This week on Power House, we are bringing you a special sponsored conversation between HousingWire’s Director of the Content Studio, Zebulon Lowe, and the CEO and co-founder of Fello, Ryan Young. Founded in 2022, Fello is a marketing automation and lead-generation CRM attachment that uses public and MLS data to enrich your database and improve engagement and listings.
Zeb and Ryan talk about exciting things happening in Fello in 2025, including their 30-Day Listing Challenge and their expansion into mortgage. They also talk about the current state of real estate technology at large and Fello’s vision for using their tools to empower small businesses across various sectors.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Marketing automation processes can significantly enhance database engagement.
Technology should be used to simplify processes for real estate agents.
Fellow’s 30-Day Listing Challenge aims to empower agents and foster community.
Focus on controlling what you can control.
AI can enhance marketing strategies if used effectively.
Fello’s plan to expand into the mortgage sector presents new opportunities for growth.
Related to this episode:
text
HousingWire | YouTube
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Zeb and Ryan talk about exciting things happening in Fello in 2025, including their 30-Day Listing Challenge and their expansion into mortgage. They also talk about the current state of real estate technology at large and Fello’s vision for using their tools to empower small businesses across various sectors.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Marketing automation processes can significantly enhance database engagement.
Technology should be used to simplify processes for real estate agents.
Fellow’s 30-Day Listing Challenge aims to empower agents and foster community.
Focus on controlling what you can control.
AI can enhance marketing strategies if used effectively.
Fello’s plan to expand into the mortgage sector presents new opportunities for growth.
Related to this episode:
text
HousingWire | YouTube
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, everyone. This is Zeb Lowe, the director of the content studio here at HousingWire,
00:10and joining me today for a special sponsored conversation is Ryan Young, CEO and co-founder
00:15of Fellow. Ryan, welcome to Powerhouse.
00:18I'm glad to be here.
00:20All right. So before I got, there's a ton of questions that I have for you, but I wanted
00:25to ask you, we spoke yesterday for a little bit and you brought up something that's very
00:30near and dear to my heart. If anyone that's watching this can see from behind me, you're
00:35a fellow guitar player. I didn't get to, we talked a little bit about this and I didn't
00:39get a follow-up question. We both play acoustic guitars, both play Martins. What kind of,
00:44what style of music do you, do you play?
00:47Yeah, it's funny. I was just infatuated with, you know, all those guitars you have over
00:52your shoulder. I play a lot of just folk finger picking, you know, kind of classic,
01:01just your classic rock and roll, you know, folks, acoustic style, great singer, songwriter
01:08type stuff. My dad, I learned, I was, I'm kind of self-taught. I just used to watch
01:13my dad play and then I just kind of emulated what he did, but just listened to a lot of
01:18the music my dad used to love, James Taylor, Neil Young, you know, Crosby, Stills, Nash,
01:23a lot of those guys. And, you know, it's just one of those things that I just, I just used
01:30to watch him play almost every night and just, I became kind of obsessed with it and I'm
01:34like, I'm going to learn how to do that. And 30 years later, it's, it's, it's something,
01:38it's like my like meditation, it's my way to, at the end of the day to turn things off.
01:43So it's, it's definitely a great pastime.
01:45That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. It's a, that's something that I've carried with
01:49me for 20 years or so. And it's, it's important to my life has, has, has morphed and it's
01:54kind of serves the same purpose for me, for me now.
01:57Well, real quick, just, and then we'll jump into it, but something that's so special is,
02:02so my, my, my family is, I would say more musical where my dad plays, my brother plays.
02:08He also has a mandolin. My dad used to play banjo as well. Just something special about
02:13it is my dad's in his late seventies and, you know, three, four months ago, I told him
02:19me and my brother, you know, let's take a little road trip, a little boy's trip.
02:23Let's go fly fishing. We'll bring our guitars with us. We just kind of rented a cabin in
02:27upstate New York. And it was just so special to just hang out for three nights, a long
02:32weekend and, you know, fish during the days, play, you know, play music. And you can see
02:37he gets emotional because we're playing the songs that he grew up listening to. And it's
02:41like, you know, his kids, you know, we're both in our early forties are sitting there
02:45playing the songs that he grew up and you can just tell it's just something special.
02:49It's an amazing bond.
