Transcription
I believe that the process of buying and selling a home and working with people who need to buy and sell homes must be simpler. There was brokerage 1.0, which was: I want to buy a house; I'm going to go to the real estate agent's office; he's going to tell me what's on the market for sale; if I like him, he'll show me things; we'll see signs out there; maybe there's a cupcake involved; and we buy it. And there's a significant amount of paperwork, right? Brokerage 2.0 is saying, okay, how do I take all that and put it in your phone or your computer so that you say, "Hey, thank you so much, brokerage 2.0, for giving me all these screens." But over here, brokerage 3.0, I don't even need the screens, cuz the screens do the work for me. Just because the market changes, people change, so you got to pivot. And then what we're also starting to do is using AI to do things like—so this is me, um, in Chinese, giving a property tour—one of our videos about one of our… are you creating tech, like in-house tech and stuff like… for yeah? And really what it is is actually… I don't want to tell you what it is. I don't want to be kind of careful here. [Music] [Music]
All right, M, right back here with Back Disrup podcast. Really excited to have Ryan Sand here at your amazing office. We had to get the cameras going cuz we're getting some good, some good material right out the gates, man. But I appreciate you coming on. B the shups is all about, you know, interviewing, having conversations with the innovators, the best disruptors in real estate, and I can't think of a perfect guy to to have on than you, man. So you're… it's your podcast, man. So just quick uh, expectation to set: we're currently at my Clubhouse here in SoHo, yeah, on the corner of West Broadway and Broome. And in like 10 minutes, this might get real loud. It's just… there's… there's honking; there's every… and what they're doing, they're honking at us like, "I need houses." They're also trying to get into the tunnel, but the way I hear it is, I'm like, "Guys, there's just low inventory." I come to the Hamptons, I'm like a cat; I'm used to like quiet and like serenity. And then you come to the city and you're just… I never… I try to make a turn coming down here and some cop was screaming at me; I was in the wrong lane. So like, I'm just trying to keep my nerves down, but so hopefully I don't freak out if there's too much…
Stay calm; stay calm; it's going to be okay. No, I love… I love having you on. I remember back in 2016, I think we had a listing together years ago in the… yeah, Main Street. Yeah. And it was like… I guess like, take me back to then. Like, Siran Team was like, starting a brokerage always in the cards for you, or you know, where were you at that point?
Not really, man, like, you know, there's major overhead in the brokerage business; there's, you know, the margins are tight. I… I always look at like the person that I want to become in 10 years; someone's that person right now. I'll be my own version, but someone is that person right now. So I think if you had asked me in 2016 to look like, hey, do you want to start your own company, I would have looked at the top CEOs and I would have said, "Nope, I don't want to be those people." Um, uh, you know, at that time I was still very much looking at like, who are the top real estate brokers globally? Yeah, right, residential, commercial, like what are their lives like, what do they do, how do they operate? Um, and I was excited around that time when we when we first started working together in 2016 about just seeing what expansion felt like. Yeah, and really testing things out in different markets. Yeah, right, like you are your own brand. Yeah, right. You know, when clients call you, they want you. Yeah, okay. And if it's a certain price point and above, you're probably going to be there and fixing the microwave; if it's a certain price point and below, you have a team; you've got people; you'll still facilitate the transaction; and at the end of the day, the buck stops with you. Yeah, right. So what is it? What does that look like if you can't be there at 2 o'clock ever? Yeah, because you're not there. And so the Hamptons was kind of like my first test, and that summer of 2016, I… I took on the the Gurney Resort, um, and did that, and that was hard. Yeah, that was hard. I never… you're out there a lot. I never seen a lot of content every weekend in that tunnel coming out, dude. Every weekend. Oh, that one would take me to Jersey every weekend. See, Hamptons, this guy goes that way; that's why I got lost; yeah, went the wrong way. No, every weekend, uh, going out there, and it was just, you know, it was just tricky. Um, Montauk, it's deep. Yeah, you got to go out there and live it and breathe it. And so I… I really learned that process during 2016 of how like real estate brands can be shopped globally, but they are sold hyper locally, you know. And so, uh, but I started the team in like 20… like really like 2012, built and then built it up through 2020 until I started my own.
It's so hard, teams. I mean, just on a vulnerable… over myself, like trying to figure out how to scale, you know, try to grow. Like, I mean, had… it seems like there's limitations. It feels like teams, you have to go either really small or like really big. I don't know how you feel. Do you think about teams? I mean, how has it… how has teams structure changed from then to now, I guess?
