Behind the scenes of PropStream Acquiring BatchLeads and BatchDialer

Join us as we present a fascinating conversation with industry titans Jesse Burrell and Brian Tepfer, CEO of PropStream, who reveal the behind-the-scenes story of the transformative collaboration between PropStream and BatchLeads. Brian shares his remarkable 27-year journey through the tech world, from the dot-com era to his leadership role in PropTech. Their chance discussion led to a groundbreaking acquisition, paving the way for a revolutionary super app that combines the strengths of both platforms, promising to redefine the real estate technology landscape.

Chapters

• 0:00 Real Estate Tech Titans Join Forces
• 9:54 Strategic Acquisition
• 14:20 Putting Growth Before Profit
• 17:58 Growth and Innovation in Real Estate
• 25:02 Strategic Product Innovation and Growth
• 33:13 Tech Innovation and Perseverance

Transcript

00:00 - Hope (Announcement)
What happens when two titans in PropTech join forces. In this episode of the Real SaaS Podcast, Jesse Burrell sits down with Brian Tepfer, CEO of PropStream, to reveal the inside story behind PropStream's acquisition of BatchLeads and BatchDialer, from deal negotiations to the creation of a game-changing super app. This episode is packed with insights on growth, innovation and the future of real estate tech. Now here are your hosts. 

00:26 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
What's going on? Welcome to another episode of the Real SaaS Podcast. Today we're going to do it a little bit differently. I have some huge announcements professionally and I have a very special guest Today. My guest is Brian Tepfer. What is going on, buddy? What isn't going on Jesse? That's a great question. This is the perfect time to do this podcast. Um, I actually, as of yesterday, I carved out out of my business batch leads and batch dialer, and prop stream uh is acquiring and Brian is the CEO of that company. So we're going to kind of talk about how this deal came about. I want to learn more about how Brian became the CEO of Propstream, and a lot of people are just interested in. You know when a company sells, what does that look like? And then, from your perspective of being the choir, you know what does that look like as well. So before we kind of dive in and dig into this special episode, tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you became the CEO PropStream. 

01:25 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
How long do you have? 

01:26
It's a little bit about myself. I have been in the technology space for 27 years. Actually, I started in 1998 during the dot-com days. 

01:36 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Okay. 

01:37 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And that was quite an adventure, because we all know what happened with the dot-com bubble and when I started in technology, we were still using dial-up modems. 

01:44 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, and that was really technology. 

01:45 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
We were still using dial-up modems and that was really what we were supporting shifting into broadband and web hosting, so early early days of the internet, and it's been a. It was a great start to a career because you got to see the transition of technology from and I'm going to date myself to pre-pentium days, you know, and now people don't even talk about CPU speeds and things like that because it's just so ubiquitous through the market. But going through that transition, going through the dot-com era of uncertainty and worry and just the massive shifts in technology, I ended up in the prop tech space and 23 years ago I ended up at a large MLS, an association management company that was a nationwide MLS provider and that was really, I can think, the foundation of what I do today because it blended two things together really well. It blended business and business needs and that marketability and real product which the dot-com days didn't have with technology and moving something forward, and so that was really exciting and innovative. 

02:51
Where the ground level of online MLS systems, data pre Zillow days right, is really where I kind of cut my teeth through that area. And now, when you look at data ubiquity, how seamless everything is when you go to search a house. 20 years ago you went to your realtor. Today, the first thing you do is you go to Zillow or Redfin or any of these other public portals. 

03:17
The ability for products like ours to have these nationwide databases just was not a thing 20 years ago. 

03:24
So I love that I've been able to walk through the evolution of software and I started making a shift from being more of a technologist to being more of that business centered, product and customer oriented individual I'd say about 15 years ago, and what I found was I really gravitated more towards how do we meet customer needs, how do we solve for problems that customers are facing? 

