dippedanddripped · 5 years ago
Link
YouTube has always been a hub for an often-voyeuristic form of conspicuous consumption, but for the diehard devotees of influential designers like Raf Simons and Helmut Lang, there's now a veritable abundance of channels dedicated to nuanced discussions of niche men's clothing. Though far from being the most-followed men's fashion accounts, these channels have slowly built sizable audiences by geeking out over a set of hyper-specific references familiar to anyone who's put in time lurking on a particularly heated r/streetwear subthread. Unboxings and shopping hauls still abound, but they're complemented by lengthy commentary on, say, the latest Rick Owens collection or a breathless breakdown of a seminal Margiela show from the '90s.
Like the men behind #menswear, the movement birthed on the blogosphere that peaked in popularity in the early 2010s, these YouTube "creators" are often friends IRL, appearing in each other's videos to compare notes on their latest cops or pal around the local flea market looking for covetable vintage finds. More recently, like some of their #menswear predecessors, many of the creators behind these channels are launching their own clothing brands that mimic the cadence of streetwear drops and sell out almost as quickly. These collections go far beyond branded merchandise: They typically debut in small batches at premium price points and are seamlessly marketed across social media to relatively small but highly devoted followings.
Leveraging the spending power of an existing audience to sell product that's sure to be a hit is a symbiosis the fashion industry is already betting big on. There's Danielle Bernstein of WeWoreWhat's multimillion-dollar design partnerships with Nordstrom and Onia; Aimee Song of Song of Style's collection with Revolve; and Arielle Charnas of Something Navy, who is ending her Nordstrom licensing deal this year to kick off her own lifestyle brand after a $10 million investment, valuing her brand at roughly $45 million. Increasingly, these types of relationships look like the future of the industry. Yet for the most part, retailers have yet to tap into influencers in the menswear space. YouTube represents a new frontier.
In the summer of 2018, Jacob Keller and Cole McBride released the first drop under their Bare Knuckles brand. Keller is a certified YouTube OG: His channel, though now largely inactive, was one of the first to capitalize on the opportunity for menswear-oriented content on the platform, and he's frequently shouted out as a big brother of sorts by other YouTubers. Keller shares an unusually strong connection with his fanbase, many of whom have been interacting with his content since day one. Scroll deep enough through his timeline and you're bound to come across old images of him in full Mishka 'fits, some of which Keller occasionally reposts as a winking nod to his followers.
Bare Knuckles's debut collection featured a medley of washed denims, vintage looking tees and cropped work jackets — an authentic extension of the aesthetic Keller began to hone on YouTube and later made his signature via the 'gram, where he has almost 90K followers. On any given post there's dozens of comments asking where to buy what he's wearing, which today, more often than not, is Bare Knuckles. The collection was a near-instant success, selling out entirely shortly after it released online.
For influencers, profiting off of their online presence is par for the course. Keller and his cohort, however, are pioneering a more creative alternative for a group of guys weaned on a steady diet of conventional fashion content coupled with obscure menswear memes. Many of them cite similar reasons for launching their own lines, as well as a desire to maintain a certain degree of separation between their cut-and-sew collections and the YouTube channels that, they readily concede, in no small way helped make those collections a reality. "Cole and I wanted to start Bare Knuckles so that we could make clothing that we’ve wanted to wear for years but could never find," says Keller, who still largely keeps his collections separate from his channel.
For Ken Iijima, who started uploading videos to YouTube documenting snippets of his life after moving to Tokyo in 2018, keeping that sense of separation is crucial. When Iijima co-founded Vuja Dé earlier this year with Ringo Chang, the two of them agreed to keep the brand at a distance from Iijima's rapidly growing channel, though both acknowledge YouTube as a powerful tool for engaging with their audience. Their first drop included paint-splattered sweatshirts (acrylic, applied by hand) and bondage cargo pants, all made from Japanese-milled cotton and available exclusively through their website, where each size sold out quickly.
"We always knew what we ourselves have wanted and liked to wear, though we were unsure if our preferences directly translated into products an audience would purchase," says Iijima. "In order to realize this, interacting with our audience was a form of validation in allowing us to gauge viewer support… [and] proceed with the project altogether." YouTube, the two note, has "facilitated interaction and provided a way for our audience to get to know us and see we are just as clothing-obsessed as them."
When Magnus Ronning set about launching his eponymous label, he saw his collection as an organic extension of his wardrobe: well-made, approachable basics with a twist, like a denim jacket in a green paisley print, or twill work pants in a dusty pink hue. Ronning is similarly appreciative of the platform his YouTube presence affords him. "YouTube has without a doubt been the most significant incubator for the brand. It has essentially given me a platform to share my interest in clothing, Ronning and everything else with a larger audience than I could ever imagine," he says. "I love the community on YouTube, and I find it amazing recognizing names of people who consistently interact and comment on [my] videos."
Ditto Owen Hyatt, who started posting videos on YouTube in the summer of 2017. Hyatt always wanted to be a YouTuber, even as a kid. "All my idols back then were YouTubers," he remembers. "It was amazing to me that recording videos about your interests could be a job." In early 2019, he debuted Colette Hyatt, a collection that openly pulls inspiration from some of Hyatt's favorite and oft-referenced designers. (Hyatt dutifully shouts them out in the product descriptions on his site.)
The brand's aesthetic skews slightly avant-garde: Its first collection included hand-distressed hoodies with detailed, gothic-looking graphics and an embroidered vegan leather crossbody bag that wouldn't look out of place hanging on the dimly-lit racks of some iconic institution of downtown cool. "At the end of the day I just design clothes that I love and want to wear, and if my audience and customers love it too then even better," Hyatt says. "Getting input and seeing people's reactions to new pieces is always great insight but it doesn't have a major impact on what I create." Yet Hyatt maintains YouTube still holds a lot of value for him "when it comes to showcasing Colette Hyatt, since it's hard to get 'personal' on Instagram."
Hyatt could've just mocked up a few graphic tees and called it a day. Instead, he (and Iijima, Keller, Ronning, et al.) are creating thoughtful, high-quality clothing by aspiring to a level of craftsmanship on par with the luxury labels they admire. For the most part, these guys are making product they like and figuring their followers will, too, all the while responding in real-time to a constant stream of feedback from fans. Internet influence, though, is fickle and fleeting. Pivoting away from content creation is a great way to guarantee a degree of career longevity beyond making a quick buck promoting another company's products. Tapping into the rapidly growing market for men's clothing is a savvy way to capitalize on demand from followers who are constantly clamoring for an "ID on the 'fit, bro?!" Why promote another brand when you could be promoting your own?
Keller sees his brand and others like it as a natural progression of what he was already doing on YouTube. "We go from consuming products, and showing off other people's creations, talking about other people's designs and details. Eventually, we want it to be our product and our details that we're showing off," he says. "We consume so much product and buy from so many brands that we start forming a vision as to what we want our own clothing to look like and take cues from those clothes we've bought in the past." The easy thing to do, Ronning points out, is to release a limited-run of a few cutesy printed t-shirts. In his opinion, the channels currently churning out some of the most exciting menswear content out there are defined by a "want to do better." The bona fide brands he and his friends have started are "well past the point of [T-shirt] blanks and are developing actual cut-and-sew collections."
Vuja Dé's Iijima and Chang share a similar sentiment: "We think there is a common misconception that all YouTube brands are automatically categorized as 'overnight sensations' or 'cash grabs.' We wanted to distance ourselves from this association… It would not do Vuja Dé justice." Hyatt wouldn't be surprised if the nature of menswear content on the platform changes, too. Videos will become "more oriented around our brands," he predicts. "There will be less pickup videos and more behind-the-scenes videos. How our next lookbook photoshoot was shot, how to take product photos, that sort of thing."
Despite the handwringing caused by an Instagram personality with over 2 million followers who couldn't sell 36 T-shirts, influencers still move a lot of merchandise. Keller and McBride have since dropped two more Bare Knuckles collections, further developing the ideas they introduced in earlier designs and expanding into new product categories each time. Most pieces currently in stock on the brand's site are still available, but there's no reason to assume that's cause for concern. Keller uploaded a video to his YouTube channel in early August, just over a year after his last update. Among the hundreds of comments — largely roasting Keller good-naturedly for his inactivity — one fan noted: "As weird as it sounds, every time I watch your videos... it's like seeing an old high-school friend. Crazy it's going on 7-8 years since I've been watching your videos! Glad to see Bare Knuckles doing great bro!"
1 note · View note
reymundomattix1995-blog · 4 years ago
Text
best travel insurance for 70 plus
BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes from different companies :insure4car.xyz
best travel insurance for 70 plus
best travel insurance for 70 plus year old male and female. Find cheap life insurance rates through Insurify today. This site provides life insurance information and quotes. Each rate shown is a quote based on information provided by the carrier. No portion of Insurify’s published rates may be copied, published, faxed, mailed or distributed in any manner for any purpose without the prior written authorization of the owner. Insurify is the top-rated and most-rated insurance comparison website in America. Unlike comparison sites that just take your information and sell it to the highest bidder, Insurify is built on trust and empowerment. No matter your situation or industry, our experienced team is here to help you navigate the unknown, and do so justice. While many life insurance companies focus on their top-of-the-line products, Life Insurance Blog can provide you with exclusive quotes from dozens of top-rated life insurance companies to. best travel insurance for 70 plus days, with some exclusions and limitations. When you request new travel insurance, you agree to the policyholder’s first refusal to pay for the policy, but you can change the coverage so as not to owe any insurance premium. When you cancel a plan, the policy will no longer be valid. This is due a bit more to policy cancellation than cancellation fees. Travel insurance policies only last for 70 days. There’s a full 90 day gap of less than 90 days before canceling the policy, so cancellations happen right before your 90 day gap ends. Your policy renewal periods are within the 90 day window. Travel insurance usually costs around $20 per month, so it’s a very effective way to get health insurance that will be enough for when you do need the coverage. As the name suggests this is a non-compete insurance, you can buy travel insurance in any states where it is sold, but there are restrictions that apply here. Most travel insurance plans. best travel insurance for 70 plus year old driver. So why aren t my premiums lower? My premium is less than $200 a year over the other 50 year olds that I can get with similar policies. Also, it makes more sense for me to pick the best travel insurance when it comes to high-risk driving. And if it suits my purposes, a different type of insurance can also pay me better – like travel insurance for people with low mileage or no mileage. I would probably shop for insurance every other year if I need coverage other than my regular policies as you can get a lower premium with insurance even if you re a high-risk driver. So if you need to find cheaper insurance, I think you ll find a cheap plan from one of the best companies (not sure of any more but, for example, is Travelers?) In any case, if I do need to think and look at what else I can save, then perhaps the most helpful company is Travelers but also Travelers and also and ..