Oh, well, when I first started, I mean, I… so I started building the Suran Team in 2012, and it was literally… for me, it was just about being in New York City and handling geography. So it was, okay, I'm based in SoHo; um, I always have been; I'll be based in SoHo; I want to be able to meet clients in the Upper East Side within 15 minutes at any given point in time; the Upper West Side within 15… everywhere was just within 15 minutes. So downtown, it could be me. Mhm. Um, everywhere else, I needed to expand myself. So I looked at myself almost as like the quarterback of a football team and then said, okay, if I want to win the Super Bowl, I'm not going at it by myself; I'm going at it with players. I have to have an offensive line; I need tight ends; I need wide receivers; I need running backs; um, and I want to be able to be a resident agent everywhere so that way I can work on branding and expanding. Yeah, that'll be my through line all day long, and then I'll have amazing lieutenants everywhere else. So… so my team first was, all right, my Upper East Side go-to is Amy; right, my Upper West Side go-to at that time was Royya; and then I just filled out all the neighborhoods; and then they would get too busy; and then I would strengthen the neighborhoods. Is really kind of how it started. Yeah. Um, uh, and I was small to begin with, and then we just grew out of default. And that's what I tell everybody about building real estate teams is: first, you have to really write… like write down or type… yeah, why do you want to build a team? If you have inbound lead flow and you need somebody to help you with that, okay, there's… that's a reason. If it's just to make more money—more people equals more problems. Yeah, that's… you become a manager. That's what I found out, and I'm like… I feel like it's almost like a small business problem too, right? It's like, you know, the great painter, the great attorney, and he grows, and you know, they get too big; they try to figure out… you're… you're good; I'm good at brokering deals, but you know, do the stuff too. And a lot of brokers, it's not like we're educated on this stuff, or you know… what… you have MBAs? You know…
No, me neither. I didn't go to business school. I have a degree in English literature and theater.
I'm an English major too. What's up?
There you go. We're going to talk about Beowulf after this.
No, dude, Middle Earth, man. Let's go back to it. I love it, man. Old English… the… um… yeah, so then the team started growing, and then I started placing people in like different markets. I tried and failed in LA; it's just… that is a tough time zone difference. Yeah, and it's like… it just… I ended up… I like really quickly, I was like, "Up, yep, I'm… I'm… I'm an absentee dad." Yeah, and then why would you be with me like if you're in… in across the country unless I've set up clear expectations for value proposition, which I just… in 2016 I just didn't have. Yeah. Um, but the team built… by 2020 we were 65 people; um, we did… you know, we were doing a lot. You… our… my 2019 GCI was like just over 20 million, and then COVID hit, uh, but I had already put in plan the activities to like go and start our own thing, cuz by that point it's like, "Where do I go from here?" Yeah, you kind of hit a level where you're like, okay, what's the next… that's kind of wearing on Sand. Maybe the idea came into… around 2020 or so.
Yeah, well, it was… it was… it was like 2018 because we had set up a media company; I wrote my first book; we set up the education company, which then became SellIt.com this year; um, so we built all that. So I had all these things while I was at the brokerage; we had 60, 65 people; we had operations, graphic… we… we were our own company, right? We were doing all the new developments, so I had all of the… the overhead, right, without actually owning the thing; um, and I just… that… at that… then my mindset shifted. I looked at all the CEOs of brokerages and I was like, "Oh, man, I definitely now don't want to be them," you know? I'm going to go be better. Yeah, cuz somebody's got to lead the charge for this business into real estate 3.0. That's what I love about you, man, like that's what I like… always had my… eat those two… trying to do better, innovate, elevate. I love having you on, man, because you totally… you know… and building Siran. So I guess like, when you start to build Siran, like what's the… how did… how did that go? How was that process, trying to build a brokerage?
Well, this is somewhat controversial to say, but thank you, COVID. Yeah, like… when am I ever going to get a… you were really, really busy. You were out east; it's probably the busiest year of your life. Yeah, right. We were out in there breaking laws in New York in the city; we… everything was shut down; there were bodies in Central Park, right? We had the Red Cross ship; it was the end of the world. And so we had our spring market for like… just given to us. Yeah, like, "Hey, you don't have to show; you don't have to go outside; just… you can do one of two things: one, you could just watch Netflix and chill; yeah, or you really stress yourself out and build a company." Yeah. And so I chose like option two. There were a handful of us who all stayed back in New York City; we didn't go anywhere else for COVID; we all stayed back, and we just built… I'll show you on the third floor; we put up… we took an office in SoHo that was abandoned cuz all office space was abandoned in the city; it was a wild 28 Days Later style. Yeah, we put up construction paper everywhere, and we just started writing down, all right, so legal, what do we need to do, right? Branding, what do we need to do? Marketing, policy, everything. And uh, I found my CFO pretty quick because what also happened during COVID, which I did not anticipate, was a lot of amazing talent at a lot of other firms were let go, yeah, to save costs. And so all of a sudden all of these great people that I could never get before because of either non-competes or they're being paid so well were like ready to go. They're like, "Wait a minute, you're hiring?" You're… I'm like, "Yeah, I'm going to build a new company." They're like, "Are you sick? Are you… are you… do you understand that there's a…" New York at the time too was like, "Is New York ever going to like rise?" Yeah, the newspapers… it was like real doom and gloom.
Yeah, I know. And I was here like, "Yeah, let's go!" I was in a superhero outfit like, "Guys, it's all going to be okay!" Yeah, and it was…
That's an amazing story. So you had… you guys just got up there and papered a whole wall and started building out what you guys wanted to do.
