00:00Live from Colorado Springs, I'm Diego Sanchez, president of Housing Wire, and I've got two
00:13great guests today. I've got Jimmy Kelly, the CEO of Lone Wolf Technologies, and Jake Hamilton,
00:19the SVP of Strategy, also at Lone Wolf. And gentlemen, thanks so much for joining me today.
00:25Thanks for having us.
00:25Thank you. So before we really dive in, I'd love to get a sense for your journey to Lone Wolf.
00:33What brought you there? What excited you about the opportunity? And I'll start with Jimmy.
00:37Sure. No, I appreciate the question. I've been at Lone Wolf for six and a half years,
00:42but I've been in software my entire career. And what drew me to Lone Wolf was really two things,
00:48right? One, it was my first opportunity to sit in the CEO chair and kind of lead vision strategy
00:55culture. And I couldn't give that opportunity up. But more importantly than that, always having a
01:02mission-driven company is something that's exciting. And both my parents are real estate agents. I have
01:08a lot of friends that have their licenses. And while we may not be the people that are working with a
01:15buyer or a seller, we do have a great opportunity to help shape how that relationship grows. And that
01:21is really what drew me to the opportunity at Lone Wolf.
01:24So you really grew up in the industry for both your parents or real estate professionals.
01:28I mean, I didn't really know what they were doing when I was, but yeah, I mean, I love it.
01:32But I'm sure they recruited you for stuff.
01:34I worked part-time in the summer for a Remax agent who was one of the top agents in Houston.
01:43Her name was Penny Holcomb. And I literally used to use an eraser to shine pennies and put them on her
01:50business card in mailers and mail them out to make money when I was a kid. So yeah.
01:55Jake, how about you?
01:56Yeah. So originally came up in a management technology consulting background. I loved that,
02:02loved the variety, loved the challenges, hated that you don't really own the outcome.
02:07It's one thing to advise. It's another thing to roll up your sleeves and get to jump in.
02:12And when the opportunity to join Lone Wolf came along, something I had to take.
02:16My wife has her license as a real estate agent. Parents, my mom actually grew up working for a
02:21home builder as well. So having some of that background, having that passion for the industry,
02:26such a cool, exciting, dynamic space. And the chance to do that and come in and do it with a
02:31company that's being as innovative and kind of forward thinking as Lone Wolf was a no-brainer to join.
02:37I've been here five and a half years now, have loved every step of the journey through the ups and downs of
02:41COVID and the crazy strong market to the market we've dealt with today and just really charting
02:47the strategy through that.
02:48Well, it's really interesting that both of you have real estate in the family.
02:52So it's kind of in your blood.
02:53It touches a lot of people, right?
02:55It really does. It really does. So Jimmy, you recently launched Foundation, which is the real
03:00estate industry cloud. What is and how is Foundation doing a year later?
03:06Yeah. So Foundation is really the culmination of years of strategy, planning and investment. If I
03:14take a step back, when I joined Lone Wolf, we were primarily a back office accounting solution. We had
03:22a small transaction management footprint. Through a series of acquisitions, we've grown our capability
03:30set. Transaction management, CRMs, CMAs, websites, lead generation, digital marketing, kind of an end
03:38to end capability. And while we integrated all of those tools, the end user experience really wasn't
03:48optimal, right? And we wanted to be a vertically integrated cloud for real estate. And so that's
03:55what Foundation is. So through a lot of hard work and a lot of great team members at Lone Wolf, we
04:02built Foundation to be that industry cloud. It is web-based from the beginning. It has got an API layer,
04:10but all of those tools I just mentioned now are integrated fully and have a unique and consistent
04:16user experience. So when you log in, you might traverse from a CRM to a digital marketing to
04:25our transaction management platform, you won't know that you ever left Foundation because it
04:30looks the same, it feels the same. And it's really a wonderful experience. So it's more of an end-to-end
04:35platform. We like to call it the industry cloud instead of the platform because other people use
04:39that term, but yeah, that's what it is. Fair enough. So Jake, there's this perception that Lone Wolf
04:46is for big companies and is focused on accounting. Is that a misperception? Yeah, I would say that's
04:53absolutely a misperception. You know, it's something where we've been intentional throughout
04:56this journey to say, we want to serve the entire real estate industry. We want to serve everyone
05:02from the individual agent to the startup broker, to a midsize broker, to a top 1000, to the franchises,
05:09the MLSs, the ORs, everyone who makes home happen. That's what we're here for. And we believe that
05:15regardless of size and scale, those companies deserve enterprise-grade technology. They deserve
05:21something that's built on a reliable cloud platform, that has the security standards they
05:26need, that has really just something that you should feel confident building your business on.
