fbpx
TCPinpoint – Better ways to set up retail [Transcript]
'}}

Kylie Davis:

Welcome to the Proptech podcast. It's Kylie Davis here and I'm delighted to be your host as we explore the brave new world where technology and real estate and property collide. I passionately believe we need to create and grow a sense of community between the innovators and real estate agents and property owners and sharing our stories is a great way to do that. The aim of each episode, is to introduce listeners to a Proptech innovator who is pushing the boundaries of what's possible and to explore the issues and challenges raised by the tech and how they can create amazing property experiences.


Kylie Davis:

And my guest this week, is Rachel Kidwell from TCPinpoint, a proptech that anyone working in retail real estate is going to find super fascinating. Rachel is an inspiring Proptech entrepreneur who has used the pain she used to experience as a tenancy coordinator and fit out manager in the retail sector, to found TCPinpoint, a cloud-based collaboration tool that brings all the stakeholders involved in the retail tenancy delivery process into one platform. Now, there's a lot of people involved in getting a new store open, from landlords and building engineers and facility managers to the shop designer, fitter and trades people. And that's just a few. And after such a turbulent time in retail over the past few years, the industry is due for some good news and ways to save. TCPinpoint was part of the retailX 2020 programme with the Taronga group. And Rachel is also an inspiring female entrepreneur, a co-founder of Proptech South Australia, an activator with SheEO and a member of the SA Future Trends and Innovations Committee of the Proptech Council of Australia. Rachel Kidwell, welcome to the Proptech podcast.


Rachel Kidwell:

Thanks, Kylie.


Kylie Davis:

It's great to be here now. We have spent months trying to coordinate our diaries to come together, so it's great to finally have you here. And I'm really looking forward to learning more about TCPinpoint but tell me, we kick off always, what's the elevator pitch for TCPinpoint?


Rachel Kidwell:

TCPinpoint provides transparency across the least open process for retail landlords, effectively creating one version of the truth.


Kylie Davis:

Okay, so what is that lack of transparency? What's the problem that you're solving?


Rachel Kidwell:

My background is as a retail tenancy coordinator. I used to deliver retail projects for large landlords. And the problem that I experienced, was exactly that, lack of transparency. Everybody would come to the table with their own version of the truth, their own Excel spreadsheets and mark it all up in nine point font and pass it on for updating and then bring it back to the table the next week. And I was consistently frustrated by two things. One, that I was unable to provide that one version of the truth to my clients and two, that there was a real lack of collaboration because we're all sharing the same information more than once.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. And I guess, an awful lot of duplication of work and effort going into it in every single instance, right.


Rachel Kidwell:

That's exactly right.


Kylie Davis:

Right. Just so I'm really clear, why do I need ... What's happening in retail tenancy that I'm wanting to find a retail tenant or I'm a retailer who's looking for a tenancy, is that where we're talking?


Rachel Kidwell:

No. Once the space has been leased, that process of lease to open is the piece where we cover off. We'll have a retail leasing agent who will find tenants for spaces, the tenancy coordination process is once that deal has been done, we get an instruction and then it's up to us to move forward with that very complex process to manage it until that tenancy can open for trade and start paying rent to the landlords.


Kylie Davis:

Okay. And so you're helping with the fit out and all of those different elements or ...


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah, yeah. There's quite a defined process from the moment that lease has been instructed. And that is the process of working with the tenant, the tenant's designer, the landlord's retail design manager, the services engineers, the structural engineers, the private certifiers, the shop fitters, the operational team. There are 10 to 15 different types of stakeholders involved in that process. What we do effectively, is where a cog in the wheel and we ensure that everybody keeps moving and everybody has what they need to do their job.


Kylie Davis:

Okay. Awesome because shop fit outs, they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, don't they? They're really expensive to do or they can be.


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah. And quite often, that's really only 30% of the process Kylie.


Kylie Davis:

Right.


Rachel Kidwell:

At least it happens at the end. There's so much that happens before that, before anybody sees any action on site and that's where the majority of the cycle is actually sit, before the hammers and the screws all start appearing on site.