Yeah. And we started… we started small. I rented… a friend of mine has a townhouse in Tribeca that he used as his office; um, and he left, obviously, because of COVID. Yeah. I was like, "What are you doing with that building?" You… there's no doorman; I didn't have to deal with anybody because a lot of the doorman buildings in the city were like COVID protocols, you know, swabs every day, and this was just a townhouse with a door. He's like, "I don't… I'm doing nothing." I'm like, "I'll give you… I'll give you like 10,000 bucks a month if you just…" It'll be my office now for a short period of time. Like, "Okay." So I use that and started onboarding people, building out all of our documentation, all of our processes, and we were… we started three companies on the same day. So we started the brokerage, and from the brokerage, you know, I'm still a broker, but then there's all of the support for the agents, plus also new development, which is a separate arm, right, which is completely separate; uh, and then IDLab, which is the in-house creative agency. Then over here, we… we started Siran… but just like for real this time because before it had just been like, "Hey, let's make a course and see what happens." Yeah, but at that point we had onboarded like 10,000 members around the world. Right now we're like just about 30,000, but back then it was about 10 or like nine, somewhere in that range.
Your books are really good, man. All this stuff… even your… I read your first one, Game Like Finder Keeper, I think phenomenal.
See, exactly. So… so that happened, and then we started Siran Studios, which… the production company. Yeah, we were filming the last season of Million Dollar Listing in New York at the same exact time I was filming a separate… about my house renovation in Brooklyn called Ryan's Renovation at the same exact time, and I was writing my second book, Big Money Energy, at the same exact time, and I just had Zena, our daughter, at the same exact time. So all of that was happening all in 2020, plus COVID hit, and like all money went away. Yeah, like every deal died, and I was on the phone with lawyers trying to stay litigation. You… everyone just started suing other… but the force majeure clauses didn't hold up during 9/11.
Yeah.
And so the case law for COVID meant they didn't hold up during COVID either.
Oh, wow. They had that.
Yeah. So we had like… there was a judge for a lot of these cases; he's like, "You guys can battle it all out, but 9/11 didn't cancel contracts; this won't…" Not in New York. And so everyone just had to settle. So we just started like settling townhouse deals and settling things, and some people walked, and then we'd already had the media company already set up. So whereas everyone else started scrambling to do things in video, we were like, "Hey, remember that goofy thing that people made fun of us for? We were like taking videos of all of our apartments." Well, you guys… thank you. Here we go. And we like flooded the market with all of our content; we just started doing virtual deal after virtual deal after virtual deal. A lot of guys that want on TV like… that hasn't made it.
I feel like one thing that always differentiated you just as a broker was some of your media game, your YouTube game, like your video game. I mean, like…
Yeah, we were early. Speak to that. I mean, when did that start?
2016. Yeah. Um, yeah, like my first YouTube tour was 20… I think it was 2016. So Million Dollar Listing premiered in March of 2012, uh, and I kind of saw… not after the first season, but after like the third season, so like 2015… like people were calling because at the beginning, no one calls people they see on TV. Yeah, like you don't watch like the Kardashians; you're like, you know, "Get Kendall on the phone," right? So no one… and they… there was social following, but it just wasn't the same. And so after this third season, people started reaching out and they're like, "Hey, 36 Grand, Murray Hill East, I saw… is it still available? What… I saw on the show last night." I'm like, "Well, we filmed it last year; no, it sold. Did you not finish the episode?" Yeah. Um, I like… what if I could do that faster? And then I was on a vacation with my sister and her two little kids who were like… I don't know, 9 and 11 or something at the time, and we went to a place that had no TV, and I was like, "Dude, what the… am I going to do? There's no TV." And her kids… I was like, "Dude, we're screwed!" Yeah, they were totally fine; all they needed was Wi-Fi. Yeah, and I guess I didn't spend enough time with little kids. I was like, "Where…" And this was 2016. "Can FaceTime…" They can like… dude… was like, "So what are you guys going to do?" Like, "What do you mean? We have our iPads." Like, "What about TV?" And they're like, "What's TV?" It's like… they're streaming, you know. And so at that moment… and like House of Cards was on in 2016, so like Netflix had just only recently gone into heavy streaming. And so I was like, "Okay, our future buyers aren't going to watch Million Dollar Listing New York, and these kids have influence over their mom, I know, because we're on this damn vacation because of these…" Yeah. So, uh… where are they? And they were just watching YouTube. And so I reached out to my… uh… uh… my team, my social team; I was like, "We need to start doing property tours like right away." Yeah. And there was a guy that works with me, Joe Loresa, uh, at the time who was like, "You need to sort of vlog," and that's what I thought was so stupid; um, but then I did it anyway. And so we started just doing those, and those… more people watched those YouTube… and everything… my dad… my dad's 75 years old; I went over his house like two weeks ago; he's got YouTube on; he's not even watching; he's like… he's a builder; he's watching things get built. I'm like… my parents… yeah, you know. But it's amazing… I feel like it's now… I got a $5 million lead in the Hamptons because of a video I recently shot, and I feel like it's… it's even more so now.
It's cool that you were so ahead of the game then. I mean, are you guys doing anything with… how is… Now video different? Like, where's the future of video, you think?