International travel health insurance for US seniors, Travel insurance for above 65 US citizens
International travel health insurance for US seniors, Travel insurance for above 65 US citizens, Personal Accident and Sickness insurance when you need personal care, personal umbrella liability protection, travel accident coverage, Travel medical reimbursement, Trip interruption coverage and personal umbrella liability insurance. Travel Accident insurance 3.0 NerdWallet rating This travel insurance company has an A+ rating with and has partnered with many top attractions in the US, including the World Economic Forum, the U.S. Government, the U.S. Council of American Scientific Societies, and USA Today. If you’re a US citizen, you may qualify for a  by being a  or  is a US citizen and using  for travel insurance quotes, so there are similar trip insurance plans for US citizens . The two plans differ.
Compare and buy US visitor health insurance for seniors
Compare and buy US visitor health insurance for seniors at the best value! I received my Insurance Policy thru HomeOffice.. I had a quote my old insurance policy.. Thank you for help my young mother. The insurance policy I have has now is on my credit. thank you for all those contributions.. Hello! I have a question.. Does my car insurance policy last longer if a visitor car takes my children in it.. Any help can I get that policy? Hi! I have a question.. Can I insure a foreign national who brings my kids to the US to visit her husband.. I have been looking for insurance info on a new car.. I just got a car from a rental company.. Is the insurance covering the new car but their insurance company doesn t? They say no I need to be sure.. Hi is your car insured under a rental policy and can you recommend how much you want to be reimbursed? It depends on the insurance company that you are referring to. Here s what s covered under a full coverage car insurance policy.
Best travel insurance for seniors over 80, Medical insurance for senior visitors
Best travel insurance for seniors over 80, Medical insurance for senior visitors, Insurance and travel insurance for seniors over 80, Medical travel Insurance for seniors, Travel insurance for seniors over 80, Insurance for a limited number of years and Travel insurance for seniors, Medical insurance for seniors over 80, Travel Insurance for seniors over 80, Travel Insurance for ages 80 and above. Travel insurance. Travel cover, as well as travel insurance for seniors. Travel insurance for seniors over 70 for a limited number of years. Travel cover, as well as travel insurance for seniors over 80, Travel Cover up to a grand size. Travel insurance for seniors over 70. Travel cover up to a grand size. Travel cover. Travel insurance for seniors over 70 who must also have medical insurance. Travel insurance for seniors over 80. Travel cover. Senior Travel Insurance for seniors over 81? ? Yes. It’s the senior insurance needed for Senior Visitor Travel Insurance - the same thing as the seniors under 30, Senior Medical Insurance for older US citizens. Travel and travel insurance for seniors over 80, Medical.
Best travel insurance for seniors over 60, Travel insurance for elderly to USA
Best travel insurance for seniors over 60, Travel insurance for elderly to USA and United airlines. For information on buying travel insurance from U.S. travel accident and health insurance You may need this coverage if you’re a recent immigrant in the U.S. . . For people with an annuity, plan, or other benefit .
Over 70 and need travel insurance? Compare your options to get affordable cover for what matters.
Over 70 and need travel insurance? Compare your options to get affordable cover for what matters. We make the travel insurance decisions for you. We ve been helping people decide for years. Find the best travel insurance option for their schedule and budgets. Get a list of authorized travel insurers and agencies. Then, Compare quotes from the top online travel insurance companies and agencies. It’s easier than ever to get the travel experience you want, and we’ll do the right cover for you. No matter what schedule you’re traveling to, we can help you find a plan that fits your needs and budget. You might ask, “do I need travel insurance?” or “do I really need it?” and what’s it all about? To get the right travel insurance, first of all, and first of all, get the right plan from the top. For the best travel insurance, when you’ve worked for a long period, you have the travel insurance (for your personal trips, and even.
Best travel insurance for seniors over 70, Health insurance for elderly visitors
Best travel insurance for seniors over 70, Health insurance for elderly visitors and Medicare and vision. The coverage will include: We are an independent agency looking for a family owned and operated travel insurance agency. Our travel insurance plans can be purchased online and we help to customize them accordingly! We help our clients understand their life’s circumstance and offer their family the best, most affordable insurance that is available for their budget. We do not focus on claims and we do not focus on what you desire in the world. That is what is right for your lifestyle and budget. Travel Insurance is designed to be a quick and intuitive purchase without any focus on your needs or your budget. By providing you with affordable insurance options that will allow you to handle all of your needs within minutes, we create an additional layer of protection to help protect your family’s future as well as saving money. For that we are dedicated to providing you great options that will allow you to customize your policy and coverages from top insurance companies. We make shopping for travel insurance simple, and you can.
0 notes
ipancard · 4 years ago
Text
Don’t You Have PAN Card Yet? Here’s How to Apply For Instant PAN Card
New Delhi: on this digital generation, PAN card is a should for anyone. beginning from filing of profits Tax return to legit cause, PAN is being used as a critical report. preserving these things in thoughts, a developing quantity of people are now making use of for the everlasting Account variety (PAN) for his or her economic matters. hence the profits Tax branch has initiated a facility for ‘on the spot’ Aadhaar-primarily based PAN allotment provider. This facility from the I-T department is for people looking for to gain the precise identification for the first time. The trouble free facility from the government gets a PAN Card allotted to you in just a few mins using only a few clicks. Pan Card Apply Online even as Aadhaar is issued with the aid of the particular identity Authority of India (UIDAI) to a resident of India, PAN is a ten-digit alphanumeric quantity allotted by using the I-T branch to someone, firm or entity.
Tumblr media
comply with these steps: First you will ought to log on to the reliable website/l https://www.Incometaxindiaefiling.Gov.In. at the left hand facet of the home page, you want to click on on “short hyperlinks” simply beneath the tab, you will discover an option “immediate e-PAN” you may want to click on on that option and then click on on “practice instant e-PAN” tab After this, you may see a form for making use of on the spot e-PAN You want to fill in all the info which should fit your Aadhaar file and click the submit button quickly after this, a fresh PAN may be allocated on the idea of a one time password (OTP) sent over the “active mobile wide variety” linked with the valid Aadhaar variety of someone. the brand new PAN card may have statistics of your name, date of delivery, gender, mobile variety and cope with. once the PAN is allocated, you will receive the PAN card by submit within a few days.
As organizations and individuals moved on-line, cyber criminals and fraudsters were capable of hone in their competencies and goal a wider range of people and organizations in the wake 0f the COVID-19 pandemic. at the same time as the variety of cyber attacks on enterprises improved in 2020, specifically for banks and bills companies, the range of individuals who have fallen prey to charge frauds via phishing has additionally improved. in line with information given in Parliament by using the Ministry of Electronics and statistics technology (MEITY) in September, the computer Emergency response crew (CERT-IN) had mentioned 696,938 cyber safety incidents among January to August 2020 compared to 394,456 incidents within the entirety of 2019. In fact, India studies 375 cyber attacks on a day by day basis as consistent with Lt. Gen. (retd.) Rajesh Pant, national Cyber security Coordinator, consistent with a PTI document. before everything, cyber criminals were capable of exploit the worry and panic that ensued inside the wake of the nationwide lockdowns by concentrated on customers with offers on scientific system and pharmaceuticals. Later, because the authorities started out to open its coffers to offer remedy finances to residents and the Reserve bank of India (RBI) added a mortgage moratorium, fraudsters were able to tap into those themes so that you can take advantage of unsuspecting customers. additionally they centered the PM CARES COVID-19 remedy fund by using developing fake Unified payments Interface (UPI) handles. primary cyber protection incidents in 2020 while fraudsters use phishing and social engineering strategies to dupe clients into sending cash to them by posing as valid organizations or traders, the variety of attacks on institutions has accelerated within the wake of the pandemic. As more humans labored from domestic, possibly on unsecured domestic networks, it have become simpler for hackers and cyber criminals to goal these employees as a way to advantage get admission to to an establishments’ network. a number of the fundamental cyber security incidents concerning payments or banking services entities encompass: January 2020: foreign money-exchange issuer, Travelex, focused with a ransomware referred to as Sodinoxbi. at the same time as the attackers demanded $6 million from the business enterprise, Travelex decided to shut its operations in 30 countries.  Pan Card Apply Online February 2020: Hackers sent malicious files via phishing eemails which posed as authentic communication from the earnings Tax department private info such as names, cellphone numbers, electronic mailemail addresses and dates of start of more than 1.2 million SpiceJet passengers bikes corporation Royal Enfield uncovered a database of at least 452,000 people in January 2020, which covered their names, 1ec5f5ec77c51a968271b2ca9862907d IDs, telephone numbers, encrypted passwords, vehicle-related records and social media hyperlinks March 2020: Gang in Mumbai was apprehended after developing 4,000 faux FASTags to claim refunds worth ₹20 crore, which had been siphoned to multiple money owed April 2020: faux UPI turned into created with a comparable call to the official UPI deal with for PM CARES fund June 2020: ThreatLabZ finds instances of focused attacks on authorities and banking businesses. An e eemail with an connected report, with a malware, became sent to the RBI, IDBI bank, the department of Refinance (DOR) inside the country wide financial institution for Agriculture and Rural improvement short Heal protection Labs unearths a spear-phishing e-mail marketing campaign targeting co-operative banks mentioning that the RBI has issued new pointers which the recipient must down load thru an e mail attachment principal Bureau of investigation warns states approximately  Cerberus, a trojan that sends hyperlinks to telephone users as a way to thieve information of credit card and different monetary facts from the telephone, as well as capture -aspect authentication info CERT-IN problems an advisory on EventBot, a mobile banking malware which steals customers’ statistics from financial packages. thru 0.33-party programs the malware downloads onto the victim’s device and masquerades as a valid application. it's far designed to goal over 2 hundred exclusive financial programs along with banking programs, cash transfers and wallets Over 7 million facts of BHIM UPI app customers were breached, together with scans of Aadhaar cards, caste certificate, evidence of residence, PAN playing cards, expert certificates and stages July 2020: Small and Medium organizations which currently moved to the web world are more vulnerable to cyber protection attacks for the reason that they do now not have the necessary software equipment to thwart such assaults. Hyperlocal delivery platform Dunzo’s database with users’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses was breached by way of an attacker, even though the employer says that  database had no charge statistics consisting of credit score card numbers August 2020: CERT-IN issues an alert about a credit card skimmer that goals Microsoft ASP.net web sites. This skimmer is designed to extract credit score card numbers and passwords CERT-IN troubles a caution approximately a new banking malware called BlackRock. The malware mimics Google updates and asks the person for for extended machine privileges and evades antivirus programs Ticketing and travel website RailYatri has suffered a huge statistics breach, exposing private info of an estimated seven-hundred,000 individuals September 2020: the us’ department of Justice charged 5 chinese nationals for hacking institutions in India and overseas. The attackers have allegedly e installed ‘Cobalt Strike Malware’ on Indian government networks and feature compromised the web sites of numerous authorities agency and  stolen software program information and enterprise intelligence November 2020: facts of over 2 crore BigBasket users, including their names, electronic mailemail IDs, password hashes, pin, and get in touch with numbers, among others, turned into leaked and is being bought on the darkish internet December 2020: consistent with Crowdstrike’s ‘2020 international CyberSecurity mindset Survey, ransomware assaults have had a good sized impact on Indian corporations over the last year, with a couple of-third of groups paying the attackers among $ 1 million to $ 2.five million to recover their information and regain system get right of entry to sensitive card facts belonging thousands and thousands of Indians has been compromised and leaked at the dark net due to a security comprise at a server used by Juspay strategies utilized by cyber criminals targeting individuals fake web sites and illegitimate vendor debts on e-trade web sites marketing healthcare and pharmaceutical products Phishing techniques to get clients to pay a price to avail the loan moratorium fake UPI IDs had been created in order that customers ship cash to the incorrect account Fraudsters create faux web sites and use phishing tries to promote insurance guidelines at In light of those growing incidents of frauds, in June remaining 12 months the RBI issued a notification to charge device operators to enhance public focus about frauds and use multi-lingual messages to teach clients. “In Spite of those tasks, occurrence of frauds maintain to bedevil virtual customers, regularly the use of the identical modus operandi users have been suggested about, together with luring them to reveal essential price records, swapping sim playing cards, opening links received in messages and e mails, and many others. There are also cases of customers being tricked into downloading spurious apps that get admission to essential facts stored on gadgets. it is, consequently, critical that each one charge structures operators and participants – banks and non-banks – hold and improve efforts to spread focus approximately virtual protection,” it stated. Pan Card Apply Online
0 notes
dispensaryca-blog · 6 years ago
Text
The Largest U.S.-Focused Marijuana Deal To Date Has Closed -
It's truly incredible how far the marijuana industry has come in such a short amount of time. Just 24 years ago, Gallup polled adults in the U.S. 25% favored legalizing pot nationally. There were also no states that had legalized medical or recreational weed, and not a single country worldwide legally allowed adult-use cannabis.