02:50That's great. That's really cool. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm envious. I was the only one in my
02:54family that played any music at all. I took fishing trips with my dad and we would drive
02:58for like three days straight, not listening to anything at all. Just straight side, straight
03:02side.
03:03The whole, like we would put on, we'll do the whole, like put on music and it'd be like,
03:06who sings this? Who originally wrote it? Who, you know, it's like a lot of banter back
03:10and forth.
03:11Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. Well, let me ask you how, kind of sticking to your
03:16backstory though. I mean, you have one of the more unique, you know, paths or journeys
03:22into the, into the real estate industry that, that I know of. I mean, is it fair to say
03:28that your, your, your path into real estate starts or started kind of in the kitchen?
03:34Is that a fair, is that a fair statement?
03:37Yeah, it's a fair statement. So, you know, like I didn't, I grew up in my, both my parents
03:42were real estate agents. They were kind of a small team, the two of them. I grew up cooking.
03:46I was obsessed when all high school, I was full-time, you know, chef at this great restaurant
03:51in Cleveland where I grew up. And I actually was a really good high school football player
03:58and had the opportunity to play, you know, kind of collegiate ball. And I turned it down
04:03to go to culinary school. I went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
04:07And I was just obsessed with the industry. I wanted to be a restauranteur, but moved
04:12all over the country, Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, cooked in some of the most amazing
04:16restaurants in the world. And when I hit 26, I kind of had a quarter life, I would say
04:24crisis, a little quarter life breakdown. At this point, I've been in the restaurant industry
04:28for about 10 years now. And I just, I wanted to enjoy my weekends and I wanted to start
04:33a family and see my friends that I grew up with and see my family more. And you know,
04:38in the restaurant industry, you're working every night, every holiday, every weekend,
04:43and you just lose a little bit of that, like that kind of Midwest cultural, like beliefs
04:48and foundation that I'm kind of used to. So I called my folks up at, you know, I was 20,
04:53just about to turn 26. And I said, you're going to think I'm crazy. This came out of
04:56nowhere. But what do you think about me moving back to Cleveland and getting my real estate
05:01license and joining you guys? And I think they were kind of like, what are you talking about?
05:05You spent all this money on culinary school. You've cooked at all these amazing restaurants.
05:08You've had this vision. And I'm just like, you know, sometimes visions change and I'm ready
05:12to explore something new. And I, 26 years old, 2009, I moved back to Cleveland, Ohio and jumped
05:20into the real estate industry. Okay. So how did you get, or can you kind of walk me through your
05:26experience in the real, your real estate segment and going from like a, from, from the real estate
05:33to the, to the technology side? Yeah. What's what, how did that take place?
05:39Yeah. So, you know, when I joined my folks in 2009, which was not a great time to get into the
05:45real estate industry, as you can imagine, I'm 26 years old. I'm getting into the real estate
05:49industry. I think I've got it all figured out. That was a rough couple of years as I learned,
05:55as I was grinding through it. But when I joined my parents, I said, the one thing that's really
06:01important to me is if I join you, we are going to build something special. Right. And I am very
06:07committed to building something. I don't want to just like sell real estate kind of part-time as a
06:12hobby. And so we started building, you know, and driving really hard and building this big team.
06:19And we very quickly became, you know, one of the top teams in the state of Ohio,
06:23eventually becoming, you know, the number one large team in the state. And I, I ultimately was,
06:30I was obsessed with this growth and I was surrounding myself with other people that were
06:35doing bigger things and whether it was a bigger team or they were building additional businesses.
06:40And so one of the things I started doing within my real estate team was I started doing this like
06:45cash offer guaranteed sale program which really started to kind of put us on the map in Northeast
06:52Ohio with these very loud campaigns on radio and some billboards and stuff like that.
06:58And what I found was that a lot of people started reaching out to us and saying,
07:02hey, I'm curious about this cash offer. We saw so much demand that I said,
07:08I want to, this is like a business in itself. And so it's like, this is almost a business as
07:14big as the young team. So I started a company called Flash House, which was purely built to
07:19acquire homes, right? We buy your homes for cash, et cetera. This is about 2019.
07:24And all of a sudden, so I had the young team, which was selling about four or 500 homes a year.
07:28I had Flash House where we were acquiring, you know, 10 to 20 homes a month. They were playing
07:33off each other synergistically really nicely because people would request a cash offer.