Oh, man, so we do a significant amount now compared to what we… we used to do via… via lives, right? So I think… so a lot of live stream, right? Like, what do you think about that? That seems like… the whole… this stuff is like coming into it; like, what do you think? I guess… yeah, I think… I think there's a play for that in the real estate space. The problem is consistency with the video game; you can plug in all day, every day; the video game exists, and it's right in front of you; you got to like really have a full-time job of going and seeing properties, which can be kind of… it can be a lot. So that's tough to do; I tried it; it's… it's really hard. Yeah. Um, uh, but I do think that live is going to become more and more prominent. You see it now, even Netflix now. Yeah, what they… they… what they really care about over there is live. Well, that roast with Tom Brady went crazy; that was huge.
Yeah.
That… it's still huge; it's still like number one there.
Yeah. It seems like the… you cut up the short-form content; like, I didn't even watch the roast, but I know clips of the roast go on Instagram and anywhere else, and you see it all… all over the place. And now you see, you know, Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, all of those; they're going to wrap them all up and bundle it, so we're just going to cable back; live TV is going to come back, and we're just going to run around in a big circle. But I think for all of us, our ability to create, you know, vertical video, short form across all platforms, um, uh, for properties… and what we've really started doing is split screen, so that way it saves so much time because for the last eight years I've run around personally and ran through these properties to give tours, and they take time; you got to edit them; they've got to be lit well. Now what do you really care about? You care about people seeing it. Yeah, right. Right. That's what I love. I… I noticed about you too, like you just like jump on there and just film something fast. Like…
Yeah, move fast, man.
Yeah, for sure. Like… and you just put… you put up your schedule, which I thought was amazing; actually made me like, "Damn, I got to get better at my own schedule," because you're just… people stress… people stress me out about that schedule. Yeah, but like you… you… you'll just put up there and… and shoot short-form video too; like it seems like that does better sometimes on the soci med. Always now… we don't… I haven't… it's been two years since I made a true long-form vlog.
Wow.
Um, just because the market changes, people change, so you got to pivot. And so we just started doing, you know, vertical, short-form split screens where I will sit either at our blue wall downstairs or my office, and I'll talk about the property, just my authentic thoughts, or like the top five things I love about this house, and then the B-roll we'll still get, and then we'll put it above. And then what we're also starting to do is… I'm trying to find as many efficiencies as I can because like you saw my schedule is… using AI to do things like… so this is me, um, in Chinese, giving a property tour of one of our videos of one of… [Music] our…
That's amazing. I… what you… what's your thoughts on AI? Like, what are you… you're working on a lot here too, right? You guys doing something?
Yes. I think it's a… it's a paradigm shift. Um, it's a paradigm… it's a paradigm shift, man. I think it's… it's… it's the democratization of… of… of… of tasks, you know. Yeah. And um, I think eventually you won't even do things on your phone; it's going to do it all for you, right? So I think you'll have action models that do a lot of that work for you, and they're going to be people that move fast enough to adapt to it, and then people that… that don't. Um, you know, we use AI for obviously my voice, you know, and then we use… there's a program that we use that does my video, so like you'll start seeing property tours where it's just AI Ryan, AI voice, and I don't have to go there anymore. Yeah, and it's… the effect is going to be the same; we're getting the content in front of the people. And you're never going to be able to replace authentic live moments, and I think like star power even for real estate is actually going to get even stronger because people are going to care about seeing the real thing more than anything. Yeah, and I think that's kind of where you saw like the peaks and valleys of NFTs and stuff like… it really, really exciting at the beginning, but then it kind of did fizzle. Yeah, let that calm down for a second and see where people have real focus.
Amazing. I mean, you always seem to be so forward-thinking, from your team to your brokerage. I mean, when you set up Siran, like what… what… what…
Were we thinking about, you know, we talk a lot about the future in your branding? The future of real estate. Like, what does the future look like for you? And what, what, what is the what were you doing with the brokerage to make it compatible with the future?
I guess a couple things. First, I believe that the process of buying and selling a home and working with people who need to buy and sell homes must be simpler. I think that there was brokerage 1.0, which was: I want to buy a house; I want to go to the real estate agent’s office; he’s going to tell me what’s on the market for sale; if I like him, he’ll show me things; we’ll see signs out there; maybe there’s a cupcake involved; and we buy it. And there’s a significant amount of paperwork.
Right. Yeah, that was 100 years. Brokerage 2.0 is saying, okay, how do I take all that and put it in your phone or your computer? Right. And so then you’ve got Compass, you’ve got Redfin, you’ve got, you know, all these other firms that said, you know what, we’re going to take that as a problem, and the solution is going to be: we’re not going to make it simpler; going to make it easier. So now you don’t actually have to do a lot of that; we’re going to make it easier by putting it in screens. And with every problem that we come, that we see, we’re going to create a new screen. So now it’s like, oh, HEI, here’s another screen; go learn it; go figure it out. It makes things easier, but it doesn’t make it simpler. And so in my mind, it was always: I think the greatest value that a brokerage could ever give to a real estate agent is to make their life simpler. Right? Whether that’s through lead generation, which we do through Bring, and through creative—that’s why we have the creative agency and we have the film studio and studios—right? Or it’s in democratizing their tasks, right? So that the tasks get done for you.
