Proptech Espresso cover art

Proptech Espresso

Proptech Espresso

By: Mark Hurst
Listen for free

About this listen

Learn everything you need to about Proptech from the real estate professionals, entrepreneurs, and visionaries at the forefront of this evolution. Proptech encompasses the wider digital transformation of real estate as innovators reimagine, reinvent, and rebuild the real estate industry. It considers both the technological and mentality change of the real estate industry, and its consumers to our attitudes, movements and transactions involving the built environment. Are you ready? Join the cutting edge of the Proptech movement on Proptech Espresso.© 2025 Proptech Espresso Economics Personal Finance
Episodes
  • Austin Rabine - Modern Facility Analysis for the Built World
    Sep 26 2025

    Can proptech be defined as the modernization layer for the built world? How did the Rabine family business grow from a local mom-and-pop services business to the national multi-business unit holding company that exists today? Why did technology adoption opportunities and business model scalability convince Austin to take a leadership role within the family paving business? What lessons did Austin learn from founding several contech businesses? Why are pavements and roofs the largest ongoing operating expense for a real estate owner? How does the negligence of pavement maintenance result in soaring delayed repair costs? Why was the Rapine Pavement Condition Report so valuable for facility owners? Why was it necessary to rethink the end-to-end process of the condition report to be technology-driven in order to scale this business opportunity. Why did Rabine produce these condition reports at no cost? Why was satellite imagery not a viable option for capturing the necessary pavement and roofing images? What was it about drones and their image capture capability that differentiated them from other solutions that Rabine Companies was investigating? Why did Austin and the executive team at Rabine Companies ultimately decide to spin the SITE business out as a separate independent company? What additional analytics are possible through drones which was not possible with onsite humans? How is SITE utilizing AI in its product suite?


    Austin Rabine - CEO and co-founder of SITE Technologies, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his parents' enthusiasm for entrepreneurship played a pivotal role in convincing him to join the family business.

    Show More Show Less
    42 mins
  • Diane Yu - Powering The Home Lending Revolution
    Sep 11 2025

    How did the complexity of the protech industry spark Diane's interest in taking on the challenges of building a company in this space? What was it like building an adtech startup during the Internet 2.0 heyday? How is the current AI boom similar to the Internet 1.0 era? Why did Diane jump from adtech to fintech? What has contributed to the technology in the mortgage space being so outdated? Why are the mortgage files created during the origination process unclean and riddled with incorrect information? How have the interest rate cycles and associated hiring/firing sprees contributed to many of the technology challenges that the mortgage industry is facing today? Why have industry regulations obsoleted certain mortgage industry technologies? Why was it important for TidalWave to be an AI-first mortgage technology company? What is the difference between an AI solution and an AI wrapper? Why is a mindset of AI support instead of AI replacement important for CIOs to have today?


    Diane Yu - CEO and co-founder of TidalWave, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how her first interaction with a computer as a child was so magical and set her on a lifetime journey of working with computers.

    Show More Show Less
    41 mins
  • Vikas Enti - Delivering Climate-Resilient Homes from Robotic Microfactories
    Aug 28 2025

    Are there industries outside of real estate where the asset has as many lifecycles? What were some of the problems that Vikas dealt with at Amazon Robotics while working with AEC professionals when building new logistics warehouses? How did growing up in a family-owned manufacturing business influence Vikas' later career pursuits? Where did Vikas' early interest in robotics come from? Why is system design as important as the underlying R&D in robotics? What is a mobile electronics company? Why was Kiva SYstems fundamentally different from other robotics companies of its time? What realization did Amazon have that led it to the conclusion that it was a strategic imperative to purchase Kiva Systems? How was Amazon able to finally achieve same-day shipping with the integration of Kiva Systems? What insights are needed to change problems that appear to be qualitative to actually be quantitative? Why did it take Vikas 5 years to earn his master's degree from MIT? What event led to Vikas' deep introspection and the desire to work on problems reducing carbon emissions? Why did Vikas not focus on farming as an industry where he could work on decarbonization? What was Operation Breakthrough? Why is solving the missing housing issue not a mass production problem but rather requires a mass customization approach? What is different about Reframe's business model from other off-site construction companies? How is air tightness related to wildfire resiliency?

    Vikas Enti - CEO and co-founder of Reframe Systems, joins Proptech Espresso to answer these questions and discuss how his interest in space and space exploration drove his belief that in the future the most interesting work would be in automation and robotics.

    Show More Show Less
    53 mins
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.