Kylie Davis:

I guess because you can't even work out what you ... Well, I guess you can think about or dream about how you would like the store to work but it would be very much tied into the infrastructure inside the building and what's available and what has to connect up. Yeah, it sounds really complicated. When you were in that role and everyone was bringing their nine point ... You're lucky it was nine point. You're lucky it was nine point. I've worked with spreadsheets that were in four point. What stuff was going into them? Was that a whopping great, horrible project management sheet or what were ... Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

Generally, it's a spreadsheet that has all the names of the tenancies down one side and all the steps that need to go across from left to right and the due dates when they're all due and then the date that they're all completed. And then if they were behind, any issues that may be occurring that are behind. As you can understand, that's a very manual process with an Excel spreadsheet. People actually have to go in and manually update all of the due dates once they change, which always happens in a real life project.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

Then you have to manually change them. And then when a task is actually completed, you have to manually update that.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

And then where does that go? It just sits on a static Excel spreadsheet and provides no real insights to the property owners.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, you can't extract that ... Well, you have to do it manually, I guess. And it's not feeding back into something else. How big a problem ... Have you got some numbers around how much time or money or effort is wasted in the traditional way of doing this?


Rachel Kidwell:

Look, despite the downturn of what's happened in 2020 and we can cover that to a whole different topic.


Kylie Davis:

We've covered it ad nauseum, it's fine.


Rachel Kidwell:

Our customers are reporting a really strong future development pipeline of 20 billion plus across their Australian and New Zealand assets still, across the next five years. In fact, we're seeing great stories coming about, even though some tenancies are falling over, those retailers with really strong balance sheets aren't just taking one new stall, they're taking upwards of a hundred across some portfolios and that's really good news, given what the industry went through in 2020.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. And look, I imagine that having been through so much of that pain so far already, going forward, retailers are looking for every way possible to make their lives less hassle, more efficient. And I guess, the cost savings that come from that, right.


Rachel Kidwell:

Correct, absolutely.


Kylie Davis:

Who are some of your clients? Who's using you?


Rachel Kidwell:

We work with some of the biggest property owners in Australia. In South Australia, we worked with Adelaide Airport across the terminal expansion project that was rolled out last year and continues to roll out in the current environment. The Banner Property Group out of Sydney are a really supportive customer of ours, as is Fort Street Capital. We've currently just completed a really positive proof of concept with another of Australia's largest property owners, can't announce that one just yet but it was a real pleasure. I'd like to be able to share that news.


Kylie Davis:

Okay, awesome. You used to work in this space. What was the catalyst that made you go, "Oh, God. I can't do this anymore. I've got to fix it."


Rachel Kidwell:

The original idea for the concept came from my consultancy. I started my own company in 2009, where I was providing consulting services to customers like Woolworths and working on some of their South Australian developments. At that point in time, based on the positive feedback I was getting about how I approached the process, was, "Okay, how can I scale up my consulting company?"


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

And that needed a level of automation. And that soon turned into, "No, there's a bigger opportunity here to build technology to scale the process but then provide that to other landlords, retailers, project managers, tenancy coordinators, so that I can have a big impact and not purely just on a consulting perspective."


Kylie Davis:

Okay, awesome. It sounds a little bit like the experience of AI Assets. Wayne Herbert was a property and asset valuer and same thing, went from doing it himself to building something else that the whole industry could use. I guess, the reason I raise that is because I guess, we're seeing an increasing number of techs coming out of this space of, "I've got an IP. How can I share that IP with more people, not just my own clients?"


Kylie Davis:

Tell me, my understanding by now of what TCPinpoint does is based on this idea that you're the wheel or the cog that's keeping all the wheels turning and what you're not, which is an Excel spreadsheet. What's the experience of all of your different stakeholders when TCPinpoint's in play? How is it different to the traditional way of doing it in terms of the workflow and how does it make their lives easier?


Rachel Kidwell:

Well firstly, we enable them to clarify their workflow. That's the first step. And then we digitise it. Optimising is always that first step. How do they currently do it? How can we improve it? And then we digitise it, which then leads us to automation and then to scale. It's a really clear four stepped process, optimising, digitising, automating and scaling. That then leads to that one version of the truth. We remove all of those blockages, all of those lost pieces of information that sit on people's inboxes or some type of [inaudible 00:11:25].


Kylie Davis:

Back of their head, 3:00 AM, "Oh, God. I forgot to tell them."


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

A hundred percent. And we're seeing that in so far as our customers leave comments. We enable task-based communication and that means that when an executive level project manager or a director has a question, they can jump into a cloud-based system that's available 24/7 and look up comments that have been left. Why is something behind? Is it something that a problem can be mitigated? Can we de-risk those problems? And we're enabling them to create that one version of the truth. And transparency is the number one thing that we need to enable when such a complex process of retail tenancy delivery is in play.