03:55
And I think the biggest shift that I found kind of helped shape what I do today was the online public portals. When Zillow came out our Trulia, it was such a culture shock to realtors because they went from being like the gatekeeper of all the information you wanted at home. You came give me your requirements, I showed you the listings to home buyers searching for what they wanted and going, and so what they had to learn was to be a service-oriented model where they are servicing their clients in a different way and then meeting the needs to give them the tools to make that transition. So I mean I could go on, I won't bore everybody. And then, moving from that, for 20 years, the opportunity came up to lead and be the CEO of PropStream, and I thought this is fantastic because I was able to take the next step in my career and my growth but stay in the space of real estate technology and really servicing an industry that I love. 

04:57 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Let's dive into, you know, batch being acquired by PropStream. 

05:04
I'm sure that's what a lot of you want to hear about and know about and, to be honest with you guys, it really happened organically. To where you know, I call Brian, so I have three divisions of batch service, which is now just batch data, but we have batch leads, batch dialer and batch data, which is now just Batch Data, but we have Batch Leads, batch Dialer and Batch Data. And I actually called you as a competitor to Batch Leads, interested in growing our data side of the business, and reaching out to you and saying people are gonna like what they're gonna like. We both have great platforms, but you're gonna buy skip tracing and their contact information and data somewhere. Why couldn't it be us? 

05:44
And I jokingly said you know, like this is so important to us, I'd sell you batch styler and batch leads. And you looked at me and good, would you, you know? And I was like, huh, I mean sure, I mean everything's for sale. Um, you know, kind of jokingly, and we're both kind of kidding, both kind of serious and you know, from there I think we both really sat down and thought like this could be something special. This could make sense, this could be a disruptor to serving the wholesalers and real estate investors even further than what we've already done. 

06:18
But us together it's we've been calling it the super app, you know, since we kind of started this conversation and it gives me the opportunity to know, help you grow that but at the same time grow the batch data side of the business and be a huge support figure to you guys on that side as well. And you know batch data is it's a b2b side and it's been something new and fun for us. That has been growing pretty rapidly and I talked to my partners and and for it just made all the sense in the world. And I would love to hear you know kind of from your perspective and the Stewart perspective who is, who is your parent company that that technically bought Batch Leads and Batch Dialer but it's rolling into. 

06:58 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
PropStream. 

07:00 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
I love to hear or I'm sure the audience would love to hear a little bit of your perspective on that side. 

07:05 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Well, first of all, I'd like to say I'm excited to be probably one of Batch Data's biggest customers, For now we'll be sure to be it was. I loved the story of how this came together and you're right, it was just this very organic conversation and I really started taking it seriously when I thought our biggest challenge today is that perception of skip tracing, that batch is known for the quality, the reliability of your skip tracing product and you have all these new great AI tools and so, as I was thinking about it, I'm like how could we spin this? And I think the initial conversation was I'll buy skip tracing data from you, but we're not going to say where we're getting it. 

07:43 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. Then we can't say where we're getting it so there was an overlap, yeah. And then we can't say where we service it either, and you know there'd be a bunch of NDAs in place or stuff like that, and that's kind of where it started. And then you know when I jokingly said that you're just like huh. 

07:56
Or did you have? 

07:57
like a going. I could ask this of that meeting, like did you already have a thought of potentially doing that? Because you said something about you guys were maybe talking about some inorganic growth. 

08:06 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
We were, and I think the big shift in my mind was when we actually started saying we're not going to discuss or disclose where we're getting our skip tracing data from, because we didn't want to create this weird like not competition, but you know uh, for either side, because both sides could spin it in a way where it would be a competitive advantage Right, it could be positive or negative, right. 

08:27
And then, as I really started to think on it, I was like wait a minute, that is the value, it's the name, it's that we is a batch skip, tracing batch data. Sorry, batch and batch leads holds a certain value with people. 

08:42 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Right. 

08:45 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And why would I want to hide that? Because that, to me, was the biggest. That's something we should be celebrating, Like hey look what we did in PropStream. We have all this data and now we have this contact. And that, in my mind, is the evolution of thought of why don't we actually just take this conversation that we joked about more seriously and kind of float the idea to Stuart and say how can we make this happen? 

09:05 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
So was Stewart talking? Or you know, Brad over at Stewart, was he kind of talking to you because you guys have big plans to grow? 

09:12 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And we do. 

