
Yeah, Andrew, this is a lot of fun, actually. I'm excited to do this conversation with you. And I'm certain most haven't heard of me yet. But yeah, I'm Nate's Moir. I host Tech Nest, the PropTech podcast, as well as publish the newsletter. We typically talk with and feature investors, founders, and CEOs of PropTech startups looking to find out what they're doing to change the way we buy, sell, and invest in real estate. I've been in PropTech

now exclusively as my industry focus for about seven years or so. Primarily, I work internally at startups, building marketing teams and programs, those early stage. So think like seed stage to series A, getting them up to 50 plus million in valuations. And today I actually work as a fractional head of strategy and marketing for those same early stage startups.

Probably not totally relevant to property management, but product -led growth companies, those that are like a B2B to C or B2C type play are really where I specialize. So yeah, excited to be here and talk all things, PropTech that's relevant to property management, the operations, the growth, the things that are making that industry a little bit more fun these days.

Andrew (01:46.736)
Yeah. Yeah. And I know we have some prop tech founders, CEOs, et cetera, that listen into this podcast as well. And I think a couple of them I've seen have been, been guests. I've caught their episodes and, and a few more who may be, may be future guests. So, great. Well, I'd love to like, from your perspective, maybe, because I mean, you've talked to hundreds and there's your podcast, but then I also see you at a number of industry events and everything else and your,

You're very tapped into, hey, there's a big ecosystem here at PropTech and it's been growing and developing over the years. I'm kind of just curious your point of view right now on what's happening kind of in the state of PropTech, if you will.

Nate Smoyer (02:27.791)
Yeah, there's been a bit of an evolution. You know, we kind of take it back a few years. It was all about the headlines of how much you've raised and very big picture. We're going to build this unicorn company that does this thing. And we justify it because look at the value of real estate and look at the number of people in this. And of course we can just identify them and they're going to want this. It's an obvious solution. I think what a lot of startups have discovered that want to be in the space. And even though the space has grown in terms of like number of startups,

amount of money invested, the amount of industry veterans actually taking an interest in adopting technology, is that the change doesn't happen as fast as everyone kind of assumed it would. And this isn't B2B SaaS or B2B software. It's a little bit different. And so that evolution from big picture, high valuations, going public as a company type thing has really shifted to actually

it needs to drive foundational change within organizations. Meaning like there has to be real revenue impact. There has to be real impact on the reduction of expenses. There has to be real impact on ability to remain compliant and improve automations to reduce additional staff as we grow as a company. And that's actually extremely hard. And now that we've totally exited this period of time of quote, free money quote.

right, where the ZERP, if you will. This has actually put a lot of pressure on venture -backed companies that want to be in PropTech. And, you know, a lot of companies tend to do raises somewhere between every like 18 to 24 months, right? And they do this so that they can maintain a high rate of growth. And in order to maintain that high rate of growth, they sacrifice profitability. Well,

Money's not flowing as easily as it was previously. And so the startups that found themselves, shoot, the faucet that was at full bore funding all these companies has really kind of, has really tamed down. Maybe it's a little bit more than a trickle, but the money isn't flowing as easily. And so now those startups themselves have to get healthy and they're really honing in on how do we impact our customers' business?

Nate Smoyer (04:52.591)
That's both the property management, investment management, portfolio, et cetera, like the whole nine yards. And we have seen some, some closures of startups, but we've also actually seen, and I just had a really interesting discussion with a boutique &A firm yesterday where &A activity is likely increasing because of the, the current environment on how startups can get funding. And I think this is a really healthy thing. It's not to say that PropTech is dead.