Tumblr media
Fast-forward to 2019, where now two out of three Americans in Gallup's annual poll want to see marijuana legalized. What's more, two-thirds of all states have given the green light to medical pot, with 10 allowing adult consumption. To our north, Canada has become the first industrialized country in the world, and second overall behind Uruguay, to legalize recreational weed.
That's one heck of an about-face in less than a quarter of a century. With the cannabis industry now considered a legitimate business model, it's moving on to the next logical phase of its development. Image source: Getty Images. To put things mildly, there are way too many marijuana companies in Canada and recreationally legal U.S. A large number of competitors means the possibility of grower overproduction, leading to long-term oversupply. We could also see aggressive pricing practices that could eventually weigh on operating margins. While competition is going to be a good thing for the consumer, we as investors would like to see a reasonable level of competition, rather than companies that rush the gates, so to speak, for cultivation and retail licenses.
As we move headlong into 2019, we're liable to see this consolidation in North America taking shape. This past week, the largest U.S.-focused marijuana deal to date officially closed, and it had vertically integrated dispensary iAnthus Capital Holdings (NASDAQOTH:ITHUF) acquiring MPX Bioceutical (NASDAQOTH:MPXEF). 630 million.
Tumblr media
Each MPX shareholder is also receiving one common share of the newly formed MPX International Corporation, which will hold all of the non-U.S. 682 million, but this deal won't be completed for many more months. This makes, for now, the iAnthus acquisition the largest U.S.-focused deal in history to have actually been completed. Image source: Getty Images. The deal itself targets a push by vertically integrated dispensaries to enter new states as quickly as possible.
Not only is it costly and time-consuming to open dispensaries, but there are also the added costs of developing grow farms and/or processing facilities to control every aspect of the marijuana supply chain. Remember, weed is still a Schedule I substance in the United States, meaning interstate transport isn't allowed. That means dispensaries that want to internalize their costs and control product quality must be willing to also operate grow farms in the states where they're conducting business. In addition, applying for cultivation licenses, processing licenses, and retail permits can be costly and take time. If vertically integrated dispensaries like iAnthus can speed up this process by acquiring these licenses and permits, all the better.
Following closure of the deal, the company now has its footprint in 11 states, with 19 open dispensaries. However, the combination with MPX lifts iAnthus' dispensary license count to 63, providing an ample runway to expand its retail presence. According to iAnthus, the combined company has 210,000 square feet review of speed greens licensed grow space but is targeting 600,000 square feet. This near-tripling in capacity matches up well with the more than tripling in store count expected in the years to come. With iAnthus' operation increasing in size from six to 11 states, we plan to take advantage of this opportunity by unveiling unified national retail and product brands across the organization.
We realize that as the cannabis market continues to grow, the need for strong national brands only increases. With our ambitions to be the leader in the U.S. Image source: Getty Images. Which dispensary is next? With real consolidation under way in the vertically integrated dispensary space, the big question has to be, "Which company is next?" While this remains nothing more than an exercise in dart-throwing, one possible target is Trulieve Cannabis (NASDAQOTH:TCNNF). Arguably the biggest obstacle to consolidation is valuation. 1.3 billion market cap, Trulieve Cannabis would appear to look more like a buyer than a company to be acquired. In fact, Trulieve did recently acquire two businesses, one in California and one in Massachusetts, that'll allow it to expand into these recreationally legal states.
But Trulieve also has a dangling carrot that pretty much any dispensary would love to get its hands on: its laser focus on the Florida medical marijuana market. Trulieve also has ample grow farms within the state and is able to put more than 125 company-branded products in its dispensaries. It's worth noting that Florida has awarded cultivation licenses to just over one dozen companies, making the market especially exclusive, and therefore attractive to a potential acquirer. Once again, I'm no fortune-teller. But if consolidation is to continue as expected in the U.S., Trulieve Cannabis could potentially find itself as the next prime target.
What do you do? Where are you going? How long are you staying? And what is the purpose of your visit? When a Canadian enters the U.S., according to U.S. U.S. for a valid reason, says Green. While it is illegal to use cannabis in the U.S., so is presenting fraudulent documents or misrepresentation, which includes lying to a border official. "Never, never, never, ever lie to U.S. While a person who works for a cannabis company should not volunteer that information, if asked they are going to have to provide some kind of answer to satisfy the official, says Green. Leonard Saunders is a U.S. The Immigration Law Firm in Blaine, Wash.
He told Business In Vancouver that when asked about cannabis, if involved in the industry, the best thing to do is say nothing. Saunders says he knows of at least 12 recent cases of cannabis executives receiving lifetime bans. Once legalized, cannabis will be sold in government-run LCBOs in Ontario. Trina Fraser, co-managing partner at Brazeau Seller LLP, says U.S. LCBO cashiers in the same category as cannabis industry executives. Fraser says she spoke to Homeland Security officials about whether someone like her, who represents clients in the cannabis industry, would have trouble travelling to the U.S. "illegal purpose for entry" for which she could be denied entry.
Denial of entry for those connected to cannabis companies "is the exception not the norm," says Fraser. The problem is there is no clarity and so much discretion that people like her are subject to the whims of a random border agent. "It just seems to be so willy-nilly and so haphazard," she says. "If they happen to be in a really bad mood and have a bee in their bonnet, that could lead to questions being asked that you're not able to answer in a satisfactory way. On June 21, Bill C-45, which legalized cannabis, received royal assent. Bringing cannabis across the border into Canada will remain illegal once the law takes effect, however, even if arriving from a jurisdiction where cannabis is legal and if it is for medicinal purposes, according to the Government of Canada.
To safeguard their health and quality of life, patients with debilitating chronic pain require special accommodations and protections in society, a principle which the field of physiatry has helped to establish and champion in the decades since its founding. Following a year-long hospitalization at Walter Reed Army Hospital, 13 spinal surgeries, and a re-injury in a motor vehicle turnover collision, Mr. Tuck developed 'failed back surgery syndrome'. He suffered from severe daily chronic pain, a neurogenic bladder requiring intermittent self-catheterization, and chronic muscle spasms. He managed his debilitating symptoms with prescribed use of morphine and benzodiazepines. He reported that his morphine dosage had not escalated over 16 years of daily use because he had also relied on the palliative and proven analgesic properties of whole plant cannabis as an adjuvant medicine for pain relief.
This prospect terrified Mr. Tuck, and in the midst of worrisome legal proceedings in 2001, he fled to Canada and sought asylum following his arrest, as the medical utility of cannabis had recently been federally recognized there. I saw Mr. Tuck again at a hearing in the Federal Magistrate's Courtroom later in the day. I observed his slow and deliberate gait as he shuffled into the courtroom. One leg was significantly more rigid than the other. His facial grimacing was consistent with expressions of extreme pain and discomfort. The Magistrate scheduled a hearing for the following day. The next day, I returned to the Courtroom for Mr. Tuck's hearing.
Mr. Tuck again appeared to be in significant pain and discomfort. During the course of this hearing, the Magistrate asked me to address the Court briefly. I stated my name and home address and my affiliation as President of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. I told the Court that I would be able to serve as a liaison to Seattle's hospital system for Mr. Tuck. I committed to seeing to it that he would receive his needed medical care. The Magistrate bonded myself and Mr. Hiatt to the court, and Mr. Tuck was released into our custody with the understanding that he would receive medical care and then report to the jurisdiction where he faced charges in California. Due to AP media presence, news of Mr. Tuck's medical condition and his conditional release appeared in 50-100 newspapers across the country.