09:13 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
And Fred, the CEO of Stewart, has huge plans for you guys as well, and was one of the conclusions saying you know, some inorganic growth could be a great strategic way to get to this number. 

09:23 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Yeah, and that was actually something before we even started talking is how do we grow to our goals? And, yes, you could take the road of customer growth, which is great, and keep servicing and making better and better product, but the inorganic growth that you're talking about is how do we leapfrog to get closer to our goals? And that was really in my mind. That was one piece of it, but it was also the natural, I think, synergies of filling product gaps on both sides. 

09:53 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Oh, 100%. Before we dug in, it's crazier. It's like your guys' strengths were some of our weakness, some of our strengths were some of your weakness. And the more I've dug into it and seen both platforms further, I'm like oh wow, this is. It makes so much sense. Oh yeah and we. 

10:09 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
You had something that PropStream was looking at but never developed, which is the dialer yeah and so I'm like, okay, we could do. We want to build or buy yeah and it just made so much more sense to buy and get taken an established, reputable yep you know company that is one of the top in the industry. Yeah so it, just it made I think it made perfect sense. Uh, and then, as I think we got to know, know each other on a more personal level, it just over the course of how, about six months? 

10:37
eight months now uh, we're like we're going to make this happen, yeah. 

10:45 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
We're going to make this happen. Yeah, and we did, and me and you, um, you know, started crafting. You know a pitch to Stewart, and why this were to make sense. 

10:49
So it was. It was just such a unique situation for me to go through and I feel like you too, because the first pitch was yours, just to get them interested, yeah, and then, you know, once we got uh, brad to the table, then it was on me. You're like bro, I want to do this, but it's out of my hands. Like now it's your turn to go shine. And, yeah, you know, my, my partners, you know we're excited. You were excited, like on the personal level. I'm like man, I really hope I don't let everyone down because it was on me. They wouldn't even let any or evil in. Like I know, brad's strategy is like I want one person I don't want agendas to where he can't prep or finesse his answers or anything like that, and you advised me to be completely honest, transparent be, yourself and show what type of person you are and you know ultimately that ended up. 

11:39
you know working to um get what I really wanted and also what you really wanted, and the most exciting thing about this for me is I think it's a winning situation for both sides and I don't actually think that always happens like I really got what I wanted, like this made way more sense for us as an organization where I wanted my future to go and how much time I wanted to spend in the business and for for prop stream. It's just game over for everyone else. 

12:08 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Like good luck, like good, good luck when you combine what we're going to be doing and like what we have now called affectionately called the super app which is combining the best of both worlds. It's going to be it's going to be really hard to be that. 

12:20 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
We're the two biggest, most reputable names, and you guys? 

12:27
were far bigger than us but we had, as you've dug in, you're like, wow, they, they've made some really cool shit, like, and that was always my frustration was I was like we've done so many cool things and it's still not even chipping away at your guys's market share. And I'm I'm as competitive as you are and I'm like, okay, like can't beat them, join them and let's go do this and let's go, let's go win in a really big way and I'm excited to be a part and, you know, help you as much or as little as you want on that side. 

12:55
And you know that I'm a phone call away and obviously, for the next six months to a year, I'm there. You'll be here, right by your side, but like even long term with, I think, what has been most important to me coming out of this is just like the friendship that we've built, and it's going to last a long time. 

13:12 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
It better, Otherwise I know where you live now. 

13:15 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Oh, you do. 

13:16 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
You know, that to me, I think, was the biggest I don't even say the word selling point, but our natural excitement. I think it really kind of shone through, and how much it's made sense, because we both know our industries really well. 

13:29
And we knew the impact that this would make and, as you talk about competition and what we're going to be able to deliver, bring to our customers, bring to the table, continue to innovate and just really take our industry by storm and be the biggest and the best data provider that you know prop tech has seen. 

13:48 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
For sure. Yeah, let's kind of dive into. You know the podcast format a little bit when it comes to, you know, profit, profitability or growth. You know what's important to you know to PropStream is is there a balance to it for you guys? I have an opinion on kind of like what we did, because I was also bootstrapped, but you guys operate completely independently, I believe, and you know so you obviously have people having opinions on that. But I guess, what are the opinions on? Is it just grow, grow, grow, or is profits more important? Where? Where do you guys kind of lie there? 

