Geek Estate Founding Member Spotlight: Joel Leslie from Propify
We’ve now published five Geek Estate founding member interviews; Jennifer Kjellgren, Sep Niakan, Eileen Romito, Ryan Coon, and Caroline Pinal. The interviews are meant to give you a taste of current business priorities, products and trends to watch in 2018, and what they enjoy about being a Geek Estate mastermind member.
Our 6th interview is with Joel Leslie from Propify.
Without further ado…
What’s your most significant business focus for 2018?
At the start of 2018, I finalized my role as CEO for the global listings management company and started on my own startup called Propify.
In 2018 my focus is on acquiring further capital for scaling Propify and to gain traction within the community. It’s a really cool product and it has the ability to really help Realtors & Consumers more intimately stay connected.
As I am a great believer in helping others, I closely integrated a foundation into the company. The foundation aids those in need to further their tertiary education. The foundation is to provide assistance with tertiary tuition fees, study material and if possible accommodation assistance. Seeing the foundation’s first intake in 2018 will be a great achievement.
What real estate technology trend or product are your most excited about?
Blockchain & social media excite me greatly. They are both perfectly suited to real estate, bringing great change and efficiencies to the industry.
I believe in Blockchain & social media so much that I build a startup that is underpinned by them. Blockchain will most definitely be the way we will search for real estate and property information into the future. I also see more of a focus on social media. Research by NAR identifies social media buyer inquiry rate is growing, where something like 37% of inquiry from buyers coming directly from social.
What do you like about being a Geek Estate member?
I really enjoy Geek Estate, both the Blog and the Facebook group. I’m usually located in my hometown of Noosa Heads, Australia. As such, being so remote, a Geek Estate membership is extremely rewarding to me. Gaining updates & opinions within the industry and being able to get involved with discussions is paramount to my success of working remotely. The networking opportunities (face to face or virtual) are extremely beneficial, albeit my no-show at the meetup arranged by Drew at Inman Connect NYC 2018. It is great to see all the new members joining the group, a great collection of brilliant minds will only ensure the further success of the community.
Thank you Joel for being a founding member!
Geek Estate Membership
Jim Whatley
Posted at 08:55h, 05 MarchIt sounds intersting but I don’t understand enough to even ask a question. Where to I go to get a better understanding?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 17:55h, 06 MarchWhat about blockchain technology do you want to learn?
Andrew Weinberger
Posted at 13:34h, 07 MarchI also found the whole thing to be really confusing.
Went to the ICO landing page and couldn’t really figure out where things are at, is the token sale currently going on, how much has been raised, etc. Looked for some terms for the ICO and couldn’t find anything (this is a red flag)
Flipped through the white paper and again, not much substance. A lot of branding and generic info, but that was about it.
Decided to check out the site to see if that would help me figure things out, but not much there either so I joined to try and post a listing to see how things worked. Needless to say that didn’t go so well as their CMS/listing tool seems to be down.
Joel Leslie
Posted at 16:35h, 07 MarchThanks for your feedback Andrew. Appreciate it.
The ICO is finalising in 2 weeks, which we are using to raise capital to finalise and deliver the product. Per S.E.C. ruling of equivalent jurisdictions around the world, entities may not raise capital for products that have already been developed and currently in use.
We are seeking capital to deliver our application.
The ICO terms are listed on the site and in the white paper:
* Total of 100 million tokens
* 4 allocations, plus presale
* Soft cap 1 million
* Hard cap 80 million
* Date started was January 20, finalises March 16.
* 5% bonus for every 1,000
* Allocation of funds to operations, marketing, legal, development and our tertiary education foundation
Are there more terms to the above you are seeking?
I am sorry you felt the white paper lacking substance, I know much work went into writing it. I was personally involved in the team that assembled it.
– Joel
Andrew Weinberger
Posted at 16:57h, 07 MarchHey Joel,
Where did you hear about that SEC regulation? I haven’t heard anything of the sort and know of many successful icos that already have a product and have been in business for years.
Also, regarding terms I meant with regards to who can invest and AML/KYC requirements.
Cheers,
Andrew
Joel Leslie
Posted at 18:19h, 07 MarchHi Andrew,
Our Lawyers provided the advice. We operate in multiple countries and need to take into consideration all rulings from all jurisdictions.
From my recollections, an ICO from last year targeted investors to invest in their already existing platform.
This is Frost Brown Todd’s interpretation on the Munchee ICO ruling.
https://www.blockchainandbanking.com/blockchain-update-sec-order-interrupts-the-munchee-ico
Thanks for taking the time to provide your comments, it means a lot.
Reg’s,
Joel
Andrew Weinberger
Posted at 02:56h, 08 MarchHey Joel,
That article seems to suggest the opposite as Munchee got into hot water due to not having a functional utility token and focusing solely on raising funds rather than building brand awareness among end users.