Kylie Davis:

What I'm visualising, is that by being able to share the workflow and make that really transparent, everyone can see where you're up to at what point, what the issues might be coming up down the pipe because of things that are happening in it. And everyone's via that one source of truth, like you said before.


Rachel Kidwell:

It's very visual.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

Our vision is to enable property people to be proactive, empathetic and more connected.


Kylie Davis:

I love that vision, that's a great vision.


Rachel Kidwell:

[inaudible 00:12:48] thank you.


Kylie Davis:

And there must be some other benefits that come out of taking this approach to retail ... Is it retail onboarding or what's the right word for it?


Rachel Kidwell:

Well, that lease to open process is really the key part that we played in before we started venturing into the asset management side of things, which we're starting to expand into but if we focus purely for this purpose on the lease to open process, that's really the terminology that makes the most sense to the industry, yeah.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, okay.


Rachel Kidwell:

And as a result of that data collision, people working together on a cloud-based system, the next level of benefit is the analytics that come from that. What do we do with that data? How can we enable our customers to actually understand what their lease to open process is? How we can enable them to identify any bottlenecks that occur in that because as you can imagine, every day, every week that a retail tenancy isn't open, [crosstalk 00:13:49]. Yeah, it's lost revenue for the retail landlords as well as lost experience for other customers coming to a centre. No one wants to see shopfronts boarded up. They want to see them open and activated and creating value for their communities.


Kylie Davis:

Well, it's a triple whammy, isn't it because it's lost revenue and it's costing you money to be renting the building while it's not functioning for you. Yeah, okay.


Kylie Davis:

And now, let's hear a word from our sponsors. For almost 16 years. Direct Connect has made moving easy for over 1.2 million renters and homeowners, by arranging connections to a wide range of services from electricity and gas to internet and pay TV. With a national team of local account managers who are experts in the industry, Direct Connect are there to support your real estate business with competitive rewards for every successful connection, plus an industry leading rewards programme. The connection process is simple and Direct Connect's always on guarantee ensures your customers will be connected on the day they move in. Direct Connect offers a range of market-leading suppliers and Direct Connect has now made it even easier than ever to send connections, directly integrating with MRI Software's Property Tree. In just a few clicks while processing a tenancy, you can send the connection details through and get your customers connected. To make the right connection and find out how Direct Connect can make moving easy for you and easy for your customers, visit agents.DirectConnect.com.au or call 1300 558169.


Kylie Davis:

The data that's coming off the back of it, is that available then to do something else with afterwards? Or is that able to ... Because when you're in this process of doing something new for the first time or building something new, that is often the best time to collect data about what's on the site.


Rachel Kidwell:

Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, we have to make sure we're collecting the right data and not dirty data. And that's our key focus and it takes time, as you would understand when you're building something from nothing. You've got to make sure that you're collecting the right data. And this is what we're currently seeing now, is how we're starting to roll that out into really strong analytics for our customers but to your question, it definitely has taken time but we're so excited for what our roadmap is currently showing about what we're doing in the future with that data.


Kylie Davis:

How long have you been ... How long has TCPinpoint been around for?


Rachel Kidwell:

We officially launched in 2016 and when I say that, that is when I registered the business name.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:16:35].


Rachel Kidwell:

And we launched our MVP in January of 2017 with our first paying customer but effectively, we're five years in now and we've literally gone from zero product, zero customers, zero money, to now working with some of Australia's largest property owners, which is really exciting.


Kylie Davis:

Fantastic. Congratulations. And if every retail business was using TCPinpoint, in the next five years, how would the retail space change?


Rachel Kidwell:

Well, we think there's a level of consistency that's required in what actually is happening and what's the level of visibility across that? I'm not trying to undo that siloed approach of every landlord holding onto their data themselves. How is that actually helping the industry as a whole? Trying to remove that siloed nature, that's the piece where we think we can add a really strong level of value because the consistency ... And Australia is such a small market. Whilst we're focusing on Australia right now, we've done significant international market exploration across the US, India and Singapore. We are really excited, once the borders open and we can start to reengage on those plans, to take what we're doing now to other markets.


Kylie Davis:

Awesome, okay. And so that siloed approach to data, do you find that that's changing and do you think it's changing because attitudes are changing or do you think it's changing because now we can see ways of doing it safely?


Rachel Kidwell:

I think there's a bit of both there to be honest. Certainly, with the advent of 2020, there is an increased level of understanding of technology because people have had to but my opinion still is driven by the value of education. By virtue of being part of the Future Trends and Innovation Committee with the Property Council of Australia, what I really want to bring to that environment is education because we know that fear comes from a lack of education.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, true.


