Kylie Davis interviews Trish Mackie-Smith from inndox - digital property logbook. The winners in the Proptech Awards by Proptech Association Australia with their great solution for every property owner as they target property developers initially and then real estate agents..
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Kylie Davis: The aim of each episode is to introduce a prop tech innovator who is pushing the boundaries of what is possible and to explore the issues and challenges raised by the tech and how they create amazing property experiences.
Now, if you are like me and millions of others, homeowners out there – you have a drawer in your kitchen that is overflowing with old receipts manuals and warranties for all the equipment in your home plus a few old remotes, flat batteries, and pictures of the kids painted in Kindy a lifetime ago. My guest this week is Trish Mackie-Smith, CEO and co-founder of inndox, a proptech that is a digital property logbook and was the winner of the Most Innovative Property and Facilities Management Start-Up Award at the Proptech Awards hosted by the Proptech Association of Australia. Trish has a very impressive professional background that qualifies her in this space, she is a former property lawyer and co-founder of Australia's most awarded building consultancy, she is the winner of the HIA 2019 Women in Building and Construction Awards Business Development Professional and has led a campaign to improve seller disclosure for property buyers that is currently before Parliament. Trish started inndox with her husband Andrew Mackie-Smith who is actually Australia's most awarded Building Consultant having won the Master Builders Queensland Building Consultant of the Year in 2017 and 2018 as well as Your Investment Property Magazine’s Best Building and Pest Business in Australia in 2018.
Here to tell us all about inndox is Trish Mackie-Smith welcome to the Proptech Podcast
Trish: Thanks Kylie, thanks for having me here.
Kylie: I am really excited about this interview! Congratulations on being a finalist in the Proptech Awards, that's awesome! To kick-off we always start with an elevator pitch so tell me what is the elevator pitch for inndox?
Trish: Well like you have a logbook for your car with all the service history that passes from owner to owner inndox provides digital logbooks for your property so that everything is in one place and it helps with easy maintenance throughout the entire lifecycle and then passes to the next owner.
Kylie: I love this idea because I think every property owner has a drawer underneath the kitchen bench with details where you put all the bits of paper about the property and warranties and manuals about appliances and then they die or they get broken or the next thing you know you then end up with this drawer full of junk basically – so that none of the things that are in there actually are in the house anymore and when it comes time to sell, you no longer have anything relevant to help with the sale.
So where did you get the idea from Trish?
Trish: I think with my background as a property lawyer and doing conveyancing and seeing that there’s often issues around the time of purchase or sale getting all that information together that can often lead to a lot of stress and delays and then if a future owner comes into that building or property often with very little information, they don't have a clue about how to manage that property, if there are any warranties in place, if they've expired who are the contacts for trades and then tenants don't get much information either - this leads to buildings being neglected , not kept in in proper condition and it affects the value of the asset. So, I just thought there needs to be a better way to manage your properties.
Kylie: This problem – how big a deal is it? Do you have any kind of idea in terms of size or like how many deals have you seen as a conveyance as a lawyer that handles conveyancing be delayed due to problems with being able to follow up documentation?
Trish: Just about every one unfortunately.
Kylie: It's becoming a bigger and bigger issue too because more and more of our homes are being digitised like you know from the air conditioning or the heating and security systems and roller doors for the garage and solar panels and all of that stuff - so much of the things in our property need the documentation sitting behind it.
Trish: Yes, it's becoming more and more important and we're relying on so much technology, yet we don't know how to manage it and things break and that causes more stress.
Kylie: So yes, it does, then you can't remember the security number, can't remember the pin number that you had when you first installed it, so you can't tell your new owner what that is. Imagine buying a property that you bought for all of those features but actually those features are redundant because of the sake of a four-digit pin code that’s gone missing!
So once we've solved this problem, once we have this idea of a logbook which I think it makes complete sense because we've been keeping logbooks for our cars forever - what does that open up to us? Like what other things become possible if we've got a good set of information in the digital logbook for our homes?