It's not to say that, all these big lofty visions will never come true. I think what it is is a realization that. Props to companies can't necessarily grow and scale the same way as B2B solutions in the broader business ecosystem. Because we just have so many different nuances in our businesses. And I'm sure, you know, any property manager listening to this is like nodding their head of like, yeah, there's people involved as soon as, as soon as you start adding in more people and players.

as well as like sometimes legal or regulatory requirements, you're gonna have added friction to growth. And I think ultimately this is gonna produce better solutions for the industry. This is gonna be a really great time, because we're gonna see the best of solutions rise to the top. They're gonna stick around. They're gonna be able to get through a tough period where, you know, raising capital isn't as easy as just a big idea, 20 slides in a deck and an intro over coffee to, you know, secure your $10 million.

to go for another two years. So that's kind of how I see it. So I look at it as like, it's definitely a new inflection point on the industry. I will say also to add to that, I think the excitement around the industry and what's happening couldn't be higher. And I see this when I'm at those events, whether it's Blueprint or the different IMN events, those are usually the ones I attend or Cretech, the excitement is there.

The passion is there and it's not just from the founders and players within tech. It's actually from the operators as well. I'm seeing more and more of their experiencing the benefits of the solutions. It's not just a line item in the expense column. It's actually driving change for businesses. And I think that's ultimately that's what we all aspired to. That's what we're setting out to accomplish. To change the way we buy, sell, and invest in real estate is ultimately how I think that...

Andrew (07:21.552)
Hmm.

Nate Smoyer (07:21.583)
PropTech should be done with the leveraging technology versus just adding more staff and that sort of thing. So that's kind of how I see the industry right now. It's a really great time to be in it.

Andrew (07:31.724)
Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I'm curious your perspective. It, you know, we've seen a lot of prop tech pointed at like transactions, right? And obviously what's happening in sales transactions and there's construction tech. There's kind of like these like subgroups, you know, if you will, you were laying out a couple of different frameworks of that. We have seen like an increasing interest kind of in the long -term rental space. There's always been interest there. There's always been companies and investment, et cetera there.

Nate Smoyer (07:46.319)
Yeah.

Andrew (07:59.344)
But we are seeing, as the market has been shifting over the last couple of years, kind of increased interest there. And then you talked a little bit about, hey, some companies not continuing to get the same funding, maybe a prediction of, we'll probably see more &A activity or LBOs and things like that from this point forward. What are you seeing though in the early, almost like seed stage? Are you seeing a similar number of companies cropping up and getting those first checks in investment?

Is it more than it used to be, less than it used to be? Just curious what you're seeing there.

Nate Smoyer (08:32.975)
Yeah, so last year, Proptic funding was down like something like 30 or 40 % year over year compared to 2022. And at first glance, that really looks like a sour, it's a sour thing. It's like, no, investors are pulling out. They don't want to fund the industry. Actually, if you take a look back at it, the number of pre -seed seed and series A transactions was down, but it wasn't that extreme. In fact,

it was really greater than $10 million rounds. That's where you saw the sharp decline. And I think you saw that sharp decline because at that point, investors were saying, hey, what's the long -term viability here? We can't just burn cash forever. Like, do you have a path to profitability? Do you actually have a path to a sustainable business of some sort? And I think that, you know, that demand, because, you know, quite frankly, you know, we've seen such financial turmoil.

since the cost of money has increased, that people aren't really willing to kind of just bet that, you know, we're going to go back to 3 % interest rates and, you know, the world's going to just return to this beautiful time of financing at such low costs. So I think that those early stage companies still have a great shot. There's more incubators now and accelerator programs. And it's not just within PropTech, but other type

programs that are willing to work with PropTech companies. Like YC works with them, HFO, which is exclusively for AI startups. But then you have your PropTech ones like NAR's Reach program. They have their accelerator. You have Modern Ventures has one. Metaprop, of course, the most prolific investor in early stage startups. So, and they all have their own sort of accelerator program to like help these early stage get to what they, you know, get what they need to be able to go

where they wanna go. So I think there's still plenty of activity in that early stage. That's really where you see like, I have this idea, here's the big vision, I've got a compelling story along with it and some evidence that I'm able to get that off the ground. That's like your really earliest rounds of funding. When you start getting to series A, you gotta show like, hey, we have revenue, we have signs that we can maintain this growth, but we need the capital in order to execute that vision.

Nate Smoyer (10:59.567)
And then by the time you're getting the series B, and I had a conversation with the founder recently where they had just closed a north of $25 million round or maybe 20, but it was over $20 million round this year. And I said, what was the difference? Like, what was that like raising that? He said, we really, the biggest thing was we went from telling a really big, you know, big idea story to showing the data, having proof.

that this was something that people wanted, that customers really desired, and we knew how to get in front of them, and we were executing against that. So I'm actually still pretty bullish about early stage ideas and startups getting the funding they need to get going.