Rachel Kidwell:

I think we spread more positive stories, more positive case studies to enable property companies to feel more comfortable with the true idea of innovation, innovation being, "Let's try something brand new that hasn't existed before, that might fail or might not work in a format, let's iterate and try again and try again."


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that are without notice. What's the thing that you're most proud of as a founder?


Rachel Kidwell:

What I'm most proud of ... I have a screen saver, Kylie and my screen saver says, "Reset, refocus, readjust, restart as many times as you need to. Just never give up."


Kylie Davis:

Awesome.


Rachel Kidwell:

And with all of the challenges that come with building something from nothing, particularly within an industry that is not at the forefront of leading innovation, I'm super proud of hitting our fifth year.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

95% of startups fail in their first year.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

We're revenue creating. We've got a great team around us. We've learned a bunch of lessons that we've gone through but we've also learned from those lessons and iterated and improved so that we don't make those same mistakes again. I think that's probably the biggest thing, is just not giving up and really, firmly believing in the solution to the problem that we're solving. And to that point, really being in love with the problem that we're solving.


Kylie Davis:

Yes. yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

Not so much the product. I love the product and what we're doing but that's always changing and it needs to consistently change to meet the requests of our customers in the market but what I love the most, is the problem that we're solving.


Kylie Davis:

I love that. I know I've never really thought of it that way because normally when there's a problem, you're trying to get away from the pain of it but as a founder, I suppose you really do need to love the problem. Yeah, that's awesome.


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah, you definitely have to love the problem, otherwise you're setting yourself up for burnout and exhaustion, I think.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Is there a competitive landscape for TCPinpoint or are you guys the only game in town for this?


Rachel Kidwell:

Look, there's always competitors, right. Number one, is the attitude of, "We've always done it this way."


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. Oh, that old chestnut.


Rachel Kidwell:

[inaudible 00:21:42] quote but I can't claim.


Kylie Davis:

That's what the dinosaur says, yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

Correct. Look, Excel spreadsheets, email, document [inaudible 00:21:54].


Kylie Davis:

Oh, Bill gates, what did you do? Yeah,


Rachel Kidwell:

Look, there are some really large enterprise level customers out there that are purporting to try and do what we are doing but they certainly don't do it with the efficiencies that we do it, with the agility that we do it and the economies that we can do it in.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

And we hope to share a really positive case story with that theme really soon.


Kylie Davis:

Okay.


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah, there's definitely competitors out there. I don't want to name them because we don't want to give them [crosstalk 00:22:42] but suffice to say, there's no one within Australia that we've seen doing exactly what we're doing, specifically with the retail tenancy delivery space.


Kylie Davis:

Awesome, okay. And also, you're based out of Adelaide and I'm keen to understand, how has that helped or influenced how you've grown or how you've evolved?


Rachel Kidwell:

The cost of doing business in Adelaide is incredibly reasonable.


Kylie Davis:

There are some great projects coming out of Adelaide and there's lots of Stone & Chalk, so hello to everybody out in Adelaide.


Rachel Kidwell:

Absolutely. And Hubble being one of those, [inaudible 00:23:25] recently won a Proptech award.


Kylie Davis:

They did.


Rachel Kidwell:

Besides the fact that you may have read that Adelaide is now the most livable city within Australia but we won't push that too much.


Kylie Davis:

Sorry, Melbourne.


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah. Well, we can give them a little bit of grace right now.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, absolutely.


Rachel Kidwell:

The cost of doing business, the potential to have a really strong capacity for that good old work-life balance piece, the fact that we're within a community like Stone & Chalk within a precinct like lot 14, which is receiving global accolades and acknowledgement for what they're doing in the entrepreneur space. And we're super proud of being a tenant within that environment. And I think that's the bit that's so exciting because we have to surround ourselves with people that are five steps in front of us and offer help to those who might be five steps behind us.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

And that creates a strong ecosystem of encouragement and support, which then builds that foundation for future success.


Kylie Davis:

And I was talking to Isaac Coonan today from Proptech Brisbane and he's recently ... And Proptech Brisbane has recently released the Australian Proptech industry landscape report. And I was a little bit shocked because I thought the numbers were a bit high but according to that research, there's only about 18% of us in Proptech or founders that are women. What's your advice to women thinking about setting up a Proptech?


Rachel Kidwell:

To just do it.


Kylie Davis:

The old Nike ad, go.