0 notes
subimpact · 4 years ago
Quote
 The big corporations of the world seem to have endless resources, unlike smaller companies that must run on fewer luxuries. Giant companies usually have in-house marketing teams and, if not, they are still able to afford and hire advertising agencies to create marketing collaterals, websites, messaging, advertising, direct mail and email campaigns. They test and retest, conduct quantitative analyses to measure market share, develop new creative messaging, focus on brand development and more. They hire the best and brightest out of business schools and they pay them hefty salaries. Their marketing budgets are in the millions - TV advertising budgets alone are in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.Small firms, for the most part, do not have access to as many resources to do any of these things. So how can small businesses possibly compete and, importantly, survive and get the word out? Is it a losing battle from the very beginning? The answer is, of course not! Small businesses can most certainly find a competitive edge to compete with bigger companies.Alibaba - The Crocodile in the Yangtze River Jack Ma’s Alibaba overcame giants eBay to become the leading e-commerce website company in China. Back in 2003, eBay paid $150 million to buy EachNet, which was China's top e-commerce site at the time. Their CEO was Meg Whitman, a Harvard Graduate with a distinguished resume which included being the former Vice President of The Walt Disney Company. The American behemoth entered the Chinese market backed with an abundance of resources, a talented workforce, and a strong brand reputation. On the other hand, Alibaba’s CEO was Jack Ma, a 10-time Harvard reject whose resume included 2 failed businesses and being an English school teacher. The odds were stacked against the local Chinese company.So what was Jack Ma’s solution to eBay’s competitive threat? Taobao, a Chinese online shopping website that offered free listings to sellers, introduced website features designed to act in local consumers' best interests, such as instant messaging to facilitate buyer-seller communication and an escrow-based payment tool, Alipay. As a result, Taobao became a mainland China's undisputed market leader within two years. Its market share surged from 8% to 59% between 2003 and 2005, while eBay China plunged from 79% to 36%.eBay on the other hand, suffered from a combination of poor management which included, for example, not giving enough power to local executives, which in turn crippled the business. "It's very hard to compete with free," said Jay Lee, eBay's senior vice-president and managing director for the Asia Pacific. eBay shut down its operations in China in 2006, 3 years after entering the Chinese market. After this astounding victory, Jack Ma famously said, “eBay is a shark in the ocean. We are a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we will lose. But if we fight in the river, we will win.” Today, Alibaba is the world's largest retailer and e-commerce company with online sales and profits surpassing all US retailers (including Walmart, Amazon, and eBay) combined since 2015.How to create your competitive edgeMany say size does matters, but when it comes to business, it's all about how you position yourself. Warren Buffett has been fairly successful in picking winners and he says the key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company as well as the durability of that advantage.The term competitive advantage refers to a unique advantage a company has over companies offering similar goods or services that allow it to generate higher sales volumes or attract more customers. Jim Collins, in his book, ‘From Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't’, asked these three questions to unravel one’s competitive advantage:What can your business be the first at?What is that unique thing only your business can offer?What can your business be the best at?Any of the above will give you an idea of your competitive advantage. Once you can identify it you must be able to communicate it to your employees and your customers.Here are three steps that will help you discover your competitive advantage:Make a brag list.This means you make a list of the positive claims you can make through your marketing messages, advertisements or sales pitches. Here is where a true in-depth understanding of your business process is important. As you compile a list of all key activities that your business is good at, brainstorm as many as possible and list down every single one. For example, you might make claims like, we offer overnight shipping like Amazon Prime, or we have highly skilled service staff with a decade of experience behind or emphasise your excellent customer reviews online, or that your pricing is very attractive.List the things that your competitors do well to differentiate yourself from the competition.You must understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Review your competitors and make a list of all the things they do well. As you build the list, you may also notice some commonality and claims that your competitor might also do just as well as you. After building the list, cross out any activity that you and your competitors do well. This does not mean that you stop doing them, but helps to clarify that it can't be your exclusive claim anymore. Jack Ma says, "you should learn from your competitor, but never copy them. Copy and you die."Create a fresh list of advantages only your company can do exceptionally well.You can also interact with your customers and find out why they choose you over your competitor. This might lead to big revelations you might not have thought of before. At the end of this stage, you should only be left with two or three possible competitive advantages and choose the best one from them. You can consider the following reasons to choose your real competitive advantage. Cross out anything that can easily be copied by a competitor or any new entrants to the industry, things that cannot be marketed or advertised, or if the advantage could be turned against you by a competitor. The activity that you do excel in (that your competitor is not good at) and is valued by your customers becomes your competitive advantage.Once you have selected your competitive advantages make sure that you quantify them. For example, instead of claiming that you have the fastest service, say you have one hour response time that is five times faster than your immediate competitors. Instead of saying only “customer satisfaction,” quantify it with specifications like we have a 98.8% customer satisfaction rating which is the highest in the industry. Make sure that your unique claims are validated by quantifiable data to call them your competitive advantages and remember that it comes from what your people do and not from what they know. Performance and resolve are the key to measuring your competitive advantage. Always remember that most advantages can be duplicated within a certain period. Approximately 70% of all new products can be duplicated within one year 60-90% of process improvements eventually spread to your competitors.Capitalise on your advantageCompetitive advantage is a dynamic process that demands constant attention. If you want to make your competitive advantage sustainable make sure you keep refining them from time to time. However, simply knowing what your competitive advantage will not be enough if you do not capitalise on them. In business, it is natural to take risks to grow your business and remain competitive by trying new business strategies. To execute and realise them, an injection of funds is usually required. However, some businesses do lack the necessary funds and one good approach to source funding is to apply for a business loan.If you are looking for a bank loan for business in Malaysia, try applying for an OCBC Business Term Loan. It comes with no collateral and a financing amount from RM50,000 up to RM600,000 and a tenure of financing of up to five years to repay the loan with attractive interest rates between 5.50% p.a. (Effective Interest Rate 10.01%) and 10.00% p.a. (Effective Interest Rate 17.27%). Enquire now at https://www.ocbc.com.my/BusinessTermLoan
http://www.subimpact.net/2020/07/how-to-maintain-competitive-edge-with.html
0 notes
brettseaton · 5 years ago
Text
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects
AI (artificial intelligence) does work across dozens of industries. Just ask Amazon, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart. What do those four have in common? Years of operational data, the money to invest in such an initiative, and experts in the discipline who know how to balance the science and the art of that discipline.
So is real estate different? Well, it depends on the individual aspect of the business under analysis, but it still starts with people, money and time. It also requires the same discipline to balance science and art, and to avoid chasing shiny objects just because they’re, well, shiny. Worse yet, some of those shiny objects could be classified as “me too” solutions, including recently publicized tech platforms being rolled out by so many brokers and franchisors.
AI is such an overused term these days since it’s often mistaken for data analytics and there are some good data analytics solutions out there. However, none other than Robert Reffkin told the assembled audience at Inman Connect in NYC this past January (at the 9:20 mark) that “I hope you don’t think that data analytics is going to help you make more money.” While that may have been a broad brush comment on his part, data analytics does work in real estate – but one still needs people, money and time.
But what comes after the data?
It’s one thing to have all that data but one needs to know what to do with it and one also needs to know the industry at the LOCAL market level. There are similarities across various markets throughout the country but anyone who thinks that market dynamics are basically the same in Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey is either new to the business or uninformed about local markets, or both.
Some people back at headquarters may be great data crunchers but without a thorough understanding of each market’s nuances, they could go down a rabbit hole and waste valuable time. One size does not fit all and it takes longer than a lot of people realize for data analytics initiatives to pay off in this business. For example, the need for knowledgeable managers in local markets becomes greater to validate and act on the data analysis by the people back at headquarters. And that also takes time.
Starting at the top and working down
Let’s start with Realogy and Zillow. If you’re Realogy, your primary business is either a company-owned brokerage operation or a franchisor. If you’re Zillow, it’s selling leads and advertising to agents and brokers with an emerging iBuyer business.
Realogy and Zillow have a decided advantage over others in the data arena. As Ryan Schneider said in that same ICNY video, Realogy has TWENTY years worth of data at its fingertips, and we all know that Zillow wouldn’t be as successful in pricing zipcode-based leads without the mountains of data available to it. Both of these companies are years ahead of the competition with respect to the amount of data that they have access to.
Both have a nationwide footprint and access to all that data with one large similarity and one large difference:
They both have access to many years’ worth of real estate transactions across the country and relationships with tens of thousands of agents.
Realogy has access to granular agent compensation data on a huge scale and Zillow does not. Zillow has access to agent buying habits on a massive scale and Realogy does not. But those differences are also what drive their respective business models and revenue.
What does this mean to franchisors?
This type of activity also applies to firms that are exclusively in the franchising business but still have a large geographic footprint.
Franchisors, specifically RE/Max & Keller Williams, have to convince their franchisees of the value associated with the data and the franchisor’s analysis of said data – easier said than done. Before that happens, the analysis needs to be tested in enough markets to establish not just the methodology but also the value, both intrinsic and perceived.  Again, it depends on which markets are parts of that test. And again, that takes time in addition to people and money.
They also need a (new and improved?) tech platform for presentation of some of the data analytics to their respective customer bases. More people, money and time.
What about brokers?
Few brokers have the available resources to commit to a wide-ranging initiative. Regional brokers, say, in the top twenty of the Real Trends 500, probably have the data necessary to do some number crunching specific to their individual markets and interests. But the smarter ones have been crunching data already, albeit under other banners (e.g., commission split analysis, company dollar analysis, agent productivity, office productivity).
What about old and new business models?
Discounters historically have garnered at most a high single-digit market share. The analysis for that model has been rehashed more than a few times and still comes out the same – one doesn’t need to see that tree fall in the forest to know what sound it makes when it hits the ground. People and money are the big hurdles for these brokers.
The iBuyer model relies heavily on Zestimate 2.0. Regardless of the source or methodology, it still requires a large investment of people, money and time. But as many others have pointed out, that’s only the starting point. The path down that road is where Zillow has a huge near-term advantage over Opendoor and other entrants in that marketplace, an advantage that they have built up over the past 12 years. People, money and especially time are required, even if you’re one of the industry’s unicorns.
So is Robert Reffkin right? Is the ROI really there for such a data analytics initiative along with the tech platform when it comes to broker/agent adoption? Are these brokers and franchisors really looking to increase market share in the near term for their own individual financial interests or is this just another example of the shiny object syndrome so prevalent in this business?
There is a third business model in this mix – the self-described “tech-enabled brokerage” – two of whom are Redfin and Compass. That in turn raises the following questions:
Why is Redfin pouring so much money in 2019 into classic real estate broker marketing?
Why is Compass acquiring other brokers left and right?
And how do these two situations square with both companies’ professed allegiance to tech platforms in general as meaningful competitive advantages in this business?
The people, money and time being invested by these two companies in tech platforms is astounding but are they really building better mousetraps? Or have they become dazzled by a couple shiny objects and mistaken them for better mousetraps?
Summing up
So is it really artificial intelligence at work in the real estate industry or is it really just good old fashioned data analytics? Fifteen years ago, we called it data analysis and that process hasn’t changed much. Will it make a difference at Realogy now under Ryan Schneider. That remains to be seen.