Andrew (11:46.8)
Yeah. And, you know, I agree with what you said earlier of, hey, there's something good here. If I'm a property manager, again, listening to this of the bar has been raised for delivering customer value that is worth paying for. And that, you know, if there's more rigor there from investors, it's likely to force, you know, some, some really great companies, right? To rise above that, above that bar and continue to grow, grow and develop in that way in a way that continues to give them.

Nate Smoyer (12:07.151)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (12:15.664)
more and more value over time. Totally makes sense. I'm curious for people who are listening to this, Nate, they may not know about your background that you're an investor yourself, if I'm not mistaken, you have properties, you've worked at different companies like Avale, OB, et cetera. I'm curious just a little bit of what's your opinion on the state of the rental market, if you will, the do -it -yourself landlord,

Nate Smoyer (12:17.167)
Totally.

Andrew (12:43.792)
professional property manager, et cetera. And are there any trends or things you're kind of paying attention to that would be important points of insight for a professional property manager listening to this?

Nate Smoyer (12:55.503)
Yeah, so people understand this. I don't own any investment property within a state that I live in. I live in South Dakota. We have mixed -use property in Washington, a storage facility in Wisconsin, and short -term rental cabins in Ohio. You know, I can't say that I'm the most savvy investor to have created this immogulation of investments, but hey, it is what it is.

They all perform pretty well, pretty happy with them. You know, something that I've paid attention to certainly is right now is actually financing that's outside of conventional terms. It's a really significant concern. So, you know, for those who have five unit or up buildings, you're in commercial financing. If you're outside of 10 single family units, you're either private or some sort of like commercial loan, portfolio loan, product.

And of course, the moment you step out of residential, you're in commercial loan format. This is something because it directly affects me. I'm looking at refinancing costs on our storage facility and in a relatively distant future. And, you know, hey, we're going to have some decisions to make on how we're going to go about that because the increase of capital is going to significantly change our financial outlook on that.

on that property. So it doesn't make sense to hold, doesn't make sense to sell. And if I sell, like, am I gonna be able to buy anything? And it almost feels like you're trapped. You know, I sent my accountant, our tax accountant, email the other day. I was like, hey, I need to know taxable liabilities on these scenarios. Because I'm trying to figure out the scenarios of what makes the most sense. I have a good suspicion that I'm not the only one who feels that.

You know, if you're trying to build a portfolio and graduate up to the next level, it's just really challenging because acquisition costs are super high. Furthermore, unless you're skilled on getting stuff off market, there is very little to pick from. Yes, inventory levels have actually been climbing the last few weeks, but we're still below pre -pandemic levels considerably. And pre -pandemic was very low inventories.

Nate Smoyer (15:20.303)
Like I think it's easy to look at these charts and be like, look how many homes were for sale in 2019. I'm like, actually in 2019, we were all looking left and right and saying, where are all the homes for sale? You know, and not only that, they were flying off the shelf of what was available. So I think these are some things that while many property managers may not be doing a lot of transactions, this is stuff that's in the back of the minds of investors.

how are they going to exit or how are they going to trade up? How are they gonna work through some of these financing charges? These are some important decisions to make. It's not always easy to know this is what's going through the mind of an investor. You mentioned my time at Avail for those listening that don't know, Avail is a platform that's ideal for investors who self -manage and...

even as a software play into managing properties, we had a churn issue that property managers have, which is when the owner sells the property, you lose the unit. And that was a bummer for us because we would see that all the time. And I was like, well, shoot, we could have kept them, but how? They were selling the property. We have no influence over that. I think this is one of the things that property managers can have influence on, even if it's...

not whether or not that person sells the property, but can they sell it to someone else that's within the portfolio? I think that's like the magic solution that everyone would like to somehow frictionlessly solve of, hey, if you're gonna sell your property, sell to one of the other investors in the portfolio, and we'll be all set and everyone's happy. But generally, I think those are some of the challenges. And of course, I'd say that one of the last things is the...