Rachel Kidwell:

Don't overthink it.


Kylie Davis:

No, true.


Rachel Kidwell:

If you see a problem, have a crack at solving it.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

And I guess, reverting back to the conversation about being within South Australia, we're up to our second chief entrepreneur now, Andrew Nunn, who just succeeded Whalley. There is such a conversation that's happening around that, that encourages new ideas and just having a go. And it's a very layered approach. You can't just jump, you've got to have that financial support and a financial plan that has to be well documented but that's not to stop you from trying something on the side, dipping your toe in the water, getting out there and having a whole bunch of conversations. I can't emphasise enough, the importance of getting out of the building and validating not only the fact that you think you're providing a solution but you're actually addressing a problem.


Kylie Davis:

Yes.


Rachel Kidwell:

There's a lot of people out there that will provide solutions that don't necessarily have a solution. I'm sorry, a problem.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah. In that regard, you've got to do it. You got to surround yourself with people that may well think that you're crazy but are either supportive by omission, number of those around me that just say, "We believe in you. Do you do you."


Rachel Kidwell:

It speaks my language, that just lets me do my thing on my own terms, which reminds me of other fantastic environments, like the SheEO network that can provide exactly that, encouraging you on your own terms. There's loads of other networks. I've gone through the Springboard programme with SBE Australia, the NBI's Venture Dorm programme, which is a pre-accelerator programme, the South Start accelerator. There's just been a number of really key moments and people that I've met along that journey, that have stuck. Plenty of others that have not. You've got to be prepared for that as well, what other advice and opinions that may not be helpful to you. I've always not compared but the analogy of growing a startup to having children is so very similar because you're bombarded with advice but there's only certain pieces that are relevant to you. I quite like that analogy. And just believing in yourself, believing that this is a well experienced problem that you can solve.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Look and the reason I think I was shocked by the number because I thought it was closer to 30%, the reason I was shocked is that I know all sorts of women working in Proptech or founding Proptech. I don't know if we're not just putting our hands up to be counted or if we're great at finding each other and connecting up so that we can lift each other up but I think the moral of that story is, don't be frightened because we are out there and we're connected and we're mobilising.


Rachel Kidwell:

Absolutely. And look, perhaps there's a layer of truth to the fact that there's what, less than 2% of founders that are female, that achieve funding. There's not a lot of good stories around about that. There needs to be more stories that will give female founders that boost to forge them forward because we do need capital, particularly if you're looking at building technology. It's expensive.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And look, we are the primary deciders around most things to do with home and properties. Yeah, absolutely.


Kylie Davis:

If you're a real estate agent, you know you need to do more digital marketing. And that includes creating articles, blogs, emails and landing pages but that's a lot to learn and it can be really hard, so check out ActivePipe. ActivePipe is a specialist digital marketing platform designed especially for real estate agents. It allows you to quickly and easily create engaging emails, including the ability to drag and drop properties into emails that you can send out to buyers, sellers, renters, anyone. ActivePipe smart automation allows you to get more leads from your database by understanding the property journey of your contacts and automatically customising and personalising emails based on their preferences. And now, with the new product real estate content, you get access to hundreds of stories written about the property market. That answer common questions your clients have about how to buy and sell and market performance. Download ActivePipe's free white paper, the scalable agent. It's got everything you need to know about how to become a better digital marketer. And it's written by me, Kylie Davis. Go to ActivePipe.com.au or Google, the scalable agent.


Kylie Davis:

Now listen, tell me what's on your roadmap for the next five years. What have you got planned?


Rachel Kidwell:

I'm so excited about our product right now. That definitely keeps me getting out of bed every morning and continuing to be responsive to our customers' feedbacks as well as creating our own thought leadership in improving the way that tenancy delivery is undertaken in the Australian market. I have referred before about the level of market research that we've done internationally in the US, India and Singapore and I am looking forward to continuing those activities once those international borders open and it's safe to save to do so.


Kylie Davis:

Awesome. And what do you think's on the roadmap for retail or for tenancy delivery in retail generally? What things do you see influencing and changing the sector?


Rachel Kidwell:

What I'm most excited about is the uptake of the local community based version of retail, given that our movements have changed, the hybrid model of working which I believe will continue, is driving that need for locally-based amenities. And by that, I mean your local neighbourhood centre that might be anchored by a supermarket, that's then surrounded by specialty tenancies that creates a destination for local amenities.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're seeing some interesting stuff in that space aren't we because look, we had Dean Katz, Dean from Third Place, a booking platform for if you're wanting to just book a table from a restaurant or a cafe in your area or even a library or ... A centralised space where you can ... Like an Airbnb of bookings to go and work and most of those are in a retail precinct.