14:28 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Uh, I think growth is always number one. 

14:31 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Okay. 

14:31 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Uh, I mean, profitability is great and I think that's a by-product of growth. So when you look at profitability and the way that I view it, um, as a CEO of a company is, profitability comes from growth and if you place that first, that's where the product suffers, because you're going to be making compromises where you don't want to. 

14:52 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Right. 

14:53 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
But the way that you have growth is by making a better product, having better service and offering more to your users. 

15:01 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. 

15:01 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Because that should be the focus Profitability comes from. That's the byproduct, and I have found that if that is your sole focus, then product suffers, your customers suffer because you're honed in on the wrong thing, right? So, yeah, we, I would say definitely, growth strategy is our number one goal and ensuring that we are providing the best experience for people Cause, naturally, word of word of mouth. Look at online, I mean, it's so easy to disseminate information. When people are happy, they tell you, but when they're not happy, it's a lot louder. 

15:34 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
They tell everybody. 

15:37 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
So those are the things you always really need to be mindful of in creating a product that is a customer focused and customer first. You know, area that's always number one. 

15:48 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, and with us, you know, at Batch having you know multiple product lines and and having the you know cause. We were a tech Batch. Leads is really known for texting platform. As we came out and then we added in you know the data and kind of became more of a competitor to you guys. 

16:05
I'd say in the last like three years, I think a year or so before you got there, be my assumption, or maybe a little bit longer than that, but man, it was really hard for us to. It took a lot of marketing dollars, of awareness for us to even be talked in the same light as PropStream, to be honest with you. 

16:23
But the shift of the texting changing and the skip tracing get more and more commoditized, to where even ours was better, but the value of how much cheaper it got really affected our bottom line, to where me, Anny and Ivo had to make a decision of. Are we going to let the, the products suffer, with, you know, pulling back, uh, to be profitable, or are we going to let the profitability suffer? 

16:51
and we chose the profitability suffering, we, we went over a year without taking a draw yeah to make sure that none of that suffered, um, that we could keep the people we needed to keep. To make sure that. You know, we did have to do some laying off because that was a significant amount of revenue that dropped off for us. I'm talking in eight figures type of thing. It's a lot, but letting that happen slowly. We also were doing it like layoffs, waiting as long as we could, hoping that revenue would tick back up, but then interest rates hit and transaction volume just going down it was 20%. 

17:29
It was a perfect storm in the wrong way for us Right, and it was brutal and we're like we just won't take home money and that was a tough. It was hard to come to work every single day not taking a pay. It was over a year and it was a sacrifice that we had to make to keep the products in a good place, hoping that there would be a great end scenario which we got yesterday and that was just something that we had to do, and I don't even think you knew that. 

17:58 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
No, but it just leaves me. 

18:00 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
I mean, everything you said really exemplifies one of my philosophies which is sometimes you have to take small losses to get big wins. Yeah, and I just I refuse to let the product suffer when everyone else is pouring into the technology and I'm like if there's a period of time where, uh, the three of us um aren't, and we were still profitable, but like, you know how expensive it is to run a company and reserves that we have to have. 

18:24
So it's not like we're losing money every month, but like the margins were pretty thin to where we had to keep the money in the company, to where it's like and Annie's just like, until it's stable, which would which happened I don't know six, seven, eight months ago. To where, like we were in a good place, to where we could, and I think Annie had such a PTSD that we were taking such a minimal amount of what I was used to taking. I'm like she's just like no, like I need to see it keep growing. And I'm like I was like okay, you know. And then, and those conversations with you started happening too and I was just like you know, whatever, like it's fine right, it's gonna work out so and it did, and now I couldn't be more excited to be honest with you same here. 

19:06 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
That's what I did. Again. It's, it's the whole story. When you look at it in the big picture, uh, it's. It just continues to make more and more sense and even now that we've done the acquisition, I think the more that we dig in and dive into the teams, what you what offer, the data side and the data we're going to license from you guys it really puts a really fine point onto why we did this deal and why this just made the most sense. 