Was Robert Reffkin correct back in January about the value of data analytics? Ask Zillow, Opendoor and Realogy – they would disagree with him.
An old boss once shared an adage with me about the finite resources of people, money and time in the business world: “Talented people are valuable but still fungible to a large degree, especially in technology; money is valuable but always fungible; time is as valuable as the other two but it’s not fungible.”
Without the advantage of time, the odds are not that great for KW and RE/Max to achieve the needed adoption rates to make much of a difference with their respective tech platform projects. Without the advantage of time, Compass and Redfin also face huge hurdles in catching up to the leaders in their market.  And there lies the real danger of the shiny object syndrome when it comes to topics such as data analytics and tech platforms in real estate – chasing that shiny object eats up valuable time regardless of how much money or people one has.
[Image via https://steemit.com/]
The post AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects syndicated from https://oicrealestate.wordpress.com/
0 notes
cathrynstreich · 5 years ago
Text
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects
AI (artificial intelligence) does work across dozens of industries. Just ask Amazon, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart. What do those four have in common? Years of operational data, the money to invest in such an initiative, and experts in the discipline who know how to balance the science and the art of that discipline.
So is real estate different? Well, it depends on the individual aspect of the business under analysis, but it still starts with people, money and time. It also requires the same discipline to balance science and art, and to avoid chasing shiny objects just because they’re, well, shiny. Worse yet, some of those shiny objects could be classified as “me too” solutions, including recently publicized tech platforms being rolled out by so many brokers and franchisors.
AI is such an overused term these days since it’s often mistaken for data analytics and there are some good data analytics solutions out there. However, none other than Robert Reffkin told the assembled audience at Inman Connect in NYC this past January (at the 9:20 mark) that “I hope you don’t think that data analytics is going to help you make more money.” While that may have been a broad brush comment on his part, data analytics does work in real estate – but one still needs people, money and time.
But what comes after the data?
It’s one thing to have all that data but one needs to know what to do with it and one also needs to know the industry at the LOCAL market level. There are similarities across various markets throughout the country but anyone who thinks that market dynamics are basically the same in Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey is either new to the business or uninformed about local markets, or both.
Some people back at headquarters may be great data crunchers but without a thorough understanding of each market’s nuances, they could go down a rabbit hole and waste valuable time. One size does not fit all and it takes longer than a lot of people realize for data analytics initiatives to pay off in this business. For example, the need for knowledgeable managers in local markets becomes greater to validate and act on the data analysis by the people back at headquarters. And that also takes time.
Starting at the top and working down
Let’s start with Realogy and Zillow. If you’re Realogy, your primary business is either a company-owned brokerage operation or a franchisor. If you’re Zillow, it’s selling leads and advertising to agents and brokers with an emerging iBuyer business.
Realogy and Zillow have a decided advantage over others in the data arena. As Ryan Schneider said in that same ICNY video, Realogy has TWENTY years worth of data at its fingertips, and we all know that Zillow wouldn’t be as successful in pricing zipcode-based leads without the mountains of data available to it. Both of these companies are years ahead of the competition with respect to the amount of data that they have access to.
Both have a nationwide footprint and access to all that data with one large similarity and one large difference:
They both have access to many years’ worth of real estate transactions across the country and relationships with tens of thousands of agents.
Realogy has access to granular agent compensation data on a huge scale and Zillow does not. Zillow has access to agent buying habits on a massive scale and Realogy does not. But those differences are also what drive their respective business models and revenue.
What does this mean to franchisors?
This type of activity also applies to firms that are exclusively in the franchising business but still have a large geographic footprint.
Franchisors, specifically RE/Max & Keller Williams, have to convince their franchisees of the value associated with the data and the franchisor’s analysis of said data – easier said than done. Before that happens, the analysis needs to be tested in enough markets to establish not just the methodology but also the value, both intrinsic and perceived.  Again, it depends on which markets are parts of that test. And again, that takes time in addition to people and money.
They also need a (new and improved?) tech platform for presentation of some of the data analytics to their respective customer bases. More people, money and time.
What about brokers?
Few brokers have the available resources to commit to a wide-ranging initiative. Regional brokers, say, in the top twenty of the Real Trends 500, probably have the data necessary to do some number crunching specific to their individual markets and interests. But the smarter ones have been crunching data already, albeit under other banners (e.g., commission split analysis, company dollar analysis, agent productivity, office productivity).
What about old and new business models?
Discounters historically have garnered at most a high single-digit market share. The analysis for that model has been rehashed more than a few times and still comes out the same – one doesn’t need to see that tree fall in the forest to know what sound it makes when it hits the ground. People and money are the big hurdles for these brokers.
The iBuyer model relies heavily on Zestimate 2.0. Regardless of the source or methodology, it still requires a large investment of people, money and time. But as many others have pointed out, that’s only the starting point. The path down that road is where Zillow has a huge near-term advantage over Opendoor and other entrants in that marketplace, an advantage that they have built up over the past 12 years. People, money and especially time are required, even if you’re one of the industry’s unicorns.
So is Robert Reffkin right? Is the ROI really there for such a data analytics initiative along with the tech platform when it comes to broker/agent adoption? Are these brokers and franchisors really looking to increase market share in the near term for their own individual financial interests or is this just another example of the shiny object syndrome so prevalent in this business?
There is a third business model in this mix – the self-described “tech-enabled brokerage” – two of whom are Redfin and Compass. That in turn raises the following questions:
Why is Redfin pouring so much money in 2019 into classic real estate broker marketing?
Why is Compass acquiring other brokers left and right?
And how do these two situations square with both companies’ professed allegiance to tech platforms in general as meaningful competitive advantages in this business?
The people, money and time being invested by these two companies in tech platforms is astounding but are they really building better mousetraps? Or have they become dazzled by a couple shiny objects and mistaken them for better mousetraps?
Summing up
So is it really artificial intelligence at work in the real estate industry or is it really just good old fashioned data analytics? Fifteen years ago, we called it data analysis and that process hasn’t changed much. Will it make a difference at Realogy now under Ryan Schneider. That remains to be seen.
Was Robert Reffkin correct back in January about the value of data analytics? Ask Zillow, Opendoor and Realogy – they would disagree with him.
An old boss once shared an adage with me about the finite resources of people, money and time in the business world: “Talented people are valuable but still fungible to a large degree, especially in technology; money is valuable but always fungible; time is as valuable as the other two but it’s not fungible.”
Without the advantage of time, the odds are not that great for KW and RE/Max to achieve the needed adoption rates to make much of a difference with their respective tech platform projects. Without the advantage of time, Compass and Redfin also face huge hurdles in catching up to the leaders in their market.  And there lies the real danger of the shiny object syndrome when it comes to topics such as data analytics and tech platforms in real estate – chasing that shiny object eats up valuable time regardless of how much money or people one has.
[Image via https://steemit.com/]
The post AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/
0 notes
clarencevancleave · 5 years ago
Text
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects
AI (artificial intelligence) does work across dozens of industries. Just ask Amazon, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart. What do those four have in common? Years of operational data, the money to invest in such an initiative, and experts in the discipline who know how to balance the science and the art of that discipline.
So is real estate different? Well, it depends on the individual aspect of the business under analysis, but it still starts with people, money and time. It also requires the same discipline to balance science and art, and to avoid chasing shiny objects just because they’re, well, shiny. Worse yet, some of those shiny objects could be classified as “me too” solutions, including recently publicized tech platforms being rolled out by so many brokers and franchisors.
AI is such an overused term these days since it’s often mistaken for data analytics and there are some good data analytics solutions out there. However, none other than Robert Reffkin told the assembled audience at Inman Connect in NYC this past January (at the 9:20 mark) that “I hope you don’t think that data analytics is going to help you make more money.” While that may have been a broad brush comment on his part, data analytics does work in real estate – but one still needs people, money and time.
But what comes after the data?
It’s one thing to have all that data but one needs to know what to do with it and one also needs to know the industry at the LOCAL market level. There are similarities across various markets throughout the country but anyone who thinks that market dynamics are basically the same in Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey is either new to the business or uninformed about local markets, or both.
Some people back at headquarters may be great data crunchers but without a thorough understanding of each market’s nuances, they could go down a rabbit hole and waste valuable time. One size does not fit all and it takes longer than a lot of people realize for data analytics initiatives to pay off in this business. For example, the need for knowledgeable managers in local markets becomes greater to validate and act on the data analysis by the people back at headquarters. And that also takes time.
Starting at the top and working down
Let’s start with Realogy and Zillow. If you’re Realogy, your primary business is either a company-owned brokerage operation or a franchisor. If you’re Zillow, it’s selling leads and advertising to agents and brokers with an emerging iBuyer business.
Realogy and Zillow have a decided advantage over others in the data arena. As Ryan Schneider said in that same ICNY video, Realogy has TWENTY years worth of data at its fingertips, and we all know that Zillow wouldn’t be as successful in pricing zipcode-based leads without the mountains of data available to it. Both of these companies are years ahead of the competition with respect to the amount of data that they have access to.
Both have a nationwide footprint and access to all that data with one large similarity and one large difference:
They both have access to many years’ worth of real estate transactions across the country and relationships with tens of thousands of agents.
Realogy has access to granular agent compensation data on a huge scale and Zillow does not. Zillow has access to agent buying habits on a massive scale and Realogy does not. But those differences are also what drive their respective business models and revenue.
What does this mean to franchisors?
This type of activity also applies to firms that are exclusively in the franchising business but still have a large geographic footprint.
Franchisors, specifically RE/Max & Keller Williams, have to convince their franchisees of the value associated with the data and the franchisor’s analysis of said data – easier said than done. Before that happens, the analysis needs to be tested in enough markets to establish not just the methodology but also the value, both intrinsic and perceived.  Again, it depends on which markets are parts of that test. And again, that takes time in addition to people and money.
They also need a (new and improved?) tech platform for presentation of some of the data analytics to their respective customer bases. More people, money and time.
What about brokers?
Few brokers have the available resources to commit to a wide-ranging initiative. Regional brokers, say, in the top twenty of the Real Trends 500, probably have the data necessary to do some number crunching specific to their individual markets and interests. But the smarter ones have been crunching data already, albeit under other banners (e.g., commission split analysis, company dollar analysis, agent productivity, office productivity).
What about old and new business models?
Discounters historically have garnered at most a high single-digit market share. The analysis for that model has been rehashed more than a few times and still comes out the same – one doesn’t need to see that tree fall in the forest to know what sound it makes when it hits the ground. People and money are the big hurdles for these brokers.