Andrew (17:07.92)
Yeah,

Nate Smoyer (17:11.823)
Want me to pause there?

Andrew (17:12.656)
Sorry, Nate, you cut out there for just this. You cut out for a second where you were talking about if we can keep it in the portfolio, everybody's happy.

Nate Smoyer (17:20.431)
yeah. So if we can keep it in the portfolio, everyone's happy, you know, so you just sell your property to someone else in the portfolio. It's a win around the across the board. I think the last thing that certainly hit a lot of people and it's not likely to change in some markets, regulations and rules and new requirements for owners. Just, I mean, they, we've ramped up, they ratcheted through the roof, you know, whether like how many days you have to give in advance for

certain amount of rent increase, or if you're planning to sell, how many days in advance you have to give notice of that. And it's not just like, we'll give you a hundred dollar fine. Some of these fines are like several to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how much you, what kind of market you're in. Very serious penalties. And so I think some of those, those type changes have like introduced new stresses. But also I think for property managers, it also is something to

to look at as a value prop. I think of this as actually one of those benefits value propositions for a property manager in that they'll know those regulations much better than someone like myself who's self -managing that sometimes maybe I cross my fingers and hope I got it right. Cause sometimes that's definitely what's happening.

Andrew (18:39.051)
Yeah, yeah, I know that that expertise and as you know, more legislation is passing or more regulations changing again, that can feel like a pain point as a process, you know, property manager, this is making my job harder. But that part of your job, you're spreading out across hundreds of units, right, or thousands of units, that expertise as opposed to everybody having to do that and keep up on their own. And so it can be, you know, valuable, valuable to do that and

a reason to hire a property manager. That's a great point. Yeah, Nate, anything else you'd offer just on like kind of insights or things you're paying attention to if you're a professional property manager, things that you're noticing in the market in general?

Nate Smoyer (19:23.055)
I mean, outside of, outside of prop tech and just in the market itself, you know, I think one of the, the ongoing discussions has been around rent increases and the trends around rent increases. There's been a little bit of slowing of growth in that area. Now, primarily what gets reported on is how and what's being reflected from like a larger, portfolio perspective. And oftentimes it's misconstrued or,

I would say disproportionately represents multifamily than it does scattered site. So, certainly look at some of those reports that you see come out with a bit of a grain of salt. But I think that it is highlighting another, it's a challenge, but it's a good opportunity to kind of reset expectations. You know, it's still possible to raise rents in most markets. And you're certain, I think you're gonna be just fine with maintaining good renewal rates and raising rents.

But it's also good to reestablish new expectations of like what a several year outlook could be on overall rent collections. So, you know, again, during zero interest rate period, like we just had, you know, these climbs, you know, we could buy a six cap because all we have to do is hold on for two years and then we've got rents bumped up and everything's golden, but there is a limit to how fast you can do that.

And I think right now the market's responding saying, hey, you know, we can't handle more rent increases or we can only handle so much. We can only absorb so much. And so I think this is a good time to kind of reset, reestablish those expectations with owners of this is what the market's looking like. We're going to adjust accordingly. And this is what the next few years could be.

Andrew (21:13.64)
Yeah, great point. So coming back to PropTech a little bit, Nate, you know, I'm curious, kind of like clicking into some specific areas. And I think this will get a little tactical or practical or interesting for people who are thinking about potential vendors or potential partners, or even things they're thinking about doing themselves that they need to just keep an eye on. Here's what some people out there are working on, props they're trying to solve that may have relevance to my own business.

You know, in the areas of like resident experience, owner experience, you know, that triple win framework, hey, the teams experience and their workflow. Is there anything you're seeing out there that's kind of interesting or got your attention or a couple of specific companies, you know, that you're, you're optimistic about or bullish about what they're working on.