07:38I could, if they didn't like the offer, I could send them over to the young team.
07:41If the young team had a client that wanted a cash offer, I could send them over to Flash House.
07:45But what I found was what was really interesting was, as I was building both these companies,
07:49I started to see people in my database, in the young team's database, requesting cash offers
07:55from Flash House. Now they had no idea that I owned both companies. They had no idea that I
07:59owned Flash House. And so I started to realize that, wait a minute, if people in the young team,
08:04these are like past clients of ours, right? They're getting this marketing from Flash House.
08:08They're going to flashhouse.com. They're requesting a cash offer.
08:12Why aren't they loyal to me? Where else are they going? If they're going into Flash House,
08:18where else are they going? And it started to make me realize that like, I need to really
08:23protect my database and I really need to invest into my database.
08:27And so that's kind of where this idea of the technology came about was,
08:32you know, what can we build that really builds this moat around the young team's database that
08:38really drives a lot of engagement within our database? And, you know, this is kind of where
08:44Fellow was born, like birthed from, was this idea of like, protect your database. Your database is
08:50your largest asset. And so really in 2021, after kind of like really thinking this through and
08:57identifying how this could actually be something also, you know, as a business opportunity,
09:03um, we decided let's, you know, put some money behind this. Let's build some technology to
09:07actually kind of like expedite and productize all these things that we were doing. And before you
09:13know it, Fellow was born in 2022. And so what, can you kind of give a
09:1810,000 foot view of what Fellow is exactly for our audience?
09:22Yeah. Fellow is really a marketing automation platform. We're kind of an attachment to your CRM
09:28and what we focus on primarily is database engagement. And so, uh, what is really special
09:35about Fellow is we, we sink your database into our platform and we enrich it with a significant
09:41amount of data. And Fellow is really obsessed with helping agents generate more listings,
09:47finding more sellers within their database. And so we take your database from your CRM,
09:52we sink it into our platform. We start finding all the homeowners that are,
09:56that you didn't even know were homeowners in your database. And we started enriching it with
10:00all this really rich data, like public record data and MLS data and mortgage data.
10:04So now you have this really, really rich, call it a supplemental database, right? This marketing
10:12foundation to actually start creating a significant amount of engagement.
10:15And what Fellow then does is we start all these email and direct mail campaigns
10:20that are really designed to get the homeowners in your database to raise their hands. And
10:25what we found is that 5% of an agent's database lists their home every 12 months,
10:30and we have all this data that supports it. And, you know, when you think about, well,
10:34my database is 10,000 people. Well, there's no way there's 500 listings in my database every year.
10:40There's no way if I have a database of a thousand people that there's 50 listings,
10:43I'm just, I'm only getting a listing or two out of my database.
10:46Fellow really starts to uncover those sellers and then create a massive amount of engagement with
10:51them, which ultimately helps you then have a conversation and convert them into listings.
10:56Okay. So what differentiates Fellow from the rest of the competition?
11:00Yeah. So I think first thing is the introduction of the data, right? This is so important is the
11:09fact that we take the database and we enrich it with all this information that was never there.
11:14We kind of say like, we really turn the light, you know, the lights on in your database.
11:19So that's the first component is like database enrichment, data enrichment. And then
11:26what makes Fellow so special is because we have all this data, then all of a sudden it becomes
11:31so granular and customizable based off of the data that allows us to see significantly better
11:38engagement and significantly better results. And, you know, when you have a marketing platform,
11:46a marketing automation platform, I think what our industry is so used to is just kind of like
11:51a one size fits all message to their entire database. And imagine when you can get really,
11:57really granular. And when you find out all this rich information about all these people in your
12:01database, and you can really start segmenting these messages so that you're getting the right
12:06message to the right person at the right time. And I just, it's so hard to explain until you
12:14actually see what the platform looks like. And you literally plug your database in and like the
12:19first reaction we get from our users. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's kind of gone
12:23viral is people just are blown away by the information of what is provided to them in
12:30their database that they had no idea even existed. Personally, what do you, what do you do or did you
12:37do to go from one thing that is not, doesn't naturally tie into the next thing to then get
12:43good at it or succeed? I say my biggest strength is knowing and accepting my weaknesses. And I feel
12:54very, I grew up playing team sports. I grew up in the kitchen, which is kind of a team thing.