19:34 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, and I think me and you have been so aligned that you know I'm going to do everything I can to give you the resources that I've built over the last 12 years, also being a real estate investor, and the relationships I have on that side and I mean even got to meet Anthony just a couple minutes ago and I'm I'm getting you. I'm trying to get you even further into my world than you already are. 

19:54 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Yeah, I've really enjoyed meeting all the big, like your partners and affiliates that over the past 24 hours. 

19:59 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
we have a lot more of that to do and you know over the past 24 hours we have a lot more of that to do, but at the same time, you know where I'm trying to grow and you know what I'm trying to accomplish with Batch Data. 

20:13
You signed a nice contract with us and are gonna make sure that you could showcase the side of our business as well to some degree, because you have relationships that I don't have either in the data world because you've been in there so much longer I am and with the big companies, and what I have to do to get in, to actually have a conversation with someone that's willing to change vendors and that process is is slow unless you know someone it is slow. 

20:38 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Uh, one of the things I think, especially in the realtor space or the prop tech space, contracts last three to five years. 

20:46 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Minimum. 

20:47 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Yeah, minimum, especially with data contracts. And it's not only the duration of contracts, it's the lift to shift. 

20:57 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
We've offered people to switch. Be like, your first year is free. 

21:00 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Yeah. 

21:01 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Like and then three years after that, because they're just like, I'm not going like all the technical debt that you have to create to unravel something and then rebuild it, it has to be more than just price. 

21:13 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Right, it's longterm strategy and what they have to see is how is this going to benefit the company and their growth in the long-term? Because they said it's shifting data providers pulling out everything that's built in there your APIs, your data connections, your mapping all has to be redone. 

21:29 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yes. 

21:30 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
But I think that where you win is when you prove that the data is better, that your service is better, that the long-term strategy is a better product for the people using the data, then that's when you really get them like on board. 

21:46 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
And that's where we've been really leaning into some of the proprietary, uh, machine learning and LLM modeling stuff. 

21:51
That we've done is like, hey, we have this but we have this too, to where, you know, bundling this together and then the you know the. The biggest differentiator that we have had is, you know, being able to have one place for the contact enrichment and the data and Most people just like we'll just give us the contact enrichment, you know. I mean like I don't want to unravel this, so that's where we've had to start leaning into even more proprietary stuff, Even more data sets at some of the big competition that we have, getting a little bit more creative because these legacy brands, they just have it and they have their claws in them and you have to be very creative to get some of these large accounts. 

22:31
And it's tough, but it's been fun and we're trying to get poach some of those people away but at the same time identifying some of the new prop tech companies that are up and coming and making sure we're getting into them first, to where then they can't get into them. So it's it's it's being early as well on some people. 

22:51 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
I would say one of the best conferences I'm going to introduce you guys to that we definitely need to get batch data on is the Rezo conference. Okay, so if you are you familiar with Rezo, it's a real estate standards organization. 

23:05 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Okay. 

23:05 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And a lot of those startups and those PropTech startups will go there because, that is where the standards on how real estate moves. It happens there, and so now that we are officially partners, I'd actually be really excited to bring you there, introduce you to everybody, and I think that would be a really great kickoff for what Batch. 

23:30 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Data does and what could bring to the PropTech space. And then, when did you become CEO officially of PropStream? 

23:34
How many two years ago

23:36 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Two and a half years ago, two and a half years ago. 

23:37 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
So my question typically is you know, how has the business changed in the last three years? So since you started two and a half years ago and became that leader of PropStream, what's really changed for you guys in your business and to grow and minus, I guess, acquiring us? Before that, what was kind of your big focus? 

23:56 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Big focus for me was building a better product. We've had a great product, but you can't let your product go stale. 

24:06 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
And let me interject really quick.

24:07 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Oh yeah, please. 

24:08 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
You know, one of the things that you know I'd heard in the industry was you know, PropStream hasn't really done many updates and those have really started rolling out recently. So it must have taken some time to really unravel and put the roadmap together Because, like when Stewart bought them, everyone just kind of felt like it had been stagnant. So I want you to talk to the audience today. Besides acquiring Batch, I mean, that's obviously signaling something very huge, but I've seen what you guys have done. I want you to talk about how it. 