Trish: Well it means that it can speed up the due diligence for buyers - when they go to buy property then they can access the information - all the history of the property - the approvals are there, the certificates are in place and you know that the termite treatment has been kept up to date - that gives buyers confidence to then proceed with the purchase and then they are willing to pay the right price because they know the value of the property - so that that improves transparency and trust in the system. There’s confidence for people to be able to go ahead and buy that property knowing that everything's there.
Kylie: I imagine it's not just something that benefits you at sale time too, I mean it's kind of quite a relief to know that you've got a spot to put all of that information as you're doing it like when you're renovating when you get the invoice from the builder, when you get the quote from the tradie, when you get the certificate from the termite guy - it's one of those horrible experiences of adulting isn't it? That you are supposed to just know what to do with that stuff. Where do you put it? In a filing cabinet?
Trish: And this could be a $1,000,000 asset you know hardly anything about - you buy a $50,000 car that you'd only buy if it had a logbook. You would not buy a car without one so that's where I think the same should apply to your home. And another thing that I'm very passionate about is seller disclosure - there's a lack of that because our laws don't support it - with the buyer beware law it doesn't protect the buyer – it’s about protecting the seller. Therefore sellers don't have to provide the information up front so I'm very passionate about you know having this in place. So that seller disclosure becomes the norm - people can see exactly what the condition of the property is and can trust in that. And you know unfortunately around Australia the buyer beware law is in place except in the ACT where they do have a form of seller disclosure. But the trend is, if you look around the world, you see that seller disclosure is coming and there's going to be consumer protection in place eventually. But until that happens, I'm looking at technology to step in and protect buyers.
Kylie: And it's kind of ironic, isn't it, that this is one of the biggest purchase decisions you make in your life but you actually have more protection if you buy a $50 watch at David Jones and you can take it back if it doesn’t work but you can’t return your property - I bought this thinking it was in good condition but I can't get the garage door to go up and down and now I have to buy a whole new garage or worse. I find this really interesting, so tell me how does that tie in with real estate agents? How can real estate agents use this?
Trish: OK well it should help with speeding up the sales process and the due diligence. They can share the information so that when they get the listing, they can ask the seller for all the information that the seller has - to then go onto inndox and that could include the floor plans, the plans, the contract for sale, certificates and approvals. So all of this can then be shared with potential buyers online. I know that in the future, more and more properties will be bought online and sight unseen so this enables due diligence to be conducted online and very quickly. So it can operate like a selling tool for the real estate agent to set up an inndox and share that information about the property and not only that they can provide extra information there for down the track. Such as the agent’s network of contacts, mortgage brokers, conveyances, all of their relevant contacts can go on inndox that can help the buyer. Then at the end of the sale, it can be like gift provided to the buyer instead of giving them a bottle of champagne or flowers or balloons - you can provide this like a gift for the owner to have everything - for free - to help them better manage and maintain their property with all the alerts in there, the warranty alerts, maintenance alerts and contacts.
Kylie: How awesome! So, who are your clients at the moment? Are they real estate agents bringing sellers to you to say - look this is what we need to do - to upload all of your documents using inndox as part of the sale process? Or are they homeowners who are saying - I don't want a filing cabinet with all the paper in it OR a junk drawer with all of the old out-of-date warranties in it anymore. I want a central spot to put it all so that it's somewhere useful?
Trish: That's our goal - to market to the property owners eventually. But we entered the market to attract builders and property developers to help them with their handovers to property owners. To digitise that process because, as you said, they are usually, 90% of handovers are still provided in manuals full of paper that go into the kitchen drawer - so we help them digitise that process. There are more legal obligations now - that they must provide information to the property owner at the time of settlement. So instead of providing paper, inndox helps them collect all that information and then provide an app to the property owner and then that can be transferred to future owners.
Kylie: OK so, at the moment you’re working predominantly with new properties?
Trish: That's right, we can do establish buildings - we have that capability but we're looking at getting quality data and the best data is right at the beginning - before it gets lost over time and everything that’s in there, you can rely on, that’s where we're going. And there is a pain point that we're solving for property developers and builders - the laws are a bit patchy around Australia but it will become uniform eventually - in fact recommendations have been made. The federal government is cracking down on what builders should provide because of all the issues with cracking in buildings and the flammable cladding - so we guide the builders and provide that information the right information so they can meet their compliance.