The iBuyer model relies heavily on Zestimate 2.0. Regardless of the source or methodology, it still requires a large investment of people, money and time. But as many others have pointed out, that’s only the starting point. The path down that road is where Zillow has a huge near-term advantage over Opendoor and other entrants in that marketplace, an advantage that they have built up over the past 12 years. People, money and especially time are required, even if you’re one of the industry’s unicorns.
So is Robert Reffkin right? Is the ROI really there for such a data analytics initiative along with the tech platform when it comes to broker/agent adoption? Are these brokers and franchisors really looking to increase market share in the near term for their own individual financial interests or is this just another example of the shiny object syndrome so prevalent in this business?
There is a third business model in this mix – the self-described “tech-enabled brokerage” – two of whom are Redfin and Compass. That in turn raises the following questions:
Why is Redfin pouring so much money in 2019 into classic real estate broker marketing?
Why is Compass acquiring other brokers left and right?
And how do these two situations square with both companies’ professed allegiance to tech platforms in general as meaningful competitive advantages in this business?
The people, money and time being invested by these two companies in tech platforms is astounding but are they really building better mousetraps? Or have they become dazzled by a couple shiny objects and mistaken them for better mousetraps?
Summing up
So is it really artificial intelligence at work in the real estate industry or is it really just good old fashioned data analytics? Fifteen years ago, we called it data analysis and that process hasn’t changed much. Will it make a difference at Realogy now under Ryan Schneider. That remains to be seen.
Was Robert Reffkin correct back in January about the value of data analytics? Ask Zillow, Opendoor and Realogy – they would disagree with him.
An old boss once shared an adage with me about the finite resources of people, money and time in the business world: “Talented people are valuable but still fungible to a large degree, especially in technology; money is valuable but always fungible; time is as valuable as the other two but it’s not fungible.”
Without the advantage of time, the odds are not that great for KW and RE/Max to achieve the needed adoption rates to make much of a difference with their respective tech platform projects. Without the advantage of time, Compass and Redfin also face huge hurdles in catching up to the leaders in their market.  And there lies the real danger of the shiny object syndrome when it comes to topics such as data analytics and tech platforms in real estate – chasing that shiny object eats up valuable time regardless of how much money or people one has.
[Image via https://steemit.com/]
The post AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230574 http://bit.ly/2EDKDZ7 via IFTTT
0 notes
topicprinter · 6 years ago
Link
Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Jack Bramhall of Mugpods, a brand that sells nespresso compatible pods.Some stats:Product: Nespresso compatible pods.Revenue/mo: $21,000Started: September 2015Location: ManchesterFounders: 2Employees: 2Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hello there, my name is Jack Bramhall and I am the co-founder of Mugpods - Nespresso compatible pods.Mugpods began back in September 2015 to bring the World’s First hot chocolate pods and coffee range for use in Nespresso machines to the UK market.Initially starting with $6500 capital, we sold out in a matter of weeks following launch, fast forward to today we now average around $21,000 USD per month in revenue with millions of pods sold.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Throughout my teenage years I had a few small ecommerce businesses and loved the idea of being an entrepreneur.I am a self-taught web designer, and have quite a lot of experience with digital marketing and search engine optimisation. That being said, my previous websites/businesses never really succeeded due to lack of funds and/or operating in highly saturated markets.In 2015, both myself and my co-founder (Mike) owned a Nespresso machine, and the company I was working for (IT/Telecoms) had one on every floor! Colleagues would “club together” to place giant orders direct from the Nespresso website and we were both spending a small fortune a month on these little colourful pods.Quite simply the original idea came from asking the question “Why can’t I get hot chocolate for my Nespresso machine?”, combined with “Surely I can get cheaper Nespresso pods?”.Using Google’s own tools such as the keyword planner and trends, we were able to quickly identify that there were thousands of people asking the same question that I was - but nobody providing the product! The Nespresso and coffee pod market was also quite clearly growing exponentially across the whole of Europe.To be clear, there were other companies making “compatible” pods for these machines, but coffee only and from my own research there were a lot of issues with compatibility and quality.After further research we found only one manufacturer in the World that had managed to crack hot chocolate and so we got in touch about samples and whether they would be open to us buying and selling their products. Initially, I think they possibly doubted if anything would come of it - asking us whether we had relationships we retailers etc which we did not. To prove how serious we were I built the mugpods website in a weekend.The samples arrived and Mike and I (very excitedly) spent an evening trying each and every flavour, they tasted fantastic and worked perfectly across multiple machine models. We then invited friends and family to give them a try and had 100% positive feedback. We immediately got back in touch to formalise everything, and decided to take the risk and committed to a minimum order.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.We were quite fortunate enough that the “range” of products already existed from our manufacturer - we simply needed to decide which products we wanted to launch with and then agree on terms (such as exclusivity) which, until we proved ourselves was not on the cards.That being said there were so many “hurdles” that we did not have any prior experience of such as importing, for example learning about commodity codes (codes that are applied to different products when importing) - these codes link to tariffs/taxes which you pay on import.Obviously, one of the first things we had to do was decide on our name, we came up with around 60 different words - the majority contained “pod” or “mug”, each one we checked whether the name already existed and whether the relevant domain names were available - eventually leading us to mugpods! The logo took far longer, we used a website called zillion designs where basically designers submit proposals and you vote/provide feedback on each one. It took 74 revisions for us to finally get to our logo (that we then trademarked).We also perhaps naively thought that if something is organic in one country that means it is organic in ours - how wrong we were! On importing an organic coffee one of our products got quarantined (at a cost per day) for lack of UK certification, then we were told by customs that we could not sell the product AND had to have an inspection to ensure they were not being sold. This mistake cost us thousands so our learning was to ensure any certificates must be valid in your own country and double and triple check your own countries laws around packaging prior to order/manufacture.Describe the process of launching the business.As previously mentioned, we built the website in a weekend using the Prestashop platform and accepted Paypal.Our initial capital came completely from a personal loan of $6500, which was spent almost entirely on our stock (and freight/import costs) right at the beginning, we opted for air freight to get it to us quickly and be able to launch within two weeks.Our official launch was only via social media. The fact we had World’s 1st products made it very easy for us to quickly get our message out via facebook, immediately getting hundreds of comments (and most importantly traffic). We quite simply used images of the chocolate “pod” with the product and text to show it was the World’s 1st. Following that we ran a continuous “boosted” post targeting anyone who liked or had an interest in “Nespresso” and “Hot Chocolate”.Following launch, we were immediately getting daily orders, but at the time both Mike and I were working full time - with all of our stock sat in Mike's parents garage we would get up early every morning, go to Mike's parents house to pack orders, then take them to a local drop off point before going to our day jobs. Within a few months Mikes Mum Lisa started helping during the day as the volume continued to increase.One of the biggest issues right from the beginning was that we had no spare cash, demand was always higher than supply causing us to go out of stock regularly. Almost all funds were going straight back to buy ever increasing amounts of stock. To help fund our growth we sold shares to Mike's parents and a family friend.Mike and I were also regularly paying for things personally or loaning money to the business just to keep things running/actually having stock. This was both exciting and very scary, the business was growing which is surely a good thing - but we never had any cash! All cash was being tied up in the stock which we were roughly doubling in size every time we ordered, we were paying in our own money, Paypal working capital and even Amazon lending just to find funds.A turning point was when we were able to purchase much larger quantities of stock by sea freight which massively improved margin by >30% (this is known as Less than Container Load LCL). When you finally get to a Full Container Load (FCL) is when you are getting the best pricing in terms of freight which ultimately improves your profit per unit once sold.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Once we got to a point where we had enough stock to last (which being honest we still struggle with even today) we began looking at multiple ways to increase our visibility but also to retain customers.We have always been very confident in our products, knowing they are a great alternative to Nespresso, all customers are asked if they would like to join our newsletter for offers and promotions when they place their orders (we are explicit that their info is only used for this purpose, and following GDPR have a very detailed privacy policy) and we have quite high signup rates >70% of customers. This has meant a continuous increase in our newsletter subscribers which is now in the thousands. In our emails we tend to share a facebook competition (link to facebook), spotlight a single product and then have a voucher code of around 10% off.We also operate a referral scheme where existing customers can get discount if they invite friends (and the friends make savings too), we have had approx 10% of our customers refer others.Our marketing includes Google Ads, Bings Ads, Facebook Ads to drive relevant Ad traffic, one learning from this is that they are certainly not a set and forget. You can burn through cash if not optimised so need constant tweaks testing new ad’s. We regularly A/B and even C test ads across different demographics.We have also spent a lot of time optimising our website for SEO to appear organically, for example we created a blog full of helpful articles and guides like “How to find the best Nespresso compatible pods” or “Which Nespresso compatible capsules are the strongest?”. Originally we posted new content at least monthly, but in keeping up with latest SEO trends, quality content is far better which ultimately leads to longer dwell time and hopefully in our case leads to a purchase.In addition to the above we have an Affiliate scheme paying commission for any referrals that turn to an order - this has meant we are now on cashback websites and voucher sites.eBay and AmazonOur products are also available on Ebay and Amazon as additional sales channels. Ebay is a pretty stable income stream, but at least for us (for some unknown reason) we get more “problems” from the customers of that channel than any other - i.e saying a parcel has arrived damaged, wanting refunds etc.Amazon, on the other hand, can be a double-edged sword, indeed it creates revenue for us (we even trialled fulfilment by Amazon, which we saw an immediate increase in sales volume) however the fees (of selling but also if you opt for the Ads) tied with marketplace forces create a race to the bottom which ultimately destroyed most of our margin. I have seen with my own eyes that when Amazon sees a product selling quickly - they begin stocking that product or even a competitor's similar product which is not good longer term for any small business solely relying on that channel.In our particular circumstance - where we need every penny to buy more stock - it seemed stupid to give all of our profit to Amazon, so we made a decision to increase our prices on Amazon to maintain margin - which reduced sales but we are comfortable with.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?We are quite positive about the current and future outlook of mugpods, our revenue is still increasing but (as you would expect) now starting to slow its growth - which in turn is having a knock on effect to not needing to increase stock at the levels we were, building up cash for the first time.With the increased capital we are now beginning to re-invest this in products and are very pleased to be launching biodegradable pods and pouches within the next 6 months. In addition to this we are now looking at creating custom labelling (also known as white label) all of our products to truly position mugpods as its own brand.We are particularly pleased that September to December 2018 was our biggest on record in terms of visitors to our website, units shipped and revenue - with over 50,000 sessions to our website as shown below.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?We would definitely recommend tackling “best practice” things early on, and avoid anything manual.For example at the beginning we did not have an SSL certificate on our website, but moving from http:// to https:// actually caused us quite a lot of problems, the same as originally we manually created labels for our parcels - but months later this was taking us hours whereas now we use API’s to automatically generate them.As already mentioned, having an understanding of your own countries laws from product import to taxes we would highly recommend you get right from the beginning.What platform/tools do you use for your business?Prestashop - open source ecommerce platform. Although there are some frustrations with it around getting support with modules (that you pretty much are guaranteed you have to buy from 3rd parties) I have always liked the fact it is hosted on our website and I can physically change any aspect in the code unlike other cloud based platforms such as Shopify.Mailchimp - for newsletters and various automated promotions based on past spend/orders.Reviews.io - for automated review collection and those all important Google stars.Zenstores - to combine and generate shipping labels (I believe this is UK only).Facebook, Google, Bing Ads.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I enjoy listening to the wired podcast to keep up to date with what's going on in the world of tech.The four hour work week by Tim Ferris - not because of the idea of not working many hours from a beach, but I enjoyed the insight into driving efficiency and automation.Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - a really interesting story about the beginning of Nike and how it grew to the multi billion business it is today.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?I think Mugpods has proven that there are still plenty of opportunities that in our case thousands of other people thought about, but we were the first to go and do it, so if you have an idea - research it as fast as possible, work out your costs and commit.The above being said, the moment we realised we were onto something - we ran out of cash. I would recommend you do everything in your power to make sure you have enough capital to launch - but also make sure you have some capital available for unforeseen problems and growth.After that, operational efficiency is then your key to scale - remove anything manual/time consuming as fast as possible.Where can we go to learn more?Website - https://mugpods.comEmail - [email protected] you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM
0 notes
boxession · 7 years ago
Text
I was absolutely elated when the lovely Laura from Pink Parcel contacted us to review for them. This is a Box that consistently scores in the top 3 of our group Polls. I am aware of how big they are as a company, I have subscribed to them too and enjoyed their boxes.