24:38
I mean, it looks incredible. Now it really does. 

24:40 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Yeah, so actually I'm really excited. Aside from what it looks like today, in the next three to four weeks we're going to come out with another major release and it's going to revolutionize the search experience. Nice To like the map pins will be dynamic yeah. 

24:56
ABMs and list price. We're making it more dynamic and mobile and it's one of those. There was a lot of work being done on the back end to go to like next gen being in the space for so long. I know one of the biggest mistakes that you could make is changing the UI or making sudden changes overnight. When you move people's cheese, they don't know where things are. 

25:19
And so what we really try to do is not only unravel the tech stack a little bit to make it more stable, to make it a better scalable product, but was to slowly introduce new UI concepts and new changes so that way the upgrades that we're going to be doing feel more organic and not just a sudden shock and awe of I log in, I don't know what I'm doing, because that's the worst thing I think you could do to your users is just do the sudden change overnight. And so our upgrades have been intentional introducing new concepts, introducing new Ui's, introducing new layers, but what we're going to come out with over the next month, I think that's gonna be the real signal to where we're going and that's just the start. 

26:01 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
That's just the start because of all the technologies that that we have, that you're gonna integrate as well, and in all the other stuff you had on the product roadmap, and then also some of the crazy ideas that mean you, ivo, had. You know that we want to build out and have been working on and, oh my gosh. 

26:19 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Combining the roadmaps is going to be fun. 

26:20 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
I'm so excited and I'm like for how non-technical I am. Like product roadmaps is my jam. That's always been something like just vision casting of like what's next cuz I talked to as you've starting to learn like so many people in the business and I'm still so connected and kind of finding out where their pain points are, where technology hasn't been innovated and I'm not gonna say it on the show because I want you know, I don't want certain competitors to know kind of what we're gonna be doing give away the future in the background, not saying they know how to do it to the degree that we do, because we know they don't. 

26:55
You know who we're talking to. 

26:57 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
We don't name names, we sure don't, we don't even need to. 

27:01 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
But let's move on to you know what's the toughest decision you've had to make, let's just say, in PropStream so far since you became CEO. How'd you navigate it? 

27:13 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
I think the biggest and it comes back to what I was just talking about with iterative changes I think the biggest decision way to make was there was a initiative to do a really big rewrite and it was, in my opinion. There wasn't a lot of user feedback, customer feedback, and it was such a shift Like we need to pause what we're doing here because it isn't the way to the future. 

27:33 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Okay. 

27:34 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And then carving out what's been done and then slowly introducing that. So I think the biggest change was taking kind of the roadmap and development of a product and then saying that this is not the right direction, this is not how we win and it's gonna cause too much pain for our users, and then saying how do we make this better, how do we iteratively introduce changes? That, I think, was one of the biggest decisions that we've had to make. And then coming down with, I mean, even changing the model we just released pricing plans and changing making sure that we are staying competitive on many fronts. That's always a challenge, because you want to look at what people are doing, you want to be innovative yourself and you always want to leapfrog the competition Uh, but you also need to, you know, uh look around you and make sure that there isn't something that you're missing. 

28:24 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Right. So for example, that'd be, you know, having the skip tracing bundled in with the subscription costs. And you know we were probably the second ones to do it because we saw, you know, the shift that it made. And for us it was tough because we're giving something so valuable away that we had a lot of in-app revenue for. But we had to be kind of forward thinking back to. We kind of had to take a short-term loss for a long-term growth. 

28:48
And you know that was, that was one of the things that you know that we had to do at Batch Leads and it was tough and that was like another thing we had to do. And I'm just like man everywhere, I'm feeling it. 

28:58 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
The pinch. 

28:59 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
The pinch, yeah, but I mean, owning a company is not supposed to be easy, especially a bootstrap one, especially to the size that we've grown it. 