Kylie: Awesome! OK, look when you need some test subjects for a beta user for property owners let me know because I am so up for that! I'm sure I have got a pile of things that I don't know what to do with. Would you scan them or photograph them through your phone and load them into the app?
Trish: Yes, you can do either, but most people just photograph with their phone and upload it - it's very easy - we've got a brilliant UX designer so that it's all very intuitive and logical and it's easy to use and a joy to use.
Kylie: I think it’s fabulous l- we love easy tech!
So how long have you been going for Trish? How old is inndox?
Trish: It was launched in 2018 - just a soft launch - to test the market. Since then we've been attracting builders and some quite big property developers all around Australia predominantly in Victoria and South Australia - that's where they seem to be the most innovative, because a lot of these companies are very traditional and have legacy systems so it takes some convincing for them to use technology but it’s starting to be more acceptable.
Kylie: Yet you're based in Brisbane and you are getting a big following in South Australia and Victoria? Awesome. Now you mentioned before that your background is as a lawyer in conveyancing – so what led you to set up inndox? Was it just that that you got fed up with chasing the material or what was the a-ha moment?
Trish: I questioned why this hasn't been done before? There should be an easier way - you get a logbook with your car and then I just wanted to investigate the laws about protecting buyers who have bought lemon properties. I think that's probably what really got to me - I saw injustices and because I've also been involved in a consultancy of building consultancy for the last 20 years with my husband who is also co-founder of inndox – he’s a commercial builder and a certifier and so together we came up with this this concept of inndox and using technology to provide all this information so in the end they know what they're buying and hopefully lift the standard in the industry.
Kylie: Shout out to Andrew who is your cofounder and partner in life. So you started in 2018, how big are you now Trish?
Trish: We've got over 2000 users and calls coming in all the time and onboarding builders and property developers. We are, as mentioned earlier, we are also attracting real estate agencies as well and so we're currently onboarding an agency that is national and they love it because it can be provided as a gift and also onboarding building inspectors. We're rolling out with a national inspection company at the moment across Australia. So yes we are growing there is traction happening. It’s all very exciting!
Kylie: How big is the team?
Trish: We've got six in the core team and that includes three developers and engineers and the two founders Andrew and myself and then a marketing person. But I think we're going to have to put on some new staff soon.
Kylie: So what's your business model? How do you charge? Is it a SaaS? A subscription service?
Trish: It’s business to business at this stage so the end user, the property owner, gets it for free if the builder, property developer, real estate agent, inspector provides the inndox, they sponsor it on behalf of the owner by paying a monthly fee and it starts at just $39 a month. For the bigger developers (and we've got a few who are huge enterprises) and need multiple users and multiple layers of you subaccounts they start at $899 because they need a lot of extra guidance and templates and customization.
Kylie: OK so just to get clear is that $39 the property or is that per month?
Trish: That's per month for up to 10 properties and then we've got a tiered system.
Kylie: OK, the more properties you put on then the cheaper it is when you go to the next level?
Trish: Yes
Kylie: OK, it just sounds like fabulous idea! If I was a real estate agent who had been in an area farming my area for a while, I'd be coming to you and saying right, because leads are so hard to get at the moment, I would be offering this to all of my past clients to say ‘look you know it's been a while since we sold, so look I'm going to give this to you now as a gift to say thank you for selling with me in the past so here’s where you put all your property stuff so that when it comes time to sell it’s not hard.’ We know that the psychology of selling - there's so many things that turn people off which are - I have to get the house ready, I have to coordinate all of that with the kids in school and weekend sport and we have to find somewhere else to live and oh my God after all of that, we have to do all the paperwork for it! It's so much adulting it's absolutely hideous! And so all of those things kind of build up the picture of maybe it's just too hard? Maybe we'll just cope with it for a bit longer and we won't really worry about selling now so a lot of the optional sales don't happen just because of that mental load that goes on around it. So, if I was going about it, that's what I'd be doing - offering it to my top potential leads as a great gift to say – here’s your inndox anyway.
