Show HN: My Property Tracker, with automated data entry | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My Property Tracker, with automated data entry

mypropertytracker.com

39 pointslaurencei32 comments

Hi everyone - OP here.

We've just launched our startup - www.mypropertytracker.com

This is actually a pivot of our original startup (by the same name). The initial version had some early traction, but we struggled to get the product/market fit correct. From talking to lots of customers - it became apparent that whilst we were a "nice to have" program, we were not actually saving anyone any time with their property paperwork.

So we've slightly pivoted and re-launched with "automated data entry". Following on the many blogs of advice from people like pg - we are doing something that doesnt scale. Instead, we now accept people emailing documents to us, and we do the data entry on their behalf. We also have iPhone and Android apps that people can use to take a photo of their documents and send directly to us.

The goal is to be as simple and quick as possible, making our customers lives easier.

Early feedback has been extremely positive - but it is still to early to see how traction will go long term.

I'd appreciate any constructive feedback.

Looks really good. The landing page is well designed, and informative.

I feel like I'm nitpicking, but it's not immediately obvious to me whether it's web-based or an app. The iPhone made me think it was an iOS app, and the screengrabs on the desktop don't have any kind of browser chrome.

I can now see how that can be confusing.

It is a web based product. But we also have an additional (optional) iPhone/Android app to do the automated uploads with.

I might update the images in the near future to include browsers on the screenshots to help highlight further.

Thanks for the idea.

As i see quite a few comments regarding the pricing i just wanted to mention that i don't think you are selling yourself too cheap(granted i am not sure of the amount of work behind the automated plan but i assume that is automated). Why i say this is because i think your business is geared more towards the newb/smaller property investor like the post guy, my wife's hairdresser husband and his mom who might end up making a monthly cash flow of ~ $100-$200 /month/door. To these guys an extra $5 or $9 matter.

Also i would recommend you get in touch with the guys at biggerpockets.com(not affiliated but a user) or mention your business there. Pretty big number of investors there(big and small).

Good luck.

Thanks for the tip about biggerpockets.com - we'll definitely check it out.

And you are right about our target market - although there is room for everyone. We are still finding out feet, so we are always open to the idea of adjusting pricing - but we need some data and early user feedback first to help determine where we head from here...

Looking at your pricing structure and FAQ, it looks like a better approach would be to discriminate based on number of properties, raise your monthly rate and just make it unlimited paperwork... 1-2 properties a month at $19/mo, 3-5 at $39, 6-20 at $99 and then a "slumlord" option. (or something like that... obviously it's your business and you know your own costs)

Mostly, it seems unnecessarily fiddly to have entries in your FAQ about an average number of pieces of paper and special rates on processing paperwork backlogs.

If this is successful, you'll collect a lot of private data, including business secrets of investors.

Do you plan to monetize on that? (For example, by performing data mining and selling statistics. Or, by contacting the investors and making interesting offers to them.)

If not, can you guarantee that you won't monetize on that dataset in the future? Is it even possible to guarantee such a statement?

I think this applies to any business. Especially large companies like Xero and Stripe come to mind. They have huge data (more than we will ever have).

We have a privacy policy [1] that covers what we can/wont do with your data. We are an Australian based company, and we have fairly tight restrictions on privacy. We have to comply with National Privacy Principles (NPPs) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) in Australia.

[1]https://mypropertytracker.com/privacy

So am I understanding correctly that "market research" means selling data mining insights to advertisers? Do you expect this to be a significant portion of revenue?

(I don't have a problem with this- I'm just curious.)

We honestly have no intention of selling any data. I might talk to our lawyer to clarify this point. We want people to trust us with their data.

Even if we could/did sell the data, it would be such a small portion of revenue. Hence why I don't believe it is worth trading our ethics for...

What's the difference of using this service versus sending all my paperwork to a bookkeeper who uses Quickbooks, or a property management software like Buildium or Appfolio?

There are a few differences.

Firstly - "sending all my paperwork to a bookkeeper who uses Quickbooks". In many ways we provide a service that is similar to this. However our website is focused on property investors - so you dont require any additional programs (like Quickbooks). We have many features that are specific to property investors, like tracking valuations, insurance, loan contract information. i.e. it is not "just" an accounting solution - it is an entire single platform to manage your property investments.