13:01I, it wouldn't be possible without surrounding myself with other people. I haven't done any of
13:06these ventures by myself, right? And so what I've done is I am very curious. I'm just naturally a
13:14very curious person. And so when I have an idea or when I see an opportunity or a vision or whatever
13:20may be, I'm normally surrounding myself with someone that might be more of a, call it a domain
13:25expert. And I partner with them and then I become obsessed with their expertise. And then we start
13:32building together. I haven't done any of these things alone. And I think that's extremely
13:37important is I, I love building things with other people, with people that share my passion and
13:44energy and work ethic. And that's the only, I would say that's probably the only consistency
13:50of all these things that I've done in my entire life is the fact that I've always done them with
13:54others. Right. Right. And so now that you're in, you know, in a, in a technology space, how has
14:01that or has it at all, has it changed your perspective on the real estate side of things?
14:07Yeah. And if it has, like how so? Yeah. So Fellow,
14:12Fellow launched about two years ago, October of 22. And it just, it immediately blew up like
14:2120,000 users on the platform, over 2,300 teams, over 60% of those teams are on the
14:27real trends, top 1000. So we've been really fortunate to see like massive, massive growth.
14:34Right. And what it shows me is that if you can build great technology for an industry,
14:40like the real estate industry, that is very user-friendly, that is very automated,
14:45that is very well integrated within their current tech stack, whatever they're currently doing,
14:53you're going to see traction. You're going to see adoption. As soon as you build something
14:58really complex that ultimately feels complex to the user, it just, they shut down. Remember,
15:04I'm an agent. I've sold thousands of homes. I've been a team leader, built a team that sold
15:08thousands of homes. I'm in my car. I'm on the road. I'm on listing appointments. I'm on buyer
15:13showings. I'm negotiating deals. I need something that's working in the background for me. That's
15:18creating opportunities for me that I don't need to think about, that I don't need to constantly
15:22be tweaking and manipulating and observing and iterating. To build great technology in the real
15:29estate industry, what I've learned is it's so important that it's like, you kind of have to
15:33set it and forget it. You kind of have to gamify and show them that they're winning with it and
15:38create some excitement around what we're doing. But as soon as you start adding in all this
15:43friction, it's just all of a sudden you see it doesn't work. I think that's so important for
15:51just our industry. When you're looking at technology, what are you comfortable with
15:56as you're analyzing whether it's right for you or not? How does this fold into your day-to-day?
16:04How laborious is it for you to set it up or to continue to manage it? I think one of the
16:09things that we've really leaned into is how do you just make this really automated and effortless
16:14for our users so that they can get a significant amount of benefit without putting in a lot of work?
16:19Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it too is the fact that it's designed, in my opinion,
16:25designed by somebody that's done it before. I mean, I've got a background on the mortgage side
16:30and I've had quite a few of these conversations and I can always tell on speaking to people that
16:37have transitioned into services or over the tech side that they've actually done the job,
16:44that they're building the thing to solve the problem. They actually know the problem because
16:50they've lived through the problem. So they know how to build the solution far better than
16:54someone that's building it because they see it as a widget. And they understand the problem better
17:02and then they have an emotional attachment to solving that problem in a way that somebody
17:07sees it purely as an abstract problem will never understand. So there's a world of difference there,
17:13in my opinion. Yeah. I agree a hundred percent.
17:17So you have something I was going to ask about as well. You have a really big initiative that's
17:22going on right now as well, right? Or about to begin? Yeah. For the listeners that aren't watching,
17:29they're just listening. You can't see the smile on my face as soon as I've said that.
17:33So something I'm really passionate about, you know, Fellow was built originally to be
17:38this listing engine, this 24-7 listing engine to find all these homeowners in your database.
17:45And I've always been really passionate on the real estate side of things, on the real estate,
17:51the listing side of the business. And last year, a little context around this, around March,
17:58around March, I actually went out on social media and posted on Instagram and said,
18:03you know, my name is Ryan Young, and I'm going to set 30 listing appointments in the next 30
18:08days out of my database. And I was kind of just doing this to show the Fellow community and really
18:12my real estate team, the Young team, that there's so many opportunities sitting in our database.