Yeah. So that you say, “Hey, thank you so much, Brokerage 2.0, for giving me all these screens, but over here, Brokerage 3.0, I don’t even need the screens,” yeah, because the screens do the work for me. And so that’s what we created with, with Simple. Yeah. Right. Simple. Does that work for, for us? And you’re, are you creating tech, like in-house tech and stuff like for…
Yeah, I’ll show it to you. Hold on. I have a protein shake delivery. I love that. I need that. I’ll give it to you. It’s mine. It’s an energy drink that we actually, we own, called uh, called Update, that I was holding that whole time where they split the caffeine molecule and use parentheses, so there’s no crash. And you…but there’s no crash; there’s also no buzz. Yeah. So you don’t…yeah, so there’s sometimes like you, people like to drink coffee ‘cause they get a…to the feeling, you know, but then there’s always, then there’s everything that comes after it. Um, and so you drink more coffee with that; you drink one and you’re like, “I don’t think it did anything,” and at the end of the day you’re like, “Why do I feel normal?” Yeah. And I wasn’t tired. It’s so crazy. This is just…so you still brokering like…wait, you asked about tech. Oh yeah, go back in that; stay there; hold on…give…I didn’t tell…yep, yep. Whoops. Crazy. Um, you got to be careful with me opening my phone. So as a broker, my wife sees me open the phone, she’s like, “What are you doing?” I know. So this is Simple, right? So Simple, sir. Simple. So this is AI; we built it; we announced it in January; we’re in beta right now, just with people at the company. Okay. So anything you would want ever done in your life is just done through this. So for example, I mean like…so transaction workflows, like everything’s here; you, you…there’s no need for assistance anymore. Sorry to all the assistants that’s, that are watching. All marketing, everything is all in one spot. Okay. It’s amazing. But what it really does…yeah, all that’s great, and we have agents who just do it that way. Yeah. But you would say like, um, “I’m sitting with Matt Brighton Bach; I’m on his podcast right now; he has a new house at on Me’s Road, on Mex’s Road, um, and he needs a CMA and a listing presentation sent to the seller, and uh, also put a calendar invite in his calendar for tomorrow morning at 9:15 so he doesn’t forget; add it to his uh, follow-up process as well, just so that he has everything in order. Please. Thanks.” So you would do that, right? And then you would just check it for any errors. So I mean, I don’t know if it’ll catch how I spelled your, how I said your name…hold on, look there; go. So then you go here, so you go through, right? It catches the audio, and then I would just send it…uh, now I didn’t give it an actual address, but like if I gave it an actual address, everything I just told it to do now just happens without issue, and the follow-up processor put into place; all the work gets done; all the CMAs, the pricing…yeah, man, there’s like…they’re out there right now; they bump into someone on the street; they’re like, “Hey, I’ve seen everything in SoHo.” Can…yeah. So then…so here it is already. So it’s Matt, CMA, listing, and reminder already. So it’s automated there, right? And then we’re going to watch the process like a Domino’s Pizza Tracker. So now it’s at red, and slowly it’ll go through. So if you wanted to create, say, you know, you can create a marketing…say you wanted your marketing manager, or whatever, you want to create a marketing…something you…you know…yep. So…so yeah, so you can go here. So if I just want to chat with one of the advisors, I’ll just go in here and chat, and I’ll just, I’ll type them whatever, like, “Hey, I forgot X, Y, or Z,” right? And what you can also do is, is you can go through here, um, and you can start to add collaborators, so like for your team and everything, like, “Hey, this is a task; I’m going to add Tom as my collaborator on the task, just so he knows this is happening so that he can do what he needs to do.” And really what it is is…actually, I don’t want to tell you if what it is; you don’t have…I want to be kind of careful here; I end up talking too much all the time, like my problem, myself. So I get it, but just…it’s, it’s amazing; it’s pretty cool. I mean, it’s kind of built almost like a project management, task management, but specifically for real estate, which is nice. Yeah, for sales teams with AI. Yeah, for sales teams, you know. Yep. So you feel like that’s probably the future. That’s cool. So you’re working a lot on the technology; turns everything…yeah, we spend a lot of time on that; turns everything; makes everything simple…simple, you know, because it’s like I was, you know, I had the idea because I was dealing with that; banks and like I was, I couldn’t figure out something on chase.com. Yeah. And the person on the other end of the phone was like, “But it’s so easy; just go click on that thing on the right.” I’m like, “I promise you I’m trying to click on the thing on the right.” You understand? And the woman kept saying to me, “But it’s so easy.” Like, yeah, but it’s just not…but it’s not simple. Yeah, like back in the day, even when I was a kid getting my first paycheck from cutting lawns and stuff, yeah, like there was no internet, right? And so but you would take that check, you would go to the bank, yeah, and you’re done; that’s it; and it was super simple. Now it wasn’t easy because I had to get in the damn car; I had to wait till my mom drove me down there; I couldn’t see everything else; if you want to deal with your investments, they’re over here, and then they…so like…but it was super simple. And then all screens did was make things easier, but it removed all the simplicity. Yeah. So especially for us as salespeople, like you see this, like