Nate Smoyer (22:01.519)
Yeah, first off the term resident experience. This is actually, I mean, it's very simple. You can do a Google trends report or keyword report and you would see that this is not a term that's always been used. And I think it's a really good step. There's nothing wrong with the term renter. There's nothing wrong with the term tenant, but there is something about when you say the resident experience, it's a no cost way of elevating the renter.

the person who is paying to occupy the property. I think that's a good step forward. I'm actually really happy to see a lot of companies not use the owner versus renter kind of mentality to drive adoption. We can actually experience, it can be a positive experience on both sides. So in terms of renters experience,

There's actually one company that kind of jumps to mind. Have you ever heard of Second Nature?

Andrew (23:04.592)
I am familiar with them actually, yeah.

Nate Smoyer (23:07.055)
Yeah, so of course you are, you know, I kid a little bit, but you know, so like resident benefits packages, you know, ways in which that you can offer benefits to residents just to make the experience of, you know, their living experience a little bit better. You know, whether that's things like sometimes it's rewards and sometimes it's, you know, small maintenance pieces, you know, that sort of thing. But I think there's ways of doing that, like, and then of course, another company in that space that I know you're familiar with.

Andrew (23:13.616)
Mm -hmm.

Nate Smoyer (23:36.687)
Paniata does some of those things. I think offering more services directly to the renter, a handful does a handful of things. First off, you can actually, as a property manager, you can now give things that weren't previously readily available. For instance, renter's insurance, just renter's insurance in general. A lot of people don't really understand that renter's insurance actually helps ensure your belongings. It's not just the unit.

So you go to Starbucks and you're working on something and they call you a drink. You go up to get your drink, you turn around, your laptop is gone. Your laptop's likely covered under renters insurance. Also like the $2 ,000 computer that you keep in your pocket is likely covered. So these are like really interesting things that distribution to renters previously was so difficult. But now that they can be done in a seamless and really like...

beautiful experience through property managers, through, you know, interesting tech and platforms that integrate and play well with, and they're at the right time. You actually have the ability to deliver better things to renters that they didn't know that they would look for. But now that they know that they exist, hey, this is actually something, you know, that maybe costs as much as Netflix, but it actually delivers real value versus whatever Netflix is.

I guess some people value it, I don't. Then I would say similarly is like amenities. It's really expensive for communities to do certain amenities. And I think we saw during the pandemic, there was a really interesting shift, especially in apartment buildings. They were like, we have to give something, a way to reengage and keep people who wanna be here.

you know, of course we all had to wear masks while doing it, but there was a push for this. So like this is where you start seeing like yoga studios pop up, but they were on the lawn, you know, of the apartment community. Or you would have like coffee days in the lobby. They would do happy hours, you know, on the rooftop and stuff like that. And there's, you know, a wide range of what you call like amenifying a building. It can be, you know, to cleaning and to like housekeeping.

Nate Smoyer (25:59.759)
type services, but even down to things like just even communications between neighbors of events. So companies like Amenify, Sugar, Hello Alfred, you know, are companies that really have pushed hard into this space. And they, again, it's, it's a matter of like delivering things that vendors would want. They didn't know how to get or the options to get because of distribution being so inefficient, too expensive.

Andrew (26:01.264)
Mm -hmm.

Nate Smoyer (26:30.159)
And so now it comes by way of the property manager and improving that resident experience is a direct correlation to improving. Tenancy, you know, the lifetime value of a renter. So you're reducing churn costs, reducing turnover, you're reducing, you know, the dissatisfied customers. Your NPS is obviously going to naturally increase. You're probably going to get better reviews. If you asked for them, there's a, there's a cascading positive effect here, but at the same time as the property manager, you're not having to pay to staff.

Andrew (26:39.888)
Thank you.

Nate Smoyer (26:58.543)
this, you're not having to pay to like figure out how to do all these things that they sound really nice, but they don't fit into your workflow. And that's the beauty of this. They don't have to really fit into your workflow. There's there's other companies, there's other services that really have developed a way to keep you in the loop of what's happening and how it's working and what's going on without you being the one to have to work.