18:19We have the data that shows it. We've seen it across, you know, tens of millions of contacts
18:25from Fellow users. And so I said, I'm going to set 30 listing appointments in 30 days. My team
18:30didn't know I was going to do this. I just kind of was like, I'm sick of hearing so many people
18:33in our industry say like, the leads suck. My database sucks. Like there's so much good stuff
18:38in there. And so I went out for 30 days and I literally posted all these live calls on my
18:44Instagram account. And I was successful in setting 30 listing appointments in 30 days.
18:49And it went totally viral. Everyone was cheering me on, you know, like the first day, I think I
18:54set like four listing appointments and I thought I was going to like cruise through it. And the
18:57second day I literally got completely shut out. And the third day I thought I was going to crush
19:02it. And it was like an awful day. Everyone was hanging up on me. And so all of a sudden,
19:07all the support in the community, I started getting a lot of people saying like, hey,
19:11if you ever do that again, I'll do it with you. Right. Like I want to do it. I want my team to
19:15do it with you. We want to do the 30 day listing challenge. So last year, we kind of did like a
19:20small mini pilot. We had about 500 participants. We did this 30 day listing challenge, which was
19:26so much fun. And, you know, after it was done, we had all these users that were joining fellows
19:31saying, if you guys ever do the 30 day listing challenge again, we want in, we want in. And so
19:36everyone is constantly said like, when are you guys doing this again? And so we said, you know
19:39what, we're going to do it and we are going to go absolutely massive. So starting March 3rd,
19:45the 30 day listing challenge will start. We are super excited that we are going to be giving away
19:52a hundred thousand dollars in prizes, daily winners, weekly winners. There's going to be
19:58brackets based on team size, individual agent, et cetera. You don't have to be a fellow user
20:04just to participate. It's for fellow users and non-fellow users. It's for the entire industry.
20:08And what's even amazing is I've been pretty fortunate with the success of the young team
20:13and some of the successive fellow to naturally kind of gravitate towards circles of other leaders.
20:21And so I've reached out to other leaders within our industry to say, Hey, we're doing a 30 day
20:25listing challenge. I'd love to do like a daily webinar with different leaders that are talking
20:30about mindset and growth and listings and tactics, et cetera. And so we've gotten commitments from
20:36Gary Keller, Tom Ferry, Ben Kinney, Sharon Sarasa, Leo Pereja, John Czeplak, Sarah Reynolds,
20:47Phil Jones, Jimmy Mackin, the biggest of the biggest names in all the entire real estate
20:52industry are kind of standing behind us and supporting us in this initiative of like
20:57the month of March is the 30 day listing challenge. And they're all participating
21:02and they're going to be collaborating with us. So it is going to be massive.
21:06We literally launched it seven days ago, announced it seven days ago. There's already 5,000
21:10participants. And today we just announced all the speakers. So it's amazing to see how that goes up.
21:17So it is going to be the month of March within the real estate industry. You're going to see
21:21a lot of people on social media, hashtagging fellow 30LDC, 30 day challenge. And it's going
21:29to be just, it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be, we're going to cheer each other on
21:34as an entire industry. And you're going to see a lot of listings being taken.
21:38You created your own movement.
21:40It's a movement. It really is. And it's one of those things that it's like, the reason why I
21:44get so excited about it is because I have, you know, I, in 2009, I got my license and I built
21:50our business, the young team on hitting the phones. Like I was a 26 year old kid and the only
21:56people that would do business with me in 2009, 10, 11, and 12 were really expireds that were
22:01unsuccessful selling with like the bigger agent, the agent that's been licensed for 20 years,
22:06the biggest agent in our city. And my pitch to them was like, look, you already tried the best
22:11agent. Try the kid that's going to work harder than anyone else. Right. Because people would say
22:17like, you're a kid, you're 26, you're 27. Why should I list with you? Well, you're already
22:21unsuccessful listing with, you know, some of these other people. And so to me, the listing
22:26challenge is like so aligned with how I built the young team of like getting on the phones,
22:32challenging myself. And the reason why I light up every time I talk about it is, is because
22:37I I'm the CEO of a technology company. We have over a hundred team members.