29:07
So those are problems that I had to remind myself that you were lucky to have, um, even though I didn't want to have them but no, they're good problems it was just something that you know that we had to do and we had to be forward thinking on some of these things, and, um, you know, it led us to putting ourselves in a good light for when you came to look at us and you're like all right, you know I love a lot of things that you guys are and and then obviously like the synergies and the rollup and all that just makes sense for you guys long-term. 

29:36 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
That's a really fine point too is when we talk about being product innovative versus being a little bit of service. Uh, matching services. Cause when you look at somebody that's offering free skip tracing or changing the price point, it's how do you maintain that competitive advantage by either matching the price point or just providing a much better product and what's the balance in between? 

29:57
And so we we recognize that, okay, most of the people are doing the free skip tracing. We need to match what's being offered so that way we don't get behind the eight ball in terms of our service offering. 

30:09 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Right. 

30:09 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And then we say, okay, how do we do that? And then focus on the product and make the product even better. So I think it's always that you're always having to evaluate what you're doing, what services you're offering to your customers, how you're approaching business, and you should never rest on your laurels. You should always be saying to yourself is this the right move today? What's the right move tomorrow? 

30:29 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, and Is this the right move today? What's the right move tomorrow? Yeah, and in a certain way, like on the batch lead side, you know that is our prop stream or you know any type of company coming into that space with with a similar offering. You know that is a must have now. So for us we're like dang. But on the batch data side I'm like, well, that is a must have. Everyone needs our, our contact enrichment. 

30:55
Like that's kind of how that conversation started with you guys, but that's a must have. You know, that's something that someone has to buy from us on the data side, right to just be a par, and I'm like, oh well, there's, there's also some goodness as well, you know, and in the company, um, holistically, and um, that's kind of a place you know that we've leaned into and we're um trying to, we're also finding more ways to find moats and just continue to uplift that contact enrichment and and you know I'm not gonna say exactly what some of those things are, but getting creative and partnering with people to find other creative ways to just enhance that right party contact information is, you know a big lift. 

31:26 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
That's why I have so much confidence in getting skip tracing from batch data because I let you guys focus on what you do best yeah which is that contact, enrichment, that data, the where you're sourcing it from. I'm so glad to know that that's in great hands yes, that's. 

31:40 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
You know, that was the first product that ever came out was, you know, batch skip tracing, and that was, you know, the contact. Enrichment was always. That was the first thing that we worked on. And and, uh, you don't know this, but at the beginning we had, you know, a lot of influencers and everyone was basically buying it from this, selling it for that it was literally wholesaling phone numbers at the very beginning is sign a big contract with blank provider for eight cents or ten cents and you're selling it for 18 to 20 cents and it's like, oh, I'm just printing money, this is cool. But you know, as everyone saw, that it was shipped. No, it just kind of got competitive. 

32:16
Yeah, and some of those people in that space were big influencers and I looked at evo and I'm like, okay, we don't have big audiences, how do we be better? That was my first question. I'm like we have to have a differentiator. We have to have a story we could tell that's different. Because they're going to. We have to spend money to get the attention right. They just have to use their socials. 

32:37
That's really how we started to really start innovating and show how we're different. And it came from neither of us wanted to be the guru or the influencer or cause. We were real estate investors too, and a lot of these guys were big real estate guys that started selling. You know the skip tracing and you know, lucky by us. We were innovative on that side and then, at the same time that's when I just went to other influencers that didn't want to do that the Brent Daniels, the Ryan Panetas, the Steve Trangs, the Pace Morbys, the Jamil Damjis like hey, I'll give you a cut if you just promote it. Cause, like that's when affiliate marketing wasn't really a thing. This was 2018. 

33:13
Yeah, it was a new concept and my thought process and how I've always been is well, let's just share some of it with them and if they use it and they like it and they want to promote it, let's give them a cut. 

33:25 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
It's the wind together scenario. 

33:26 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
It's the wind together, and then most of those companies are out of business now. So I'm not as dumb as I look. 

33:36 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Next question. I'm not gonna touch that one. Yeah, I know right. 

33:40 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Let's go next two, three, four years. What's PropStream look like? What's the innovation path? What's gonna really move the needle Like? Let's just not talk PropStream, like this prop tech space. Where do you see just big innovation shifts? Where, if you don't do some of these things, you're dead? 