We are an up and coming group, with growth levels at a high rate. So to be noticed by the bigger brands, which is happening more frequently now; is simply amazing for the BoXession Team. We will be running a competition to WIN the October Pink Parcel Box, which starts on 9th and runs through to the 15th, so don’t forget to enter… its FREE!
I unboxed LIVE on the BoXession Group, with the most viewers I have ever seen for an unboxing! Which made me a tad nervous. This has now been uploaded to our YouTube Channel which you can view by clicking play below…
So this is how the boxes from Pink Parcel arrive every month…
I personally love the way that they all slot together like a little jigsaw. How they fit all of this into the boxes must take some serious skill! The packaging is very discreet so no need to worry that the Postie will know what is in there.
Every month a drawstring bag is included. I have a collection of these. I keep one in each of my Bathrooms, and my handbags and luggage for when I go away. I love the idea of them, especially for younger girls. Pink Parcel have a sister company – Betty Box. The boxes are the same size, but the contents and packaging of Betty Box are aimed at a younger audience. Fingers crossed we can review that one for you too!
The cost of Pink Parcel is £12.99 per month, this includes P&P. We have an exclusive discount code which is ‘BoXession2017’ for 20% off!. This makes your first box only £10.39!! BARGAIN!
They have 3 delivery dates in the month. Beginning, middle and end. So when you sign up you select the date of your next period, and your box shipment will automatically arrive in time for that date.
If you are like me and have no patience, you will select the first two days in the month so that you get to see the contents before everyone else as you cannot stay away from spoilers! haha!
You can choose which brand and type of sanitary product you wish to be included in the box, and also which flow. This is tailored to fit you, you can also edit it for the next month, or request a mixture in flow absorbency. Amazing, right?
So What’s in the Box?
MUA Luxe Whipped Velvet Blush – Full Size – RRP £3
Urban Veda Facial Wash – Travel Size 20ml – Full size £12.99 for 150ml so worth £1.73
Cougar Mineral Eyeshadow – RRP £12.99 for set of 3 – worth £4.33
Trifle Cosmetics Lip Parfait (Exotic Fruits) – Full Size – RRP £15
Blank Canvas Face Brush (F01) – Full Size – RRP £14.81
Raw Halo Chocolate Bar – 35g – RRP £2.79
T+ Teabag, Green Tea – RRP £ 3.69 for 15 Bags – worth £0.25
Total Value = £41.91
Sanitary items I received:
21 Tampax Compak – Regular
5 Night time pads
5 Panty Liners
Now I cannot put an exact cost on these, but for a box of 20 Tampax Compak Regular in Boots will cost you £2.90. The beauty of it for me is not really the value of these items… it is the convenience of not having to remember to buy them, and certainly not having to send the other half out on a mission to the shops should you forget and run out, gasp! We have all done this ladies, imagine their poor red faces at the counter ha ha! I did laugh then (a little).
  My Favourite item by far has to be the Blank Canvas brush. Not only is it huge, but its beautifully well made and retails at more than the cost of the entire box. One of the questions I ask members on the BoXession group a lot is what are your favourite items to receive in a Box… well brushes are one of mine! Not only does it tick the boxes for me (no pun intended), but it is also a vegan and cruelty free brand. Top marks from me here Pink Parcel!
The Trifle Cosmetics Lip Parfait is a close second place, with its RRP at £15 we are now almost TREBLE the cost of the box after just 2 products plus the sanitary items. I have had one of these before and loved it. I used it as a carry around lip balm so to speak. But I imagine for the more neutral colours you could also use these as a lip primer under a matte or liquid lip to avoid drying out your lips. I really love Trifle packaging, friendly on the environment and very eye catching. I would like to see more items from this brand in Pink Parcel (hint hint).
You can never go wrong with everyday items in a box that will get used, and not only that, but when they are the perfect size for a week away or a weekend, this is even more popular with me. I like to travel, and I have 2 boys. My luggage capacity is often overtaken by my partners love of fishing (sob). So when I get items such as this that fit into my travel bag neatly I absolutely love them. Sometimes for me it isn’t always about getting all full size products in a box, but more about what I WILL use. I have used Urban Veda Facial Washes before, but not this one specifically.
MUA LUXE are a brand I am already familiar with. They are available from High Street Drugstores at a small price tag. I am happy that the colour of mine is more of  dusky pink as I do not suit peach. I have swatched this and love the colour, it is definitely buildable. I would buy this product again. I love their lip primers and velvet mattes, and they do an Inkd lip stain that is one of the best I have ever used. I am a true believer that if something is cheap it doesn’t always mean the quality is bad.
The Cougar Mineral Eyeshadow is part of a set of 3 that you can buy directly from their website for £12.99 with the little applicator. I am not worried that it doesn’t cone with the brush as I have lots of good eye brushes. This in my opinion is a great base shadow to be applied after primer. You could apply bright colours over it to make them stand out, or pop as they say these days. If you wanted to use it for a very simple everyday look then you could. It is great when boxes include items that suit every taste. One of my secret (not so secret) pet hates, is when you get like a bright yellow eyeshadow or a blue lipstick. I am sure that this is ok for some people, but 98% of us wouldn’t use them. Cougar lipsticks are also fab Pink Parcel… not that I am hinting again or anything ha ha!
Last but by no means least are the food items. I was so relieved when I saw the Chocolate Bar in this months box. I am not shy, and I often speak to members about things I like and dislike. One of the things I dislike is healthy food. Listen, I am happy with curves… yes I said it out loud. I couldn’t get through life without something sweet. I will never be a supermodel and that is perfectly ok by me (she says with a mouth full of the stuff). I wasted no time in eating this! Ok, maybe 5 minutes max. Well played Pink Parcel, I would have hated to have been ranting about granola bars in a review ;).
I do not drink tea, I cannot survive without Coffee; and therefore the BOOST Green Tea will not be used by me, but likely sent in my next swap parcel to fellow Blogger and Admin Michelle.. who loves a cuppa! In the grand scheme of things, I know that they always have Tea in the boxes, and it doesn’t put me off in the slightest.
My Verdict?
This month’s box is one of the BEST I have had from Pink Parcel. You have made what I do so easy, as it is love and passion that drives me to write, and to Blog about this was an absolute pleasure.
Pink Parcel are one of the cheapest boxes out there, and for what you get as you can see above, is approximately 4 times what you pay. With our discount code buying this box is simply a no brainer. £10.39 for ALL OF THIS?! The one thing I hear the most from people is ”oh I don’t use the sanitary items” … donate them! Food Bank, Homeless Hostel, Women’s Refuge and so on. Then you can keep the treats AND feel good that you did a kind thing.
Once again the discount code for 20% off is ‘BoXession2017’ it is only valid for a month, so you can get this box above, and limited number of uses on the code ladies… so time is of the essence. The links are below for their Website and Social Media.
Thank you my lovelies as always…
Mel xx
  https://www.pinkparcel.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/pinkparcel/
https://www.instagram.com/pinkparcel/
Twitter: @thepinkparcel
Pink Parcel Review by Mel – October 2017 I was absolutely elated when the lovely Laura from Pink Parcel contacted us to review for them.
0 notes
brettseaton · 5 years ago
Text
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects
AI (artificial intelligence) does work across dozens of industries. Just ask Amazon, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart. What do those four have in common? Years of operational data, the money to invest in such an initiative, and experts in the discipline who know how to balance the science and the art of that discipline.
So is real estate different? Well, it depends on the individual aspect of the business under analysis, but it still starts with people, money and time. It also requires the same discipline to balance science and art, and to avoid chasing shiny objects just because they’re, well, shiny. Worse yet, some of those shiny objects could be classified as “me too” solutions, including recently publicized tech platforms being rolled out by so many brokers and franchisors.
AI is such an overused term these days since it’s often mistaken for data analytics and there are some good data analytics solutions out there. However, none other than Robert Reffkin told the assembled audience at Inman Connect in NYC this past January (at the 9:20 mark) that “I hope you don’t think that data analytics is going to help you make more money.” While that may have been a broad brush comment on his part, data analytics does work in real estate – but one still needs people, money and time.
But what comes after the data?
It’s one thing to have all that data but one needs to know what to do with it and one also needs to know the industry at the LOCAL market level. There are similarities across various markets throughout the country but anyone who thinks that market dynamics are basically the same in Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey is either new to the business or uninformed about local markets, or both.
Some people back at headquarters may be great data crunchers but without a thorough understanding of each market’s nuances, they could go down a rabbit hole and waste valuable time. One size does not fit all and it takes longer than a lot of people realize for data analytics initiatives to pay off in this business. For example, the need for knowledgeable managers in local markets becomes greater to validate and act on the data analysis by the people back at headquarters. And that also takes time.
