PURSUIT examples: real-estate

I was always taught that real estate is the greatest investment you can make. So outside of my day-job leading product for Ads Manager at Facebook Inc., I invest in property back home in Raleigh, North Carolina. I love browsing homes on Redfin or Zillow, excitedly pinging my agent when great deals come up, making the home better, and getting tenants in. Even in the Bay Area things are getting interesting —I’ve been learning a ton from working with Jesse and the team at Unlocked.com . This passion, along with many asks from followers of the PURSUIT framework, got me thinking:

What might we build to help property investors, to drive greater return on investment (ROI)?

For anyone out there from real estate sites, such as Redfin, Zillow, House Canary, and Bigger Pockets, I would love to see this is in product one day!

Hope this is helpful to you Rich (Zillow) and Glenn (Redfin!) (GeekWire, Zillow and Redfin Photos)

To scope this idea I used the PURSUIT framework: Problem, User, Rationale, Solution, Uncertainties/ risks, Insights, Test metrics. Given this is early thinking- I started with a tool called the PURSUIT Canvas. This helped me to organize thinking and spatially organize what is most important.

When I finished working through the thinking on this prompt — this is where my canvas landed

Problem <> User

First I thought through problem-user pairs. What are the blockers to high ROI for residential real estate (RE) investors? After evaluating problems I decided to focus on helping to make regulatory angles more clear for part time RE investors.

Rationale

Next I looked at scale of the problem — would working on this problem be a good use of time? For this, I try to size the opportunity looking at population, trends, and mission alignment.

Solution hypotheses

Only after understanding key problems to solve, for whom, then validating that it is worth my time, do I look into solutions. In this case I focused solutioning on the prompt “how might I make regulatory opportunities more clear for part-time investors.”

I brainstormed a few ideas. Then using criteria focused on a single solution hypothesis:

Focus solution concept: An integration to existing RE apps of color-coded regulatory overlays on property maps. Data would be sourced from existing regulatory data services, cleaned, and merged to power this tool. I might call this “investor layers.” This would speed the path to opportunity identification by making data visible, and reducing data fragmentation. “Investor layers” may be an SDK with toll based licensing or built in-house. Key jobs to be done might include: activation of investor mode, overlay of opportunity zone layers, overlay of low property tax indicators, etc.

Concept: “Investor layers” merge regulatory and lender offer data into an overlays SDK for maps in RE apps

When going beyond the concepting stage — I would spend time scoping out the solution with eng and design, getting early validation via research and data, then building my sprint-test-iterate plan.

Uncertainties, Insights, and Test metrics

Often people will stop at solutions. But that is only part of the story. It is important to think through uncertainties early on to ensure feasibility and to plan for mitigants. In this case, the solution I am focused on has a massive dependency on existing real estate apps like Redfin. In fact it is likely best that it be co-built with an existing app rather than reinventing the wheel. As a next step I would plan to front load conversations with existing makers, or hope that an RE app PM is reading this ;) Thinking through risks early, increases the odds that this clearly awesome tool could come to market.

Finally I look into Insights (existing knowledge) to help me to think through product angles and then identify test metrics to gauge my team’s progress towards achieving our vision of greater ROI for RE investors.

PURSUIT: Putting it all together

And thats it! The above steps helped me to think through and scope a product that I actually need. My final PURSUIT canvas is below. The spacing below matches the amount of time (at the start) that I like to spend on each section. I spend way more time thinking about problems and users than I do solutions. This helps me to stay attuned to solving problems rather than building vanity projects or guessing. As I build I treat this like a wheel, where I refine each step of PURSUIT with new information and constantly iterate.

I hope you all found this PURSUIT example helpful as you think through building product. I’ll share even more examples in the weeks to come if you all would like. If you work for a RE app and build this project let me know! I need it for my next great investment ;)