34:00 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Not to give away the farm because I think there's something there Correct. 

34:03 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Let's do a high level. 

34:04 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
We are in such a unique time in technology and I've seen these shifts before 20 years ago where every decade or two you get these massive swings in tech and expectation. 

34:17 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. 

34:17 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
That happened with Google Zillow. That happened with Zillow and I think we're going to start to see that with AI and I know AI has become such a ubiquitous buzz term. 

34:26 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
But it's true. 

34:26 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
But it's true, here's what you again. This will give away the farm a little bit, but we're uh, looking at user behaviors, looking at a pattern and say I, the ai is going to detect. I know you normally look in these five markets and these are the search filters you do, and the first thing you do when you log in it's going to give you your updates it's going to give you those prompts. 

34:48
I'm just going to be able to say I'm looking for x, y and z. Yeah, and immediately it's going to give you those prompts. I'm just going to be able to say I'm looking for x, y and z. Yeah, and immediately. 

34:53 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
It's going to give me my list and what I need based off of that criteria yeah, and then it could even go to like and create a direct mail campaign for these type of houses. And what's the best messaging for it? Yeah boom. 

35:06 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
So, yeah, it's all. It's all going to be prompted and I think that's the thing that we, I know as PropStream, are looking into and how do we make that shift to not only meet the user experience today, but try to predict what it's going to be in the next three, four years? 

35:23 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Well, good luck to the people trying to keep up, because they got a very big engineering team now, so good luck. Engineering team now, so good luck. So I guess my how I like to wrap this show up is you know, last thoughts for someone that is getting into or just owns a prop tech company or some type of SAS product. 

35:46 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Yeah. 

35:46 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
What's your advice? You know it doesn't have to be a new person. It doesn't have to be a seasoned person Like what? What's the best advice? You know it doesn't have to be a new person. It doesn't have to be a seasoned person Like what? What's the best advice? You know you're in a group of SaaS founders and you have your best gem to give. Like what would you give to other founders or other CEOs or executives? 

36:02 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Perseverance. Uh, I would say that one of the biggest things that people struggle with is fear of failure. Uh, where I always like to say, the hall of fame batter is, you know, 300 plus hitter. 

36:17 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. 

36:18 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
It's 30 plus percent. 

36:19 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. 

36:20 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
You don't need to win every time. You don't need to. You're not always going to make the right decision. 

36:25 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. 

36:26 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
But I think that when you start looking at choices, if you start to go down the wrong path, don't double down on the wrong path. Be I don't say humble enough, but also be agile enough to say okay, this isn't working, I'm going to go here, learn from the mistake and move on. Don't dwell on a failure. Don't dwell on the past. If you could hit a 300, if you could get 30% right, you're going to win. 

36:49 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah. 

36:50 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
And that's the longterm. So just persevere, keep moving and don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to try new things, because you, for every 10 things you get wrong, you're going to get one thing really right. 

37:02 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, I can attest to that. Um, for the social media side, I know you're not the biggest social guy, but if someone watches this, they wanted to reach out or get ahold of you. What would be the best way to contact Brian Tepfer? Oh, that's a great question. 

37:18 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Email and I do look online. I don't post a lot. 

37:21 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, Just not my it would be like Instagram LinkedIn. 

37:24 - Brian Tepfer (Guest)
Oh, LinkedIn, Instagram. I've had actually some big partners, one of who's become a friend of mine, randomly messaged me on LinkedIn. This guy, Aaron, found camping and he literally I saw it and I was like, oh, I'm going to talk to this guy and he's a great guy. He makes some great content that we've been sharing with Okay and he's really innovative in what he does for going to people's houses and asking the right questions. 

37:52 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
So, yeah, linkedin, instagram, which is always a great way. Yeah, I'll make sure the team links in your LinkedIn, your. Instagram. Someone wants to get ahold of you. I'll make sure it's in the description. I appreciate you coming on, of course, to the Real SaaS Podcast, and until next time, let's get it. 

38:06 - Hope (Announcement)
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