we’re in this now for an hour, and then you’re going to be in commuting, and they be running around, and they meet somebody…did I answer that? And then all of this stuff is going to happen. So yes, things are easier, but they, they’re just not…I compare this business to like always feeling like you’re late for an air flame dude all the time; that’s the…like you just feel…yeah, like even like we’re joking off camera, like you can answer all those texts; I’m like, I struggle. It’s like funny. Like, I guess that’s what I want to get into; it’s like…I love that you still consider all the success and all these things you do; you still consider yourself like a real estate broker. And I guess like, how do you…that there’s a team that came…one of the earlier teams to join the company because like when we started, I don’t know…like if you started your own company, I mean maybe you’d have a lot more confidence than I did, but like I didn’t, dude. I didn’t know…I didn’t know if people were going to want to…I knew people wanted to join my team. Yeah, I had a team for a long time; I did that for a long time. I knew why people wouldn’t join my team either. Yeah. It’s like if I, if I go start my own company, are people going to want to join like Ryan’s little real estate company? Yeah, you know, I have big visions, but I got to operationalize the vision first. Yeah. And so a team that joined, you know, there was a big team that joined early on, you know, in 2020, and they’re still here today, and um, uh, they explain to somebody else, and they tell agents all the time like, “Dude, you got to just go talk to Ryan; like go talk to Ryan; go talk to Paul; go talk to the team over there,” because people ask them, “Hey, how come you made that switch? You know, you’re doing really well over the last years.” And the way he described it was, “Listen, yes, things at Siran are cool; it’s fun; it’s different; everything moves fast, but at the end of the day it was started by a dude who was a realtor who just wanted it to be done better. Yeah. And if someone at the top of the heap is going to be making decisions around my career, I want them to have also been late to a rental showing; I want them to have also gotten yelled at by…been in the trenches, man. You understand it; you get it; like you know, you understand the game,” which is so, so powerful.
So how’s it going? Like you’re, you’re expanding; you’re going different markets. I mean, how, how’s it been since…so you start the brokerage; you started New York, and you’re like…we’re talking a little about Palm Beach before. I mean, where…what markets are you in, and where do you…what’s the, what’s the goal? Like you’re trying to go everywhere.
Yeah, I mean, like I never set out to do anything small, but I am moving cautiously at our own pace. Yeah, like we are…we’re much bigger now than we were when we started, but we are…like finances are great; we are profitable; like we’re smart. I could spend a million dollars to do that thing over there, or I could spend $78,000 and just make it painful. Yeah, I’ll take the pain. Yeah, you know? And I think my back being up against a wall because I’m doing this by myself has just always proven to be the right way to do it. Um, and so yeah, we started in 2020, just in New York; in 2021, on the brokerage side, we really worked on our foundation: like what is the foundation of this business; is it going to work? Okay, it worked. 2022, all right, great; what do the walls look like; what’s the roof look like; what are the systems and processes? So we did that. 2023, we then started expanding. So I went…on the same day we opened up Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Florida. This year we opened Georgia in Q1, Orlando, and a bunch of other submarkets, um, and we’re continuing to grow as people like our value prop. If you don’t like our value prop, we don’t, we won’t do…
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so when you’re expanding these areas, you kind of like…are you like looking first, or you have targets, or people come to you more? Like how does it…organic?
Like it’s a bit of both. It’s probably what you guys see, like agents who are here, like, “Oh, we got to go here; I’ve got my best,” and they connect us, and we have a conversation; we have policy; and we have requirements for what will allow us to, to open a market. But I say it over and over and over again, like I’m here for a long time, not a good time. Yeah, right? Like this is my life. Yeah, you know? I didn’t start the company as a widget to then raise money and see what happens. Yeah, like this is my life; I still broker deals—not nearly as many as I used to; I focus on the bigger things, and I work with our, our agents and all our markets and try to get creative. Like, for example, there’s an agent we have in the Hamptons who’s been with me for a long time; his name is Jack Richardson; young, hungry guy; love Jack. Right? Uh, he has a deal right now on for…dun…yeah. Okay, house; good house. Yep. So the ask is 25 million; the house is like 80% complete, right? So…but…so it’s tricky. So my value on that deal is…this Friday, the one that just passed…talk to them, and they’re like, “What do…what should we do?” We should move it…like here’s what you’re going to do on Monday, literally today, two hours ago…um, you’re going to drop the price to 12.2 and see what happens. It’s not an auction; it’s nothing else; freeze the marketplace and see what happens. If no one shows up, we have a problem, right? And just see…and then use that…but because I’ve done that before a lot of times, and it works every single time.
Talk about disruption, man. That’s a pretty cool…that’s a cool strategy. That’s…it’s tough to get someone to kind of…let’s cut this thing by 15 million, $10 million…like…so…yeah.