Starting at the top and working down
Let’s start with Realogy and Zillow. If you’re Realogy, your primary business is either a company-owned brokerage operation or a franchisor. If you’re Zillow, it’s selling leads and advertising to agents and brokers with an emerging iBuyer business.
Realogy and Zillow have a decided advantage over others in the data arena. As Ryan Schneider said in that same ICNY video, Realogy has TWENTY years worth of data at its fingertips, and we all know that Zillow wouldn’t be as successful in pricing zipcode-based leads without the mountains of data available to it. Both of these companies are years ahead of the competition with respect to the amount of data that they have access to.
Both have a nationwide footprint and access to all that data with one large similarity and one large difference:
They both have access to many years’ worth of real estate transactions across the country and relationships with tens of thousands of agents.
Realogy has access to granular agent compensation data on a huge scale and Zillow does not. Zillow has access to agent buying habits on a massive scale and Realogy does not. But those differences are also what drive their respective business models and revenue.
What does this mean to franchisors?
This type of activity also applies to firms that are exclusively in the franchising business but still have a large geographic footprint.
Franchisors, specifically RE/Max & Keller Williams, have to convince their franchisees of the value associated with the data and the franchisor’s analysis of said data – easier said than done. Before that happens, the analysis needs to be tested in enough markets to establish not just the methodology but also the value, both intrinsic and perceived.  Again, it depends on which markets are parts of that test. And again, that takes time in addition to people and money.
They also need a (new and improved?) tech platform for presentation of some of the data analytics to their respective customer bases. More people, money and time.
What about brokers?
Few brokers have the available resources to commit to a wide-ranging initiative. Regional brokers, say, in the top twenty of the Real Trends 500, probably have the data necessary to do some number crunching specific to their individual markets and interests. But the smarter ones have been crunching data already, albeit under other banners (e.g., commission split analysis, company dollar analysis, agent productivity, office productivity).
What about old and new business models?
Discounters historically have garnered at most a high single-digit market share. The analysis for that model has been rehashed more than a few times and still comes out the same – one doesn’t need to see that tree fall in the forest to know what sound it makes when it hits the ground. People and money are the big hurdles for these brokers.
The iBuyer model relies heavily on Zestimate 2.0. Regardless of the source or methodology, it still requires a large investment of people, money and time. But as many others have pointed out, that’s only the starting point. The path down that road is where Zillow has a huge near-term advantage over Opendoor and other entrants in that marketplace, an advantage that they have built up over the past 12 years. People, money and especially time are required, even if you’re one of the industry’s unicorns.
So is Robert Reffkin right? Is the ROI really there for such a data analytics initiative along with the tech platform when it comes to broker/agent adoption? Are these brokers and franchisors really looking to increase market share in the near term for their own individual financial interests or is this just another example of the shiny object syndrome so prevalent in this business?
There is a third business model in this mix – the self-described “tech-enabled brokerage” – two of whom are Redfin and Compass. That in turn raises the following questions:
Why is Redfin pouring so much money in 2019 into classic real estate broker marketing?
Why is Compass acquiring other brokers left and right?
And how do these two situations square with both companies’ professed allegiance to tech platforms in general as meaningful competitive advantages in this business?
The people, money and time being invested by these two companies in tech platforms is astounding but are they really building better mousetraps? Or have they become dazzled by a couple shiny objects and mistaken them for better mousetraps?
Summing up
So is it really artificial intelligence at work in the real estate industry or is it really just good old fashioned data analytics? Fifteen years ago, we called it data analysis and that process hasn’t changed much. Will it make a difference at Realogy now under Ryan Schneider. That remains to be seen.
Was Robert Reffkin correct back in January about the value of data analytics? Ask Zillow, Opendoor and Realogy – they would disagree with him.
An old boss once shared an adage with me about the finite resources of people, money and time in the business world: “Talented people are valuable but still fungible to a large degree, especially in technology; money is valuable but always fungible; time is as valuable as the other two but it’s not fungible.”
Without the advantage of time, the odds are not that great for KW and RE/Max to achieve the needed adoption rates to make much of a difference with their respective tech platform projects. Without the advantage of time, Compass and Redfin also face huge hurdles in catching up to the leaders in their market.  And there lies the real danger of the shiny object syndrome when it comes to topics such as data analytics and tech platforms in real estate – chasing that shiny object eats up valuable time regardless of how much money or people one has.
[Image via https://steemit.com/]
The post AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects syndicated from https://oicrealestate.wordpress.com/
0 notes
brettseaton · 5 years ago
Text
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects
AI (artificial intelligence) does work across dozens of industries. Just ask Amazon, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart. What do those four have in common? Years of operational data, the money to invest in such an initiative, and experts in the discipline who know how to balance the science and the art of that discipline.
So is real estate different? Well, it depends on the individual aspect of the business under analysis, but it still starts with people, money and time. It also requires the same discipline to balance science and art, and to avoid chasing shiny objects just because they’re, well, shiny. Worse yet, some of those shiny objects could be classified as “me too” solutions, including recently publicized tech platforms being rolled out by so many brokers and franchisors.
AI is such an overused term these days since it’s often mistaken for data analytics and there are some good data analytics solutions out there. However, none other than Robert Reffkin told the assembled audience at Inman Connect in NYC this past January (at the 9:20 mark) that “I hope you don’t think that data analytics is going to help you make more money.” While that may have been a broad brush comment on his part, data analytics does work in real estate – but one still needs people, money and time.
But what comes after the data?
It’s one thing to have all that data but one needs to know what to do with it and one also needs to know the industry at the LOCAL market level. There are similarities across various markets throughout the country but anyone who thinks that market dynamics are basically the same in Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey is either new to the business or uninformed about local markets, or both.
Some people back at headquarters may be great data crunchers but without a thorough understanding of each market’s nuances, they could go down a rabbit hole and waste valuable time. One size does not fit all and it takes longer than a lot of people realize for data analytics initiatives to pay off in this business. For example, the need for knowledgeable managers in local markets becomes greater to validate and act on the data analysis by the people back at headquarters. And that also takes time.
Starting at the top and working down
Let’s start with Realogy and Zillow. If you’re Realogy, your primary business is either a company-owned brokerage operation or a franchisor. If you’re Zillow, it’s selling leads and advertising to agents and brokers with an emerging iBuyer business.
Realogy and Zillow have a decided advantage over others in the data arena. As Ryan Schneider said in that same ICNY video, Realogy has TWENTY years worth of data at its fingertips, and we all know that Zillow wouldn’t be as successful in pricing zipcode-based leads without the mountains of data available to it. Both of these companies are years ahead of the competition with respect to the amount of data that they have access to.
Both have a nationwide footprint and access to all that data with one large similarity and one large difference:
They both have access to many years’ worth of real estate transactions across the country and relationships with tens of thousands of agents.
Realogy has access to granular agent compensation data on a huge scale and Zillow does not. Zillow has access to agent buying habits on a massive scale and Realogy does not. But those differences are also what drive their respective business models and revenue.
What does this mean to franchisors?
This type of activity also applies to firms that are exclusively in the franchising business but still have a large geographic footprint.
Franchisors, specifically RE/Max & Keller Williams, have to convince their franchisees of the value associated with the data and the franchisor’s analysis of said data – easier said than done. Before that happens, the analysis needs to be tested in enough markets to establish not just the methodology but also the value, both intrinsic and perceived.  Again, it depends on which markets are parts of that test. And again, that takes time in addition to people and money.
They also need a (new and improved?) tech platform for presentation of some of the data analytics to their respective customer bases. More people, money and time.
What about brokers?
Few brokers have the available resources to commit to a wide-ranging initiative. Regional brokers, say, in the top twenty of the Real Trends 500, probably have the data necessary to do some number crunching specific to their individual markets and interests. But the smarter ones have been crunching data already, albeit under other banners (e.g., commission split analysis, company dollar analysis, agent productivity, office productivity).
What about old and new business models?
Discounters historically have garnered at most a high single-digit market share. The analysis for that model has been rehashed more than a few times and still comes out the same – one doesn’t need to see that tree fall in the forest to know what sound it makes when it hits the ground. People and money are the big hurdles for these brokers.
The iBuyer model relies heavily on Zestimate 2.0. Regardless of the source or methodology, it still requires a large investment of people, money and time. But as many others have pointed out, that’s only the starting point. The path down that road is where Zillow has a huge near-term advantage over Opendoor and other entrants in that marketplace, an advantage that they have built up over the past 12 years. People, money and especially time are required, even if you’re one of the industry’s unicorns.
So is Robert Reffkin right? Is the ROI really there for such a data analytics initiative along with the tech platform when it comes to broker/agent adoption? Are these brokers and franchisors really looking to increase market share in the near term for their own individual financial interests or is this just another example of the shiny object syndrome so prevalent in this business?
There is a third business model in this mix – the self-described “tech-enabled brokerage” – two of whom are Redfin and Compass. That in turn raises the following questions:
Why is Redfin pouring so much money in 2019 into classic real estate broker marketing?
Why is Compass acquiring other brokers left and right?
And how do these two situations square with both companies’ professed allegiance to tech platforms in general as meaningful competitive advantages in this business?
The people, money and time being invested by these two companies in tech platforms is astounding but are they really building better mousetraps? Or have they become dazzled by a couple shiny objects and mistaken them for better mousetraps?
Summing up
So is it really artificial intelligence at work in the real estate industry or is it really just good old fashioned data analytics? Fifteen years ago, we called it data analysis and that process hasn’t changed much. Will it make a difference at Realogy now under Ryan Schneider. That remains to be seen.
Was Robert Reffkin correct back in January about the value of data analytics? Ask Zillow, Opendoor and Realogy – they would disagree with him.
An old boss once shared an adage with me about the finite resources of people, money and time in the business world: “Talented people are valuable but still fungible to a large degree, especially in technology; money is valuable but always fungible; time is as valuable as the other two but it’s not fungible.”
Without the advantage of time, the odds are not that great for KW and RE/Max to achieve the needed adoption rates to make much of a difference with their respective tech platform projects. Without the advantage of time, Compass and Redfin also face huge hurdles in catching up to the leaders in their market.  And there lies the real danger of the shiny object syndrome when it comes to topics such as data analytics and tech platforms in real estate – chasing that shiny object eats up valuable time regardless of how much money or people one has.
[Image via https://steemit.com/]
The post AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.
AI, Tech Platforms, and Shiny Objects syndicated from https://oicrealestate.wordpress.com/
0 notes