I predict that smart access will become increasingly important following the influx of pet adoption during the pandemic, especially once the vaccine allows us to return to a semblance of normalcy. At SmartRent we’ve seen that weekly or daily dog walkers have been a big use case for smart access for residents in multifamily, as it allows them to easily let recurring visitors in securely. Innovations making homes more pet friendly and accessible for pet owners would certainly be welcome as the number of pet owners continues to grow.

As a part of our series about “Homes Of The Future”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lucas Haldeman. …

The best 3 words of advice I have ever been given happen to all fit together in a single phrase: “Never give up.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve repeated those words to myself. They also have been words I have passed onto others. I first got the idea for what became droppTV several years ago. The idea wasn’t fully formed, and the tech didn’t exist for it to work, and everyone told me that others had tried and failed at a similar concept. When something just feels like it has to get done, I can’t not do it. I practice meditation; it helps ground me. I mention that because “Never give up“ has become a sort of mantra for me. …

Dan Eisenhardt of formswim.com is a great mentor and friend of mine, and he first introduced me to the concept of “postmortem”. It instantly resonated with me, bringing back memories of the courses I had in med school. Autopsies are performed on a deceased patient to find out the cause of death. This concept can be applied as a thought experiment to building new products as well. Ahead of time, contemplate what the causes of the death of your product could be in the future. Very eye opening shift in perspective.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Kawalski. …

Be confident and project confidence. That will take you far. If you walk into a room with confidence, there is not much you can’t do! I have many competitors with impressive qualifications, but I have won business based on my ability to convey authority by projecting confidence in a pitch.

As a part of my series about strong women leaders of the Real Estate industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Leach.

Lauren Leach is a Real Estate Advisory Services Director with Conway Mackenzie, part of Riveron. Ms. Leach specializes in distressed and troubled real-estate assets. In her role, she is responsible for real estate workout strategy and client relationships. Leach has worked on over 300 receivership matters nationwide and negotiated over 10,000,000 square feet of leases with a value of more than $450,000,000. …

When we talk about the music discovery platform, bopdrop, we often focus on how founder Matt Krause tackled the initial marketing effort on his own and landed enough users just after launch to break into Apple’s top free apps list. The app connects with a user’s Spotify account and offers social media functions that help expose users to a wider variety of music based on their preferences and behavior which is awesome for those of us who are always looking to add something new to our playlists.

It goes to show that digital transformation can be subtle, even though we tend to think of it as a process that comes to fruition after adopting an innovative, brand-spanking-new digital product. In cases like bopdrop, digital transformation is something that augments an existing product by improving the value of the underlying service. …

Optimize your operational processes and reduce the lag time in bringing solutions or offerings to market. This could mean streamlining your internal communications and file sharing with your employees, this could also be leveraging the cloud for data hosting to reduce your costs on physical serves, this could also mean integrating with apps or API’s to provide a more robust product offering to your customer. Additionally, protecting your customers data & credentials and being transparent about how you are safeguarding that information will absolutely position your business as one worth doing business with. Preventing data breaches should always be top of mind and there are various cloud solution companies such as Box.com …

The key in my mind is having more role models. Successful women inspire more successful women. We’ve learned that women can be doctors, lawyers, and airline pilots. We need to also see more women leaders in real estate, to inspire the next generation and show more young people that women can be the big power brokers.

As a part of my series about strong women leaders of the Real Estate industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Polly Watts.

Polly Watts is an experienced real estate professional with expertise in dissecting the residential market and emphasizing client goals, confidentiality, ethics, and long-term relationships. Holding a Broker’s license in 10 states (California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Tennessee, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, Florida, and Washington), Polly’s vast market knowledge has helped her lead the sale of more than 40,000 properties over a 21-year period. Polly was acknowledged by various sources as the top broker by total sales volume in Los Angeles between 2013–2019. Over the course of her 25+ years in real estate, Polly has done it all, from managing brokerage and escrow operations, and driving property acquisitions and home valuations, to leading countless negotiations, closings, and deal financing for nearly every type of residential real estate transaction. …

Homes have been getting smarter for a while now, but the home ecosystem has been reshaped dramatically in light of the pandemic, with work, shopping and healthcare rapidly integrating more into daily home life. With that, technology and design are aiming to connect these different facets in helpful ways. As we show in the Springwise/Aritco report, AI-driven tech within the home is shaping how we’re monitoring our health, making purchases and maintaining appliances. These all have great potential to make us happier and healthier, especially those who might otherwise struggle with certain daily tasks due to physical disabilities.

As a part of our series about “Homes Of The Future”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Justin Sablich. …