Years and years ago, I went to Australia, yeah, and I’m talking to all the brokers there, and the biggest question they had for me, because they would watch Million Dollar Listing, is, “So wait a minute, who determines the listing price in America?” Yeah. It’s like, well, we…well, the seller does, and we do…they’re like…and you just put that on the internet? Yeah. Well, yeah, that’s how people come…to them…mind blown. Yeah. In Australia, they have reserve prices. So if you think it’s worth 10, it’s listed as a reserve at 7, and then buyers search based on what they can afford in a range, so they’re not missing your property, and then everything’s on the market for 30 days; the seller covers all costs, and it sells after a month or it doesn’t. Yeah. So they call them auctions. To me, I hear the word auction, I’m like, that’s…that’s negative; that’s bad; that’s distress. Yeah. For them, having a seller put something on…put it on the market for 12 when it’s actually worth 10 and having it sit there for 6 months, that’s distress. Yeah. And a waste of everyone’s time. Yeah. I like…ah…so I came back to the US…we were selling a kosher townhouse from their development portfolio on the Upper West Side that a previous broker had at 16 million, then they dropped it to 14, and then they were going to give it to me at 12, right? And I was like, “Guys, I just went to Australia; this is what…” I have an idea. Yeah. Um, “What do you want to sell it for?” And that’s where most people are…have a hard time…like anything above 10…we get 10 or above that would be great. It’s like, well, the comps are actually 9 to 10. So if we get you 10, take it and run. Here’s what we’re going to do: instead of pricing at 12, we’re going to price it at 6, and it’s gonna be 50% off for a week; see what happens. Eventually somebody’s going to stop this from happening, because it does disrupt the market for a week, and it freezes the marketplace, and everyone has a panic attack. But we had 80 people come through in five days; create that urgency; we had 20 offers, and a bunch of people were right around 10, and we sold it to one guy for 10 million bucks, and he would…he would have sat there and waited for the price to come down for 6 months.
I’ve done that, the…but not to that degree, but I…I got a really cool Stanhope, Langford, Wilson house at Sea Harbor; was this major Captain’s House, and I never…going into that, and the guy was the ex-Secretary of State for the UK, and it was a very…I was pitching against every top broker; had the whole…the whole crew; every top broker. And I’m kind of like you; I’m like a little bit of the younger guy; like I’m not that…you know, these guys have been doing it for 20, 30 years, and I came in and underpriced it by like probably 3 to 5 million less than everybody else, and this guy was like a very stern UK politician, and it was not an easy drop, but we sold it full price within two weeks. Yeah. And I feel like if more brokers have that kind of conversation, a lot more real estate moves fast, but it’s hard.
It’s cool. I…sellers paid agents by the hour, property would be priced far more realistically. Yeah, we do that in the Hamptons too, because there’s guys that…they’re not going to name names, but they’ll just take it…1% commission…crazy prices…hang…you know what I learned in the Hamptons from those guys? Yeah, is the strategy of overprice…yep…over-communicate…allows you to oversell. So it can…it can work if you do the middle part…you get an email every week to people, and it’s like, “This is what’s going on,” and we do all this stuff, and it’s kind of…it’s a lot of fluff, but they don’t…you know…actually, I had a guy on my team; we ran all the numbers, and if you look at their sell-off ask, it’s ridiculously high; like their percentage off their original ask is…is through the roof, which is just not good. I mean, it should be more public what that happens…or…yeah.
Um, this has been really fun, right? I mean, I guess like going back to like broker…say I’m coming in here…like what guy like me…yeah…you know what’s your pitch…like that might be…com…at certain hand…um…when’s your…when your…when’s your Compass…when’s your Compass contract up? And what are your clawbacks? Like what are those golden handcuffs? How tight are they?
Man, those handcuffs are like…they’re just the blood in the wrists. But what’s your…what’s the pitch like for a broker like…T…you know…listen, for me, trying to build a team…scale a team…that’s always been a pain point; trying to figure that out…so like me…guys been at Hampton a while…do it’s a good business, but like, you know…yeah, there’s significant value proposition. Okay, so first and foremost, what I care the most…and like every time I meet with any agent or Elva, who runs the Hampton for us, meets with any agent or in any of our other markets, because I did this process in 2019, from 2017 to 2019, I went and met with everyone; I met with Robert; I met with…I met with the Zach and Dorfs; I met with Howard Lber; I met with Pam; everybody…all the…because I didn’t want…Wass…yeah. So I met with them all. Yeah. And the through line from all of them was, “If you come to us, we’re going to make you better; we use this; wear this; wear this; all of this is going to make you this.” Okay. If you come to us, we’re going to make you better. And I was like, okay, I get it, but I feel like there’s got to be a way where if I work with you, you should be better for me. I’m pretty sure I’m the one doing the business, unless you’re going to give me guaranteed leads. Yeah, which we have here because we have a massive marketing funnel and a new TV show coming out on Netflix in June and like a significant amount of lead flow that comes through where everyone here is super happy, right? So we have that; the other firms don’t. Um, and none of them wanted to hear that; they’re like, well, we have…we got bureaucracy; the politics; the this…I’m like, yeah…so…so I blame every other real estate CEO for forcing me to do this, to be completely honest; I would have been totally happy just going someplace and like, yes, you get it. Yeah. And so we have an in-house production studio, so you never have to think about content creation; you can do your own thing as much as you want. Yeah, but we’re there; they’re also based in the Hamptons; we have in-house creative agency that is also based out in the Hamptons as well; all content; all creative; everything for agents…branding; exactly; whatever. And then three…what we really do is really look at, okay, let’s say you come to us in a year from now, what is true where you’re happy? Yeah. Is it you have a well-oiled machine as a team with a great dynamic? Is it you have a clear and concise brand and you’re starting to take greater market share on the ocean? Is it you actually have more time for your family because you’re now using Simple? And holy…how did you not have that before? Yeah. Everyone’s a little bit different, and we will…will custom create what that process looks like; then you work with me; and then there’s lead flow; and then there’s things we get to do together, especially in the Hampton, and it works out on top of everything else.
