Cutting Through The Noise - Real Estate Technology Shark Tank. With Scottie Lee and Marco Biasiotto

In this week's episode of The Propcast, Louisa speaks with Scottie Lee, Vice President, Strategy & Research at Equity Residential in Chicago and Marco Biasiotto, Director of Retail and Digital Strategy at Primaris Management Inc. They talk about how PropTech startups can get the attention of funders and VC’s to partner and support their products go to market strategy or fund their scale up. Scottie and Marco share their best advice for any startups looking to secure funding, as well as their do’s and don’t’s of fundraising.    Companies Mentioned: REIM Tech https://www.linkedin.com/in/naqash/?originalSubdomain=uk  PGIM site https://www.pgim.com/ La Salle https://www.lasalle.com/ Primarche https://primarche.ca/  Tableau https://www.tableau.com/    Shout Outs Naqash Tahir - https://www.linkedin.com/in/naqash/?originalSubdomain=uk Dropit - https://www.linkedin.com/company/dropit-shopping/    Key Insights From This Episode:   Alot of it is about the team, and then the technology or whatever they're trying to sell you. Because oftentimes they're very early on. And wherever they're trying to sell you today, it's going to evolve in six months, and that evolution is really going to be dependent on the team. - Scottie Is the problem that you're really trying to solve for us all that meaningful and impactful? Or is it maybe a secondary problem and maybe you're better off as a bolt-on feature to something else. - Scottie In terms of big don'ts, the one thing I can't stand is the constant email blasting that we're getting from multiple people within an organisation. It's just, it puts a red flag up to say, I'm out. I don't want to hear any more from you. You're done. - Marco I think there's lot of work in trying to connect, I would say, legacy systems with more modern technologies, particularly around their data and analytics and so forth. - Scottie Uou need to try things. You can't just stay with the status quo. So you need to be able to be open-minded understand what technologies that you're going to look at to embrace and bring into the organisation. - Marco   if we were going to engage and want to do something like a pilot, we need a little bit of suitability on partner side or on the vendor side. So those are some of the things that you try to pick at and try to get a good handle on before you really start to engage. - Scottie   Keywords: investment, proptech, retail, startups, institutions, failure, success   About Our Guests: Scottie Lee https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottie-lee-05a6313/  Scottie Lee is Vice President, Strategy & Research at Equity Residential in Chicago where he manages a team responsible for market research, sustainability, resilience, energy and environmental. Prior to Equity, Mr. Lee served as Vice President, Strategy & Analytics at Taubman where he oversaw corporate strategy, market research, financial planning & analysis, and financial & data analytics.  Mr. Lee is a member of the Urban Land Institute. He previously was a member of ULI Michigan’s Technology Local Product Council and was a member of ULI Michigan’s Larson Center for Leadership’s inaugural class. He is an emeritus member of ICSC’s North America Research Group. He previously served on the Governing Board of Detroit Chief Data Officer.  Mr. Lee received his MBA with High Distinction from the University of Michigan and his BS in Industrial Engineering and Economics from Northwestern University.    Company description Equity Residential is an S&P 500 company focused on the acquisition, development and management of rental apartment properties located in urban and high-density suburban markets where today’s renters want to live, work and play. Equity Residential owns or has investments in 307 properties consisting of 79,322 apartment units, primarily located in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California and Denver.   Marco Biasiotto  https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-biasiotto-35383923/?originalSubdomain=ca  Marco Biasiotto is the Director of Retail and Digital Strategy at Primaris Management Inc.  He oversees the evolving industry trends and provides strategic recommendations that drive success for our shopping centre business.  Marco is responsible for developing an insights platform at Primaris while also focused on embracing innovation through emerging technologies and partnerships.   With a retail research and shopping centre career spanning over 25 years, Marco is a leading expert in retail real estate technology and business insights. He recently launched the first ever omni-channel multi-shopping centre marketplace linking real time inventory.  He is an active participant in ICSC’s North American Research Group and the Canadian Research Group.  Marco holds a master degree in Spatial Analysis from Ryerson University. About Primaris Primaris is a wholly owned subsidiary of H&R REIT.  Primaris owns and manages more than 7.5 million square feet of commercial space, including 17 enclosed shopping centres located across Canada. H&R REIT is one of Canada's largest real estate investment trusts with total assets of approximately $13.1 billion at June 30, 2021. H&R REIT has ownership interests in a North American portfolio ofhigh-quality office, retail, industrial and residential properties comprising over 40 million square feet.   About Our Host Louisa Dickins https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/?originalSubdomain=uk Louisa started her career in property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career in recruitment. She now is a Director at LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech Association (UKPA).   About LMRE www.lmre.tech LMRE believe there is a better way to recruit. LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are passionate about the industry and passionate about people's careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an extension of the business, and their transparency and core values help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech community.