22:42I'm very fortunate that my brother now runs the young team. And it's like every once in a while,
22:48because I haven't, I haven't, I've been out of production for the last four years,
22:51the opportunity for me to like jump back on the phones with my team and to like get back into that
22:56like 2010, 11, 12 kind of mindset and like sprint for 30 days. There's something about it to me that
23:03just like, it just takes me back to like where it all started. And I'm just really excited about it.
23:09That's cool. Well, okay. So I know that that's starting in March, gearing up for the
23:14spring, which is it's it's wild, but it's already the middle of February to be honest with you. So
23:22it feels like an apt time to ask this question. What do you, what do you see for the, just the
23:29housing industry in general? Like what trends do you see for, for the coming year?
23:34Yeah. Here, before I even talk about trends for the housing industry, I think one of the things
23:39that is really important is I want to preface because this is something I always start with
23:45when I speak on stages is I always talk about, do you rent or do you own your business? And what I
23:52mean by that is I hear way too many people in our industry relying on whatever the trends I say are
23:58as optimism or as pessimism whoever wins the election, whatever happens with interest rates,
24:05whatever happens with whatever type of government ordinance, whatever it may be.
24:11And one of the things I think is extremely important within our industry is we accept
24:15the fact that you control what you can control. And in order to make your, and this is why we're
24:19doing this 30 day listing challenges own your own the outcome, right? Control the controllables,
24:25make your business predictable. And I say that because I just think there's so many people within
24:30our industry that like when all of a sudden the fed meets and like they announce a rate cut,
24:36everyone like celebrates like, Oh, I can breathe. Maybe business will start to normalize a little
24:41bit. And it's like your business should have never fallen off based on what someone else
24:47dictates based on interest rates. And I, I understand that obviously like there are,
24:51there are macro factors that are going to impact the quantity of homes sold or the prices of homes,
24:57et cetera. But ultimately there is enough homes for each and every one of us to have our biggest
25:03years ever. And if we're relying so much on predictions or projections or whatever may be
25:09to ultimately define the outcome or the success that we have in that year I would, I would take
25:15a look in the mirror and reposition how you approach your business and focus more on what
25:20you can control. So that being said from some of the things that I'm just observing in what's
25:27interesting is running and owning a real estate team in the Midwest versus having call it a
25:33business to business, a B2B platform where we have thousands and thousands of agents all over
25:38the country. I am bullish on 2025 market. I do think that we're going to see this kind of unique,
25:47this unique market where we're going to see continued inflation in home prices while you're
25:52also going to see these rates coming down. You know, I'd say low sixes. Can we break below six?
25:58I don't know. I think that's maybe ambitious. But I think 2025 is going to be an exciting year. I
26:05mean, we're already starting to see it. I'm seeing a lot of optimism from a lot of the teams we're
26:11working with just how Q1 is starting to shape up. And I'm seeing a lot of tailwinds moving
26:16into kind of spring market in Q2. So, you know, there is no doubt that Q4 and there were some
26:24speed bumps throughout 2024 just all over the country. I think 2025, you're going to see a
26:32little bit just more stability and just maybe normalize a little bit more. Okay.
26:38Oh, and what about, and this is something that, you know, comes up
26:42in nearly every conversation that I have, it's like AI data, AI data, AI data. So from a tech
26:49and real estate perspective, what is your, well, what's your perspective on the proper use or how
26:58people should be utilizing AI or the capabilities of AI if harnessed properly? Yeah. Well, I think
27:06it's a great question and it's something I'm obsessed with right now. So a little, I'm only
27:12going to just leak this out to the listeners, but Fellow.AI is actually going to be launching in Q2.
27:22So keep it on the hush if you're listening. We are leaning very, very deeply into intelligence.
27:29One of the things that's really important for our company was we kind of have had these evolutions
27:33in the past two years in our, we're still in our infancy, but it's amazing these kind of
27:40stages, you know, the metamorphosis of our company and where we started to where we are now.
27:46And one of the things that was like our second phase, the second iteration was all introducing
27:51all of this data, right? Like I told you, we enrich all the addresses. We find all the homeowners in
27:57your database where we get very granular in our messaging to them based on these data points.
28:02Well, kind of our third, the third evolution of our company is really focused on data-driven
28:08intelligence. And so now we've been able to observe, you know, we're sending 40 plus million
28:14emails out every month and we get to observe, you know, what data points are consistent where
28:20people are opening them and transacting with them and clicking on them. And what are we seeing?