Yeah. I mean, how do you do it all? I mean, like how do you…you know…pour these agents…how do you…I mean, you got a daughter, wife…like all this stuff…family stuff…I mean, how do you…
I totally just forgot that I had a family…until you just…you just reminded me.
I like…me too. I think we said family, so we both reminded each other. Exactly. Um, no, I mean, it’s a lot. I mean, it’s amazing. I’m…I’m inspired. You think you’re incredible; incredible energy; what you do; what you’ve accomplished and continue to accomplish; I mean…it’s awesome. You know, it’s a lot…a lot of hats.
You know, it is a lot of hats, um, uh, it’s all about the people and surrounding yourself with the right people; being super…being quick to hire, but also quick to fire. Right? And quicker to promote. Yeah, that’s been really important; I learned that one the hard way. I also learned the quick…I learned all of these the hard way. Yeah. Um, and then allowing those people to have freedom, but also understanding that the buck stops with you and letting them know three things: one, never tell me what I want to hear; if you do that, we will all go bankrupt. Yeah. Okay? Never tell me what I want to hear. Two, you are now solution-oriented only; it’s really, really easy to point out the problems; it’s really hard to point out the solutions. I found that myself too. You just focus on the damn problems; bring me solutions; tell me…tell me the problem and what are your three ideas for solutions; that’s how we’re going to build and grow. And then three, just like you read in the first book, it’s…it’s follow through, right? On everything; if you say you’re going to do something, do it; when you say you’re going to do it…you’re only as good as your reputation; follow…again…follow through; follow up; follow through; follow back; the three Fs.
So…so amazing. Yeah. Yeah, man. And then a bunch of other things, like what’s the end game for you? Like is it…is it always real estate? I mean, where you going with this whole…this…Shanship? I mean, where’s it going?
Yeah…Elon to the Moon…Mars…oh my…this is a…this is a…um…there’s a holding company here; sell it…just rebranded to sellit.com a month ago, um, and so that’s Salesforce for sales training; uh, real estate; we are…
Making simple and expanding as quickly and as at a pace as we're comfortable with. Studios, uh, is, you know, is is the really building is HGTV for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. They're involved in the Netflix show and everything else that we've been working on and are really democratizing content. People talk about that enough, like the like example like Phil Knight from Nike's, what, 8 85 years old, right? His son is a millennial, or and he's going to be all that transfer of wealth that's going to Millennials and Gen Z that's going to be happening. So where do they meet these people? Yeah, you know, yeah, exactly. That's why we just agreed to the I'll show it to you. When will this come out? Probably I think we usually do next, not this month, but the month after. So two months from now. Okay, so this will be out by then. But this is the new uh, the new so the Netflix will announce this next week.
Oh yeah, I've heard you teasing some of this stuff. It's just it's just yeah, house is different than the Bravo stuff. I mean, well, Bravo's over, we I know, but I'm saying like what's like what's is it a different premise? Like what's the so this show is uh, it's called Owning Manhattan. Um, it starts in New York City because that's where we started and then kind of watches us as if we grow and expand and it follows myself and a bunch of other agents here as we do deals throughout the city. So it's Million Dollar Listing, which is me, um, not the other guys, meets like Succession with a little humor. Yeah, it's kind of what you're great you're great on TV. You got a great cool. Yeah, it'll be super stressful to watch. So make sure you turn in.
One thing I want to get to and we'll wrap it up, but I think one thing I always ask and I think it's a great I mean what keeps you what what worries you? What keeps you up at night? You wake up at 2 AM, dude. What's what's on your mind? I to be completely honest, like I feel like it was just yesterday when I moved to New York City uh and was very very quickly running out of money because the city is so EXP expensive and like I'll never forget that like I'll never forget running out of money at the grocery store, you know, and like crying in the subway, like what do I do at that point? So even though my life is very very different now, I still react that way. And so I'd say like in the middle of the night I still think about like all right, what is our payroll now? Yeah, like what are we what do I pay for this building? Like I think about things not working. I think about just realizing like dreams and creating reality from vision and just moving as quickly as we can. All those things, man.
Yeah, it's got to be heavy. All this all the stuff, all the people, especially the Brokers, like everything it's you know, on top of you. Yeah, and they I think they whether they do or they don't, you know, they put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders by saying, Hey, listen, I could I could work by myself. I could do a totally different job. I could be at any other firm. All these other firms are offering us money, but I'm gonna choose you and I'm gonna attach myself to this rocket ship. Don't let me down. And so I feel that right there's like across markets now there's like six just under 600 people here, um, on the agent side there's like 150 employees and so that's you know, it's a lot of it's a lot of people that keep me up at night now. Yeah, it's not just because they text me and call me, though. Whole yeah yeah and on top of that everything else. Yeah. So Ryan, this has been amazing, man. I won't keep you too much. I know I got a busy day, but man, thanks for coming in. Yeah, thank you. Sure.