Andrew (27:21.52)
Yeah. You know, I mean, this obviously we're passionate about this services and amenity space for, you know, for residents and working with property managers to deliver that. you know, Nate, I'm curious, you know, when I think resident experience, I think of it as it is definitely inclusive of that. And that's like a very hot, innovative part, right. Of the resident experience space, but it's not just that, right. And the resident experience I think is broader and inclusive of more things. And

Again, some of the stuff starts to touch the owner side too, depending kind of on your perspective on it. Yes, I'm curious, like, is there anything else you're seeing, you know, that you're really excited about or kind of bullish on, or if you were a professional property manager, hey, I'd be checking that out, or it seems like there's some interesting innovation happening over there, whether it's maintenance or payments or anywhere else.

Nate Smoyer (28:09.839)
yeah. Totally. I mean, easily the number one, I mean, we could probably just do a few searches, right? And find complaints from a resident on someone's page. I put in a request because the AC wasn't working and I got an auto reply back on Friday, but I never heard from anyone until Tuesday morning. And I'm out of town for the next three days.

and the repair guy can't get here for two weeks because apparently they're backed up, right? Like a total just, and this is a handful of things. Expectations was out of line, communications were poor, and maintenance and service is not lined up to be ready to go, if you will. And so this is a challenge because of a handful of reasons. One,

Maintaining vendor relationships is not necessarily a once and done thing. It's an ongoing conversation. Service vendors aren't exactly exploding in the number of people who are doing it. So you have in some areas like a significantly less number of people available to do more jobs. And so that doesn't help anyone here. So companies that are working in the maintenance space to help kind of...

fill some of these gaps. So like one, I have to shout out, which is property meld also based where I'm at in South Dakota. They do a great job of giving you the data of what you need to know around maintenance. I was like, wait, you know, for instance, you know, when should I have my HVAC serviced? It should seem like an obvious answer, but maybe it's not to everyone, but also maybe you just need to be told when to do it and the cost advantages of doing it that way.

You know, this is something that now you're passing the savings onto the owner. You're improving resident satisfaction. We're proactively working on and solving and mitigating future issues. Right. There was a company that, I actually recently just talked to source seven. They, they gather up the appliance information that's within the property. So whether a multifamily or a scattered site and.

Andrew (30:16.656)
Mmm.

Nate Smoyer (30:31.279)
By way of the labels, the manufacturer labels, they know the year, if it's on a recall list, if it's energy inefficient and comparable models that are be far more efficient. So if you know that the probability of a water heater that's over 12 years old is going to blow out, the owners only had the property say four years. So they don't really know when it was installed and there's nothing marking it to where it's installed. This is the kind of suggestion we can now make.

And the reason we do that is we can have that water heater replaced before it's urgent. So we're not paying for an overnight or overtime rate to get out there in two days. We don't have residents who are complaining about not having hot water and want you to put them up in a hotel for two days. And you're, you're, you're solving future costs that are already going to be coming in. Right. These are some really cool stuff. obviously anyone that does like vendor networking, so kind of solving.

Andrew (31:01.104)
Hmm.

Andrew (31:18.416)
Yes.

Nate Smoyer (31:30.735)
the problem of like finding some of those vendors and doing maintenance. So like Lesson, Lula, Vendero, like these are some of the companies that have been doing a really good job of that. They specialize that, they focus in on that. It's kind of a, it's an obvious no brainer. And one last one, I have to throw this one, cause I think they're cool. I just, I think they're kind of cool. I don't know. It's probably known that especially in the South at least.

I'm willing to bet 90, 95 % of leases say that pest control is not only on the renter, but it's required. Right? So when I moved to Franklin, Tennessee, and I lived in Franklin, my landlord said, you have to have monthly pest control. That was part of the lease agreement. And so there's a company called Pest Share. And that's, that's what they do. They align, they line up the vendor to get out there to take care of it. You know, they, they work through the property managers and that sort of thing. And so.

Being able to easily get that to the renter. Don't make them have to think about who to shop for. Don't make them call the guy down the street who's not licensed to spray a whole bunch of stuff, right? Or doesn't really know what they're doing. You can go through companies like that. You know, you're getting quality vendors. You know, you're getting stuff that's been vetted and checked. And then also they typically integrate and work with your tech stack. So it doesn't make your life that much more hazard or.

Andrew (32:47.08)
Mm -hmm.

