PropTech + Housing with Jen Yosef, Mighty

Jen Yosef, a trained civil and nuclear engineer with nearly a decade of leadership experience talks about entering the housing industry as CEO of Mighty.

What would she say to women looking to get into the PropTech or housing space? Listen in.

Many thanks to our partners at the University of Denver for their editing and post-production talents, specifically Lija Miller and Lisette Zamora-Galarza.

The University of Denver Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management, teaches the full life cycle of the built environment. From integrated project leadership skills to a cohesive understanding of the built environment ––experience the only school of its kind!

"Upbeat Party" is brought to you by Scott Holmes, songwriter from Free Music Archive. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):

You're listening to the housing innovation Alliance podcast in partnership with the university of Denver's Franklin L burns school of real estate and construction management. The housing innovation Alliance is a nationwide community of game changers driving the future of home delivery through crowd accelerated innovation. We represent thought leaders from dirt to dweller with a focus on the production builders business environment.

Speaker 2 (00:33):

I'm here today with Jen Yosef, the CEO and co-founder of mighty. Hi, Jen. Welcome. Thank you page for having me. Yeah, absolutely. We're really excited to talk to you, especially during women's history month. So we'd love to hear a little bit more about how you got into the prop tech space and what your company enables our industry to do. So first, let's talk about you a little bit. You're a trained civil, civil and nuclear engineer with nearly a decade of leadership experience with fortune 500 companies such as Chevron and Williams. So what drew you to the real estate technology prior to mighty? My experience in the real estate world was very limited. I would say very typical to what most people's experiences, right? It's I bought a house, I sold a house and that was pretty much it. And I found out about mighty and just like the entire real estate tech space through one of my really good mentors and a current board member of mighty.

Speaker 2 (01:30):

And as he had shared about what mighty was doing, I was very drawn to the concept because I saw that this is an antiquated space. There is there's a ton of challenges and a ton of opportunity for growth. And that's what I really looked at. So that's how I kind of hopped on board with mighty and, and decided to really help take the company into the direction that it is, has gone into today. Great. How long have you been with Miami now? So I've been with mighty for about four years. Great. So not only did you change industries, um, from what you previously were in, you are running a woman owned business. Um, what was that experience like? You know, were there any major struggles that you had to overcome, um, for you to get to where you are today? Absolutely. Running a tech company as a female founder comes with its set of challenges.

Speaker 2 (02:23):

It really does. And I think when you're in a male dominated space, such as we are in the housing, the real estate tech, that means that my questions and my successes will get questioned a lot more. Uh, raising capital really has been one of the struggles and every founder can relate to it. It's not an easy task, but I think female founders certainly have much more of an uphill battle that they have to, um, they have to fight and it's taken me twice the amount of time, whether it comes to getting the funding or developing the right partners, but really how I've overcome the challenge is by staying on course. And when I keep hearing no over and over and over again and plants don't really turn out the way that I expected. I look at it as a teaching moment, I see an opportunity to step back and say, all right, what can I do?

Speaker 2 (03:19):

Where can I get my support network? Who are the people that I can really get that guidance from to be able to overcome these challenges. And I look at it where the road to success is always going to be paved with a ton of failures, a ton of mistakes. And, but you will get to where you need to, right? You'll get to your destination as long as you don't lose sight. And for me, that's always been, my focus is just keeping my eyes on the prize and realizing there will be challenges in just being an entrepreneur, first of all. But then also being a female, also being an immigrant there's other sets of challenges that are going to come with it.

Speaker 3 (04:02):

Absolutely. I'm sure he's changing your career is a challenge in of itself. And then, you know, having to face the other challenge challenges, we'll definitely put a lot more on the table. So that's, that's great. So, um, let's hear a little bit more about mighty. Um, so in a nutshell, what does mighty do and who is the main market using

Speaker 2 (04:19):

Mighty is a data-driven platform that is giving information on how much home repairs will cost. So if you look at Mighty's concept, we have made simplified it so much where even a six year old can understand, right, look a house, just like just like a human being needs a doctor, to be able to figure out like what's going on with their house and how, how do you assess the problems and what the solutions are, that's what mighty is doing. So here's looking at a home, here's all the issues that the house has, that the inspector really calls out and mighty comes in, and it's really giving you the answer and the solution to these problems at how much it will really cost. And we are able to provide this data within hours. So if we look at the industry, typically right now, you're talking about days of waiting for a real estate agent, a buyer and seller to get access to this information because they're relying on very traditional methods of calling a contractor, contractors are busy, right? They want to do work. They don't want to just run around and give estimates. And then the work does not even end up happening. So we really are reducing this big friction in the, in the transaction increasing, you know, in terms of optimizing the entire transaction and helping with the closing time. So in our platform right now, um, the users that we see that are primarily using us are real estate agents, um, buyers, sellers, real estate investors are really the ones that, that get maximized on our platform.

