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kole78

69 karma · joined February 1, 2022

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kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
No python (yet)
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Right now we are focused on multifamily PMS's, but we will be adding other integrations like Roofstock down the road.
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Not currently, but we have discussed the possibility in the future
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Haha strange question, but no. We are in SF for the YC batch, and then back to Boston where we all normally live.
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Of course, since we are not a pass-through API, our tech is set up as an async ETL. So a job represents a unit of work for Propify either fetching data from or pushing data to a PMS. You can track jobs to understand the lifecycle of your requests and overall status of your integrations.
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Thanks for the questions!

1. Docs for webhooks are located in our app (after login). But a basic outline is that you add your URL, add any custom headers you wish, get the signing key, subscribe to an event and you're off the races. Events that we currently support are Job Success, Job Failure, New Data, Diff Data. Probably the most popular event (as you have alluded to in your next question) is our Diff Data event. The payload for this event will return only the data that has changed for a particular record since the last time we received data from a PMS.

2. Currently, not via the API. We will be adding more features like this to the API in the coming weeks. For now, our customers seem to prefer the Diff Data webhook anyway.

3. We do cache the data. One of the hallmarks of PMS APIs is that they are unreliable. That being the case, all of the data served from our API is from our cache so we can pass along our uptime SLA benefits to our customers.

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Ben said he's talking to you all next week! Looking forward to it.

Our current integrations include Yardi, RealPage, Entrata, Propertyware, Buildium, Rent Manager and Rentvine. On the roadmap are Appfolio, MRI and ResMan.

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Propertyware does charge an access fee, you are correct. Additionally, they offer a licensing agreement where their customers can provide API keys to consultants to help them build out their tool(s). We are one of those consultants.

As far as who assumes the access fees, they are managed strictly by our customers and we have no pass-through pricing on that side. Our pricing is solely based on our own costs, infra, value, etc. All of our customers get access to all of our integrations (current and future) as part of our standard pricing model.

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Thank you!
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Totally agree! This is part of the conversation with each of our customers. We have learned early that this is a part of the pain and we are solving it in two ways:

1. Rapidly developing a deep understanding for naming and meaning within each PMS so we can speak intelligently, and properly guide our customers to focus on the data they care about.

2. Technically, we have data transformations at a couple different layers so we can repoint data coming in to exist in customer-specific locations for their business needs.

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Some of the systems remain pay-to-play for sure. We have adopted the consultant model where we are implementing our solution on behalf of our customers. This is why we require our customers to have their own relationship with each PMS. Their credentials are used to access each API. I sent a connect request to you on LI - happy to chat in more detail!
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Thanks for your feedback! Unfortunately your story is a common one - not much has changed with these APIs since 2012... or since 1999 for that matter.

Our current integrations include Yardi, RealPage, Entrata, Propertyware, Buildium, Rent Manager and Rentvine. On the roadmap are Appfolio, MRI and ResMan.

Necessary disclaimer: we only support integrations for customers who have officially sanctioned relationships with each PMS. We do not do anything that violates ToS (e.g. scraping, chrome extensions, etc.).

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Great point of clarity. We made a business decision to only leverage actual APIs from these companies. As a result, our customers are still required to have an official relationship with each PMS they want to integrate with. We have made it a point to not do anything that violates ToS for each of these systems.

While we do possess some insight into how to more easily navigate the business development process with each PMS (and we help our customers do so), we do not help or encourage anyone to circumvent the process altogether.

Without naming specifics, it seems you have identified perhaps one of the more closed systems.

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Updated. Thanks for the feedback!
kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
Of course! Let me give this a shot with a couple examples in your suggested format...

- As an engineer for a tenant background check company, I can use Propify to easily integrate with systems like Entrata, Buildium and Propertyware so that I only need to create a single integration instead of 3.

- As a sales rep for a property maintenance company, I can confidently sell into new property managers who use systems that we don't integrate with yet because I know a new integration for our engineering team is basically like flipping a switch.

kole78··on Launch HN: Propify (YC W23) – Property Management System API Aggregator
You are 100% correct. Propify is focused on the relationships between companies like the rental application processors and the property managers who use systems like Appfolio. We really appreciate the kind words and hope to be as helpful as possible in pushing this industry forward!