Rachel Kidwell:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think people are really starting to focus in on that, they're wanting to stay closer to home and we've got to be respectful of that. And what that then means for retail tenancy delivery, is that we need to do it faster. We need to be clean, appropriate data. We need to be able to accommodate the movement. There might be shorter term leases, people may not want to take a five plus five plus five lease or they associate a risk that comes with that. A shorter term lease is one plus one or two years. To enable them to really push and pull and try, there's a number of online operators who are looking at doing the popup environments to test their products in real time, as opposed to purely online.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah.


Rachel Kidwell:

There's lots of really exciting things that are happening and it's about being agile and flexible and creating the best possible, repeatable, quick, agile process that we can to support that.


Kylie Davis:

And look, I imagine with platforms like yours out there, which makes that whole tenancy delivery much faster and less painful and seamless, the idea of in the old days, going through that once every five years, was probably enough for everybody and the tenant involved. Whereas in the new world, if it's not painful, then you can contemplate the idea of doing it more frequently for shorter leases and things like that because it's not such a big deal anymore.


Rachel Kidwell:

A hundred percent and faster, smoother, more agile and then effectively making better business decisions based on the data that you're collecting.


Kylie Davis:

Yeah, awesome. Well look, Rachel, it's been absolutely fantastic to talk to you. I haven't known a lot about the Proptech and retail space. Thank you so much for your patience with me while we've talked about it but it's been awesome to hear about TCPinpoint. Best of luck.


Rachel Kidwell:

My pleasure. Thanks, Kylie.


Kylie Davis:

No worries, thanks.


Kylie Davis:

That was Rachel Kidwell, CEO and founder of TCPinpoint, a Proptech that brings all the different stakeholders in a retail tenancy delivery together and creates transparency and oversight on the multitudes of tasks and pieces of information that are needed to get new stores up and running. As someone who just likes to shop, you probably didn't know everything that was going on in the background but I wanted to thank Rachel for her patience with me as the intricacies of retail tenancy is all very new but I do love how we're seeing an emerging group of Proptechs that while based on really niche areas, those niches are experiencing a lot of pain.


Kylie Davis:

AI Assets is another Proptech that comes to mind that's doing something similar and so does [inaudible 00:36:05] in the industrial space. What we're seeing with these Proptechs, is that they're solving problems that were once described to me as being an inch wide and a mile deep. I was told that by a really well-known US venture capitalist, that this was his secret to finding great tech. It was what he looked for in his investments because it meant that the Proptech had domain expertise, it meant they could focus on solving specific problems and that doing that was quite easy to cost out and also to resource. And those Proptechs had more exit options open to them because they could also be purchase targets, unlike broad and wide techs, which have issues with funding everything that they want to do to grow and inevitably, are only relying on an IPO to exit.


Kylie Davis:

If you're thinking about starting a Proptech, embrace the niches and look for the problems that you can solve that are an inch wide and a mile deep but what I specifically loved about this interview, was Rachel's explanation that she was in love with the problems that her tech is trying to solve, not the product itself. And I think this is a fabulous perspective, love the problem. When you love the problem rather than the product, you're always looking for new ways to get right to the heart of the issue, not to just add the next widget. When I think back to all the interviews we've done on the Proptech podcast over the past 18 months, I can see that those who impressed me the most and who had the strongest tech, were those who'd been in love with the problem, not with their own product and that's something to think about.


Kylie Davis:

Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the Proptech podcast, I would love you to tell your friends or drop me a line either via email, LinkedIn or Facebook. You can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google podcasts, Anchor and Apple iTunes. I'd like to thank my audio support, Charlie Hollins and the fabulous Jill Escudero. And our sponsors, Direct Connect, making moving easy, Smidge, official wines of the Proptech community and HomePrezzo, now part of ActivePipe and making marketing automation easier than ever before.


Kylie Davis:

Now, do you run a Proptech business or are you the founder of a Proptech? Make sure you join the Proptech Association. It's Australia's not-for-profit association made up of tech people who are passionate about the property industry and committed to improving experiences in how we buy, sell, rent, manage, build and finance property. Joining will give you access to events and networks across Australia and globally, that will help you promote and grow your business. Go to Proptech association.com.au/membership. Thanks, everyone. Until next time, keep on proptech'ing.