28:25What are the consistencies of data points of people that are actually listing their homes?
28:29And because we have so much data, we're starting to leverage a lot of intelligence to actually
28:34power a lot of the decisions that we're pushing out and how we're marketing to these databases.
28:39And so for us, like we are leaning really heavy into intelligence. Everything is, you know,
28:45empowering businesses with data-driven intelligence. What I'm observing just, I would say
28:51more macro from an intelligence standpoint is, you know, everyone is leaning into really like
28:56this agentic AI era. And then eventually it's going to move into robotics, right?
29:01And what's so interesting to me is, and what I've observed of being, you know, in the real estate
29:06industry myself is, and this is kind of piggybacks off of what I was saying when you asked me about
29:10building technology, what did I learn? AI and all these, all this rich intelligence is so powerful
29:18if you know how to use it, right? If you can really like capture the essence of like,
29:24what is possible with the intelligence? And one of the things that I'm a little concerned about is,
29:29and this is, you know, very, we're being very strategic in how we're building intelligence
29:34into our platform is not to overwhelm the user with all these things that are so foreign to
29:41them that maybe an engineer would understand, or maybe someone that's very, you know, technically
29:45savvy would understand, but making sure that like in the, I would say the transition, the evolution
29:53of artificial intelligence and just intelligence in general, making sure that it's really weaved in
29:58in this very seamless way that like the user just, it makes the user, the real estate agents
30:05business easier. It makes it more effortless versus having to try to teach them more things.
30:11I think if we over-correct on artificial intelligence, all of a sudden you're going
30:16to see this shutdown and a resistance against it because it's going to be intimidating.
30:20And so how do you actually weave it in? And that's what we're very focused on with this
30:24launch of fellow.ai. How do we weave it in where all of a sudden you're like, wow, it's just
30:28performing better. Wow. It's just so much easier. Wow. I'm getting so much more information without
30:35having to do more. Right. Right. That makes sense. Well, since you're kind of spilling,
30:43spilling the beans a little bit or, or sharing things I know that there might be a little bit
30:48this information out there, but I, I, I think you are a little bit, or you're,
30:53or you're planning to expand into, uh, into the mortgage sector. Can you,
30:59can you share a little bit of that? Yeah. Once again, let's keep this on the hush.
31:03I'll keep it on the down listening, keep it on the download. Now we're the thousands of people
31:06that are listening, tens of thousands of people that are listening now. I mean, we're, we're
31:11quietly, uh, we were, we're quietly loud about it. Uh, so what, here's, what's interesting is,
31:18you know, I told you, um, that we work with so many of the top real estate organizations,
31:24brokerages, uh, strategic partners, et cetera. Um, and a lot of them have their own mortgage
31:30companies or they have joint ventures with mortgage companies, um, or some sort of relationship with,
31:36uh, a mortgage company, lenders, et cetera. And what's interesting is a lot of them have
31:40come to us and they're like, Ryan, I love what fellow has done for my database on the real
31:46estate side of things. Like it's producing so many listings, it's creating so much information
31:50and data that I didn't even know was in there and all this seller engagement.
31:54But we have this mortgage company as well. And now we feel like our mortgage company is getting
31:58left out, you know? And so they've kind of come to us and said, come to me and said,
32:03can you build us like kind of fellow for mortgage, like what you do for real estate,
32:08but bring it to our mortgage database. And so, you know, I started doing some, uh, due
32:13diligence just around like what other type of products there are out there. And there's some
32:16great products in the mortgage industry, but I kind of feel that once again, this data enriched,
32:22this data driven intelligence kind of marketing automation really is not out there. Um, and so
32:28we're really excited, uh, in Q2, it's going to be much louder. We're actually going to see,
32:33you'll start seeing a lot of marketing around it and we're actually going to go to market.
32:37Um, but right now we're actually already starting to bring on a lot of lender clients,
32:41uh, which is really exciting because it's just kind of happening word of mouth. Um,
32:45and we're already starting to see a lot of traction around it. And, uh, I would say what's
32:50so interesting is the mortgage industry, just like the real estate industry, they're so similar,
32:56you know, and, uh, they both have similar pain points and they both have, uh, similar objectives.
