Elevating PropTech Startups: A Guide to Effective Startup Advisory
In 2018, I was tasked with building the brand of a $100 million PropTech Venture Fund attached to one of the world’s largest commercial real estate firms, while simultaneously running the marketing advisory for a group of early-stage startups building commercial real estate technology.
Venture capital invested more than $25 billion into Property Technology companies or “PropTech" in 2021.
Every legacy real estate player was scrambling to enter this market by acquiring, partnering, or investing in the latest technology. VCs were falling over themselves to invest in the best-of-breed startups. Making matters worse, the media were struggling to grasp the PropTech category. Reporters tended to be experts in either real estate or technology, but rarely both.
In order to elevate our brand to drive opportunities, I prioritized the following:
- Market education and media backgrounders so that we could lay the foundation for headline features to come
- A multi-channel marketing strategy to amplify our message everywhere PropTech leaders were reading and gathering
- Co-marketing vehicles for our portfolio of startups that drive pipeline
I leveraged marquee sponsorships across the top PropTech conferences, creating portfolio showcases, executive keynotes, and exclusive dinners, driving business opportunities for the startups and parent company. Our social presence grew from zero to 10,000 engaged followers.
We told nearly 400 organic media stories, across more than 120 outlets, fueled by deep relationship-building with journalists from Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, The Information.
I built media databases on Airtable to allow the firm and the portolio of startups to programmatically build relationships with key reporters at every major real estate and technology outlet. I started with market education, helping reporters connect the dots across the two industries, then layered on industry viewpoints and interviews with portfolio startup founders.
The PropTech Venture Fund became a household name in the real estate community in less than a year.
Our investment pipeline was full, attracting the best new startups and technology entering the market. The fund’s technology messaging was cascaded across the entire parent company business, coloring even the global CEO’s presence at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Even better, we helped our portfolio of 15 startups hone and craft their message; created 250 new sales opportunities; and hundreds more leads through industry events, internal marketing at the parent company, and campaigns.