Nate Smoyer (32:55.727)
or haggard or, you know, discombobulated, you're going to get a much better seamless experience as a manager. But also all these things, they, while they help the owner maintain the property, improve the property, they're proactively working on the resident experience there as well. So I think all those things really, you know, can we call it triple win? Is that, is that the triple win?

Andrew (33:13.616)
Yeah, it's funny, we didn't talk about this before, but Pest Share actually powers Second Nature's on -demand pest control offering. They've been a great partner to work with. And you mentioned Pinata, who also we work with for the rewards and credit offering. Familiar with the companies you mentioned elsewhere, some are probably, I imagine, familiar with a couple and maybe a couple of those are newer to them. It's really interesting to think about this maintenance space and how you come at it. Again, there's like

Nate Smoyer (33:23.119)
Boom.

Andrew (33:42.704)
you can get very niche and focused on something as specific as pest, right? And involved with that, there's the broader approach to the whole vendor network and developing that out, which is a big challenge and a challenging problem to solve. There's the tech layer of like coordinating and automating and communications. You mentioned, you know, how meld has been very focused on, okay, yes, but then there's the data and the analytics here. And actually can we serve that backup?

in the form of analytics to help our customers make decisions. And it just, the HVAC example was so clear to me because you know what the cost is in the middle of July in a hot market to get repairs and replacements and everything done versus what's the cost on the term, right? But it's like, how do I know that it's going to go out in July, right? When I have this term in February. And if I could know that,

Nate Smoyer (34:22.351)
It's terrible.

Andrew (34:38.192)
or with a certain level of confidence, right, know that I can make a better decision here, that that ultimately benefits everybody in the long term. There's some clear value there, so that's interesting.

Nate Smoyer (34:50.639)
Totally. Yeah, and just to like kind of tap into that just a little bit. I mean, look, everyone, you know, I use cars as an example for a lot of things. Cause I think cars are just such a good example. Your car's probably not going to blow up if you go 5 ,000 miles on the oil change. It actually could probably still go 10 ,000 miles. Like the newer vehicles are pretty dang efficient on not burning the oil.

is provided that you're not driving like a total maniac and like super high degree heats and this, that, and the other. But the regular maintenance while now the average order of change is like a hundred or 150 bucks, which pretty, it's not cheap if you don't do it yourself, it's still so much less than replacing the engine and it just gets the engine going further. So like those little things of like changing out the air folders, making sure they're changed, right. And then even doing servicing the HVAC. So like

someone comes in, looks at the blower. Yeah, the blower looks like it sounds like it's running fine. It should be good to go for the season. Cleaning out the exterior unit. So making sure last year's pollen and cottonwood and leaves and everything isn't blocking its intake so it's not working. You know, if it, because if it has to work, you know, one and a half times harder than it typically does, I can tell you it's not going to last as long. And likelihood is that it's going to burn out in summer because that's when you're running the AC.

Andrew (36:02.928)
I'll be there.

Nate Smoyer (36:17.423)
and it's you plus all the other people in town. And I went through this last year. My blower at our home went out in July and we got told, well, we'll put you on the wait list. I said, okay, well, how long is the wait list? Well, looks like we might have an opening in two weeks. And I said, okay, cause that was the best I could get. And I called them back two weeks later. I said, well, you're on the wait list, but we haven't had an opening yet. We were hoping we'd get to you. Well, I said, what's the new wait list? They're like, it looks like two weeks. I was like, so.

Andrew (36:32.496)
Mm -hmm.

Andrew (36:43.664)
Yep.

Nate Smoyer (36:46.383)
Now we're a month out, you know? And fortunately I was able to find a friend of a friend who had a friend who could pull a favor, but this kind of stuff that's gonna make your business operate smoothly, nor is it going to help resident experience.

Andrew (37:02.576)
Well, Nate, I know we could keep going for hours here and I'm sure we will at our next conference event or next conversation. But I just want to say thanks for coming on. Great to hear what you're thinking about, what you're paying attention to. Thanks for sharing that so generously with us today. So really appreciate it, my man.

Nate Smoyer (37:21.519)
Yeah, my pleasure. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Andrew (37:25.456)
Awesome, great. I think we can call it that.

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