In regards to Buildium or Appfolio - they are generally aimed more at large property investors, or property management groups. Whilst there is overlap in what we do - we feel we provider a easier and simplier experience. We've invested a lot of time into the UX of the entire process to have it as simple, quick and easy as possible.

This looks like a terrific service. I'm going to go with some other commentators and say that the prices are 1) drastically too low 2) low enough to not be taken seriously. The founder of http://riskpulse.com told the story that in early days, one or more of his clients begged him to charge more.

Thanks. It is important to remember the price is "per property per month". So someone with more than a couple of properties actually can end up paying quite a bit. So it is a trade off.

In saying that - like I mentioned - we've just launched - and we are still finding out feet.

We'll take all the comments here, and combine it with the data we gather, and definitely review it all :)

I can't really comment on the domain, but I did notice that you've called out Excel multiple times. I'm not sure if there are any concerns there but I would at least suggest capitalizing it where you use it. Might be even better to just use "spreadsheets" instead.

Good points - thanks - will do.

I know absolutely nothing about the domain or the problem being solved. My initial reaction to the pricing was that it seems a bit cheap - $5 if they do the manual work and only $4 extra for you to do it? Either it is a very simple and quick process or you are selling yourselves a bit cheap?

Thanks. Pricing is always a tough subject. Patio11 would tell us to charge more - but this is a B2C model - so our client base will be price sensitive to some degree.

The pricing is "per property". So some current customers have 10-20 properties, and in those circumstances the price can add up to be relatively higher.

It is an area we will be paying very close attention to. Part of the problem is we have some "assumptions/theories" on aspects relating to this - but we are trying to gather "data" to make informed decisions.

So this pricing seemed like a good sweet spot to start with, and we can take it from there...

Your customers are the owners of buy-to-let properties, right?

I would not consider them B2C. They are running businesses. They will be used to paying for professional services to handle the paperwork your software handles. How much does that cost per property per month? You should price your offering in the same range.

  I would not consider them B2C. They are running businesses.

With large businesses and government, employees "aren't spending their own money" - spending a few thousand dollars isn't going to stop them going on holiday, saving a few thousand dollars isn't going to give them an extra holiday. So there's a school of thought that says such customers are price-insensitive, and you should charge them a bunch because why not?

With small businesses and sole traders, they tend to behave more like consumers in terms of wanting value for money. After all, saving $100 means they'll have $100 minus tax in their pocket.

Charge more! Your customers are businesses! A customer with 5 investment properties is in most cases literally a millionaire.

Thanks Patio11 - I already had you in my head telling me to charge more when we set the price :)

We'll review it along with some other data we are collecting...

Sydney's median house price could crash through the $1 million mark before the end of the year.

http://www.afr.com/real-estate/residential/nsw/sydney-closes...

Charge what a human would charge.

In which country? China, India, Australia, ...?

With Sydney's cup of coffee price of 4 dollars your pricing IS a bit low :)

Not at all surprised that some Sydneysiders appear to be behind this investment property portfolio management app, haha.

Nice work, I really do expect you guys to get a lot of attention. Have you guys hit up Whirlpool forums?

hahaha - thanks Tim. Everyone in Sydney is certainly talking about property at the moment - hey? :)

We are currently doing some initial pushes through some other property investor groups.

I've not yet hit Whirlpool - but it's on my list :)

Very nice explainer video. Can you share who did it for you and whether or not they were pretty costly? I'm going to need one done soon and The average quote is very obscene (>$30k).

Drop me an email: laurence (at) mypropertytracker (dot) com

I'll happily discuss it in more detail with you. It was significantly cheaper than what you've listed.

Congrats! How do you do the data entry? How do you plan on scaling the data entry? Do you have real estate experience?

All the founders have significant property investment experience. This was actually a "pain point" that we had ourselves. Despite looking for solutions - there were none that did what we needed, to the level of quality we wanted. So that is what lead to the idea.

We currently do the data entry with generally manual processes. However we are already adding steps that greatly reduce the time required.

As the business grows we have options on how to automate more and more of the data entry - but we need to validate the idea first and confirm we have product/market fit prior to investing in further technology.

Plus - as pg says - doing things that dont scale is a great place to start.

By doing it manually we've already uncovered interesting data trends, and processes that we never expected. So we plan on doing it manually for a bit longer to ensure we learn as much as possible before we continue to build our automation tools.

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