Trish: Yeah I like that! I think it's possible that could happen down the track. We do help with making it easy for customers with templates and everything - we understand the process as we've been in the industry for a long time so we know we can certainly guide agents and we've got all these great online tools to help to make it really simple and quick and easy to do. So, yes I welcome more real estate agents coming on board!
Kylie: Trish you’re in this interesting space, conveyancing and law and building and real estate – what do you see coming up in the next five years for inndox? Like where do you see things, what's your crystal ball tell you about what's going to change in how all those three things come together?
Trish: Well I think there’ll be more of a demand by property owners for transparency and seller disclosure. The laws are coming anyway but I just don't know when and this is where technology can be there to fill that gap and once it gets known, then my vision is that every time someone looks to buy property they'll be saying ‘where's the inndox?’ Yes that's how I think it's going - everything is going digital – people, companies, everybody expects to be able to access all the information on their phone and so transactions will be taking place more and more sight unseen. Buyer due-diligence and everything will be conducted online. You’ll see smarter buildings, smart homes and actually I can see that with Alexa and Google Home, you'll be able to talk to them an ask: ‘OK I need to repaint the kitchen wall what was the paint colour?’ and then it accesses inndox. So we're collecting all this data to make it possible to have these smart homes and yeah like magic, I think it will happen!
Kylie: Look I think that day is only around the corner. So what does the future look like for inndox? What's on your road map for the next 18 months or couple of years?
Trish: Well we're at the moment rolling out across Australia with building inspectors and so that's going to bring a lot of awareness of inndox and gain rapid traction because they can put 5000 reports a month onto inndox or more. Then we’re going across to NZ where they've got franchisees over 17 in NZ so we’re looking to expand into international markets and then also the UK. We’ve had two trips over to the UK and there's definitely an established market there for us. So yeah it's looking quite exciting. I’m very excited about what the future holds.
Kylie: And you've obviously got your real estate play over here too to build out further and also B2C
Trish: And B2C yes!
Kylie: Well look Trish, it’s been fantastic to talk to you and hear about inndox. I think it's a fantastic idea. Congratulations. It's always hard work getting a start-up up and running so congratulations and congratulations on being a finalist in the Proptech Awards!
Trish: Thanks Kylie. Thanks for launching the first Australian national proptech awards!
Kylie: I've questioned my sanity many times since then but it's going to be awesome.
Trish: Really good for the industry - a fantastic initiative.
Kylie: Thanks so much for being on the Proptech Podcast.
So that was Trish Mackie-Smith from inndox - a proptech innovation that I think every homeowner needs. Even though Trish and Andrew are currently focusing their sales energy on builders and developers, I see huge potential in this piece of technology and its ability to make life easier for homeowners across so many facets. Like, I mentioned in the intro, every homeowner has a junk drawer or cupboard or a filing cabinet or a box where this stuff goes and that's not a great system in fact probably saying it’s a system is an exaggeration! At sale time, all the important things that you need to hand onto the new owner always seems to be missing and if you're relying on that paperwork for replacement with an insurance claim well if your house is flooded or burned down it's very likely that the draw has gone as well. So having a centralised cloud-based system to place and capture all of the data for your home makes a lot of sense. Sure, look, we could all save those documents ourselves in a Google shared drive or Dropbox but do we? They don’t work long-term. Having a centralised system so it captures important data and makes it infinitely easier to share and provide access when we need to.
Now property logbooks have been a concept that's been on the radar for years and years. When I was at CoreLogic, Graham Mirabito, CEO, used to hold court around this idea of digital keys for properties which was a really similar concept and I have had other founders talk to me about this idea but inndox is the first that I've heard of that have actually got a functioning model into the market and I think that's because the proptechs that are B2C have found it really difficult to win market share and that's where inndox has been really clever in targeting it at builders and developers in the first instance. Real estate agents are a natural fit for growth in this market. So well done inndox and as soon as you have a B2C offer Trish - let me know and sign me up because I would love to get that kitchen draw back!