05:32So in that, we're one of the only companies out there that has a sales team dedicated to those
05:37startup brokerages, those under 10 agent shops, really just focused on saying, hey, we want to serve
05:43you regardless of size. We want to make real estate simple. We want to integrate with the other
05:48technologies, as Jimmy was talking about, that are out there. But it's not just for big players,
05:53it's for anyone and everyone who's on that journey to help people find home.
05:57Let's talk more about that cloud. Jimmy, in our prep session, you talked about like really wanting
06:02to be that industry cloud for real estate, even if that meant cooperating with some competitors.
06:09Could you dive into that a little bit more?
06:10Sure. It may be a different kind of strategy than other players in the space. Frankly, it's different
06:18than where Lone Wolf was when I joined. But I think if our vision is to simplify real estate,
06:25and our job is to help create an efficient environment for an agent to serve their consumer,
06:32I might think that my software is the best software on the planet. I've been accused of being
06:37a rah-rah leader for Lone Wolf. And unapologetically, I am.
06:42The best kind of leader. However, everybody may not have that view. So I'm going to integrate with
06:47competitive products, because to the broker, I can give them that platform, that visibility into their
06:55data, so that they can better run their business, regardless if you're using my CRM or somebody else's.
07:01And so we do integrate with our competitors today, as well as people that help kind of enhance our
07:08solution set.
07:08I'd love your perspective on that same question as the head of strategy, because you've got to think
07:13about these partnerships with competitors. How does that work for you?
07:17Yeah, I think it's one of those things where as we kind of stepped back and looked at what worked
07:21well at Lone Wolf, what hasn't worked well in the past, looked at really what the industry needs.
07:26If our mission is truly to make real estate simple and to empower the agent and the broker with the
07:33tools and technology they need to not worry about their tech stack, we can't say we're a closed
07:38platform. A closed platform puts its foot down and says, this is the only answer on how you run your
07:45business. And that's just not authentic to who we are and who our mission is, not authentic to what
07:49the industry needs. The industry needs all of these different software companies, regardless of who owns
07:55them, regardless of what the company structure looks like, to work together on behalf of the
08:00customers we serve. I wish everyone in the industry had that same perspective, because it would make
08:06it a lot easier. You wouldn't have the conversations with clients where you're like, yeah, we would love
08:11to integrate, but you've got to get them on board with that. We want to be that place where regardless
08:17of what you need, you know that you can come back, connect to the platform, connect to foundation,
08:22connect to the industry cloud, and pull in your transactions, pull in your contacts, pull in the
08:27data you need, and have a consistent, reliable platform, even if there are different pieces you
08:31want to use. So let's wrap with a crystal ball question for you, Jimmy. So where do you see
08:38this industry cloud going? And then in general, where do you see real estate tech going over the
08:44next couple of years? Very interesting, especially being here at the conference. So I'm going to sound a
08:50little bit prisoner of the moment, right? I think we're just scratching the surface in the use cases
08:57of AI, right? So we've got AI enabled within foundation. We've got a lot of things that we're
09:02still working on that I think will be coming out in the future. So I see that being almost a
09:08normalized or commoditized component of any real estate tech going forward is you have to have the
09:13ability to drive efficiency for the end user. But as a whole, where I see real estate going from a
09:22technology perspective, um, is a platform that takes everything from mortgage to title, to insurance,
09:31to transaction, to close. But then beyond that, to the whole home ownership life cycle, all the
09:37servicing around your house once you are the owner, so that that platform can be kind of your service
09:44component of home ownership. That's where I think it's eventually going. And does Lone Wolf want to
09:49play in that entire spectrum? I think we are, uh, at least a component of it, if not someone that's
09:56going to lead in that scenario. Amazing gentlemen. I thought this was a great conversation. Really enjoyed
10:01catching up with both of you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Yeah.
10:07Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Comments