What is Estated? A Series About Our History — Part 1
Our most recent project is the result of years of growth, evolution, and pivots in real estate tech. And we’re in it for the long haul.
But before I go into detail about Estated, I’d like to talk about Data Nerds and touch on the history of our company.
Four years ago, Data Nerds had its humble beginnings when Josh Fraser took his marketing optimization expertise and started an agency of his own. The key areas of focus were web design projects and campaign building for an array of businesses. We specialized (and still specialize) in PPC, display, social media, affiliate, and email marketing.
Exciting projects were popping up all the time. Hoverboards, exogenous ketones, cognitive supplements, everything you could hope for as a team of driven young entrepreneurs running a brand new business.
Finding our bread and butter
The issue wasn’t finding business, but rather staying focused on long term goals. Right around this time, Josh was in the process of buying his first home and was having a tough time finding enough information on properties he looked at. One thing led to another and the Nerds found themselves working on a “Carfax for Homes” style product. This was our first foray into real estate and the first time that we recognized the opportunity gap in real estate information for homebuyers and the rest of the market. The goal behind the product is to not only show the concrete details like the sq. footage and the bed/bath count, but to also dive into the financial and physical history of the property, ultimately becoming an objective source of information — things you might not necessarily hear from a sales agent.
Sourcing the data
We searched for real estate data that we could use to populate our real estate reports and found several options. All of them worked to some degree. We couldn’t quite find the right one for the job, though. Sometimes the data wasn’t up to our standard. Sometimes the terms of service didn’t agree with our goals. Sometimes we sat in their sales funnel for 6 months while they compiled a contract for us. The problems go on. To us, the issue here was clear. Every provider we found has been in the industry for years, sometimes decades, and moves incredibly slowly. Not a single company we came across offered the flexibility of service that we needed as a small operation.
So we did what any entrepreneurial minds would do when faced with a roadblock: we set out to create our own solution.
This was not a small undertaking.
Compiling a property database that holds details on every residential property in the United States is no small feat, even for the most dedicated group of Nerds. When we told our two existing providers what we planned to do, they both laughed at us over the phone.
For the record, there are roughly 125 million homes, 8 million city blocks, 3100+ counties, and 720 MLS’ across the nation, depending on who you ask. We found ourselves at the beginning of a long journey.
This is Part 1 of 4 pieces telling the story of Estated and our mission. Part 2 can be found here. Follow us if you want to read more about data science, growing a business, and real estate technology.
Ps. We’re hiring!