33:02And so what we're really excited about is not only helping them, uh, on the database engagement
33:08standpoint, but we're starting to see some really like some really interesting synergies between
33:14our fellow real estate agents that are on the platform and our fellow lenders that are on the
33:18platform and how they're starting to collaborate and kind of lean on each other and drive benefits
33:24of both being users of fellow. And so there's this really strong network effect that we're
33:28actually starting to see at a very early stage on the fellow mortgage side, that's actually
33:33providing benefits to our fellow real estate clients. And we have, you know, these opportunities
33:38from our fellow real estate clients that are providing benefits to our fellow mortgage clients.
33:43And so, um, we're really excited to double down on the mortgage industry. Uh, we see how it
33:49benefits both the mortgage industry and the real estate energy, uh, real estate industry synergistically.
33:54Um, and you know, it's game on, we're coming, uh, Q2 really loud on it.
33:59Excellent. So, okay. All right. So if, let's say hopefully, hypothetically, and hopefully,
34:04uh, life is an avenue of green light for the next, you know, five, five, 10 years for, for fellow,
34:11where do you see yourself in fellow, you know, five, 10 years down the road,
34:15green lights, nothing but green lights.
34:17Yeah. So this might like, kind of, I don't want to get like too futuristic of people like,
34:21whoa, that guy's weird. But, um, you know, one of the things, uh, one of my co-founders, Stephen,
34:27uh, a couple of years ago, he kept saying, you know, the real estate industry is really just a
34:34bunch of small business owners. Um, and he kept using this analogy, uh, of a company Shopify that
34:41Shopify really like empowers just all these small business owners. Right. And we kind of look at the
34:47real estate industry as the same way as like, whether you're an individual agent, like my
34:51parents were just a small business owner. They owned the young team. It was just the two of them.
34:54Or now the young team is a team of 30 plus, and we work with teams of a thousand plus small
34:59brokerages, et cetera. Well, Shopify really empowers these small businesses with, uh,
35:05really the technology and the resources that were once only reserved for the biggest companies,
35:10the Amazons, the Walmarts, et cetera. Right. And so they kind of really like decentralized,
35:16um, all these large conglomerates. And so one of the things that we're really excited about is,
35:22is building this technology that empowers these small business owners, these business owners in
35:28general, um, that really helps kind of decentralize, uh, some of the conglomerates and whatever, uh,
35:35category they're in. Right. And so I really could see fellow while we're going really deep in real
35:40estate and mortgage in five to 10 years thinking ambitiously we, we hear, I have friends that are
35:46in the auto industry that have the same problem. They have these databases, they buy a ton of leads,
35:51but once they put by the lead, they put it in their database, nothing else happens.
35:54And then they buy more leads and it's, they have very thin margins because of it. And I have
35:59friends in the restaurant industry that are spending money on open table to buy leads. And I
36:02have friends in the insurance industry and all these different verticals, but really at the end
36:06of the day, they're all just small business owners. And so really in five to 10 years,
36:10I could see fellow just being this really, really powerful kind of marketing automation platform,
36:17um, in multiple industries. That's ultimately empowering these small business owners
36:22to ultimately have a fighting chance against the conglomerates, the juggernauts of whatever
36:28industry that they're in, um, and give them a fighting chance to maintain profitability
36:33and to be able to continue to scale, um, and empower them with all these resources.
36:38That's an excellent, excellent, excellent answer.
36:42People might be like, what is this dude talking about? He's a real estate guy. That's like a,
36:45you know, chef, real estate guy. And now he wants to go into the auto industry and the
36:49restaurant industry. But like we really have, it's amazing how much we've seen,
36:53how much this has made a positive impact in the real estate industry so quickly. Once again,
36:57two years ago, like we launched this thing and it's massive and we're excited to do it
37:03industry by industry moving forward. Well, whenever you said you didn't want
37:07to get too weird, I was hoping that you would. I like, I like weird answers.
37:10We're not yet to like building spaceships and stuff, but who knows? You've kind of said like,
37:14you know, my, my career path has been all over the place. So you just never know.
37:18Yeah. Well, uh, man, I could talk to you for, I could talk to you for another hour,
37:22to be honest with you, but, uh, I know we got, I know you got to go and we got our limit, but,
37:25uh, Ryan, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for joining me. And I look
37:29forward to another conversation. Yeah, this was a lot of fun and excited for the next one.