Speaker 3 (06:01):

Great. And I'm no homeowner, but I can imagine that helps, you know, when you're buying a house to be able to see those numbers and have it right at hand, it makes you it's very comforting.

Speaker 2 (06:09):

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think you put it perfectly, right? Like that's the biggest thing. It's a stressful process and everybody just needs to know like, look, I'm putting in so much money into this property. Am I really making sure that I've got everything covered?

Speaker 3 (06:23):

Absolutely. Um, so, you know, we interviewed Helen Hannah, um, last week with you, uh, for our, for the stories and housing as well. And so I understand that you and Howard Hannah have been working together and their key client with yours. So give us an example of how they use mighty and how it impacts their business.

Speaker 2 (06:41):

How would Hannah realtors have really integrated my team mighty into, into their platform, right into what they're doing and working on their processes. And this has been a key factor for the agent's success. And we've really seen that 2020 was a big year for us to be able to gather that data and see how the real estate agent was using mighty and how successful they were in using it. And whether the real estate agent is representing the buyer, the seller, whether the buyer and seller is coming to mighty, they are getting accurate information then negotiating faster. And they're really directly selling more by incorporating mighty into their process. So with Howard Hanna and with how this has really helped help their agents and their businesses is we've really taken out and reduce that risk and liability. We've increased the certainty, the convenience reduced churn time. And at the end of the day, it really increased the sales cycle, as I said, so would we were able to see at the end of 2020 is traditional realtors are able to use mighty and sell 35% more homes because really in essence, what mighty is doing is now taking out all that hassle, making sure that their deal in tech and giving them more time, which means more time to sell homes. Yes,

Speaker 3 (08:08):

That's great. And I'm curious essentially for, you know, a large corporation like Howard Hanna, they got a lot going on in Pittsburgh and elsewhere now. So that's, that's great for you guys. That's awesome. Okay. So are there any other, um, use cases in bed or benefits that you could share with?

Speaker 2 (08:23):

Yeah, so I think some of the most powerful use cases and testimonials always come from our clients. So we have been able to really extrapolate all this information and be able to see like where, you know, what are some of those key key benefits and how have our clients looked at mighty? And one of the biggest one I would say is Mighty's accurate information then provides a market value pricing for the home. So when mighty is able to get this information out clients and are looking at the house and saying all, is this the right price of the home based on all this work I have to do. So it's some of the most powerful testimonials we have received is the fact that that because of my it, clients have been able to save over 25% on asking price because they now have information on what these repairs are gonna cost.

Speaker 2 (09:14):

So they can accurately really bid on, on the home. And the other real big advantage and benefit of our platform is mighty really combines technology and the human expertise. So it's, it's never really, it's not a siloed process that that is functioning behind the scenes for us really goes hand in hand where if an agent or a buyer or seller or an investor is looking for more data, looking for more information, our team is always available to provide that support, provide more, uh, more details. And I think that's a critical element, especially when it comes to the real estate space is to have that because this is such a human interactive business, right? Emotions are very much high in this business and you gotta make sure that you are constantly there for your client.

Speaker 3 (10:08):

Yeah, absolutely. That's definitely very important. So that's great that you guys are out there doing that. So one last question we're going to cover here today. So what would you tell other women looking to get into the prop tech or housing space? What advice would you give them after all of your experience?

Speaker 2 (10:24):

You know, I would say that this is an absolutely excellent industry to be a part of the opportunities are huge. If we look at the housing industry, the PropTech space, they're both moving at a rapid pace, right? And there's a lot of capital that's being deployed. I think just over the last week we saw we work as probably, uh, is trying to go public again. But companies like Corso upside, real estate neighbor, they all got massive amounts of funding. So there's a ton of capital out there, a ton of growth that's happening. And my advice to other women that are trying to get into this space would be own your accomplishments, really be confident in your accomplishments and get into this space. If it excites you and also really be willing to learn at a fast pace. So taking all that feedback, right, filter out the noise, filter out the feedback that is that's good and constructive and the ones that just play noise and bad. So once you do that, then you can learn from your mistakes. Try not to make them again, but whatever you do understand that as long as you don't give up, you know, when you're in the space, you will have a very successful career in it. And at the end of the day is I would say, this is an industry that it's so easy to get passionate about. And there's just so much that you can learn from. So if that's the path, then, then it's pretty much a no brainer

Speaker 3 (11:54):

To be part of it. Yeah. It's always great time. Something you're passionate about makes work a lot more fun. Absolutely. All right. Well, this was great. Thank you so much, Jen. It was so nice having you and we look forward to working with you more in the future. Thank you page. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation

Speaker 1 (12:17):

On behalf of the housing innovation lions and the university of Denver. This is Dr. Eric Cole. Thank you for being part of her journey. This is where innovation calls home.