Hello RealDesk Fans,

Welcome back to our company newsletter, where we’ll keep you in the loop on all things RealDesk.

ICYMI: What’s RealDesk?

RealDesk.AI is on a mission to eliminate the administrative burden that bogs down real estate brokerages, empowering agents and brokers to focus on closing deals and growing their business. Built on cutting-edge AI, RealDesk doesn’t just streamline workflows—it makes them invisible. Compliance, commission calculations, deal management, and bookkeeping are handled automatically, seamlessly, and in real time. RealDesk is the modern brokerage operating platform, designed to save time, slash costs, and give brokerages an edge in a rapidly evolving industry.  

The Journey So Far

Right now, we’re working with a select — and growing — group of real estate brokerages from across Canada to test some of what we’ve built, and prototype our new innovations.

We’re a proud alumni member of the DMZ (Proptech cohort), and are supported by a small group of advisors, including our original DMZ cohort sponsor GroundBreak Ventures.

News & Media

• We were a featured sponsor at the Ontario Real Estate Association’s Peak Leadership Summit in Toronto, and kicked off Day 2 of the summit with some introductory remarks about AI’s potential to transform real estate operations. We got a tremendous response and started several new conversations with brokers who see the need for change and want to stay ahead of the curve.

• Alongside many of our partners and other leading innovators, RealDesk was featured in Proptech Collective’s 2024 Proptech in Canada Report, on the residential solutions map in the "Tech-Enabled Real Estate Brokerage" category. Even though you don't have to be a particularly "techy" brokerage to see the value of eliminating administrative busywork, I like that the positioning differentiates us from legacy transaction tools that perpetuate inefficiency, instead of innovating to address it. Download the report here!

• We’ve been selected to take part in the Vector Institute's Data Readiness, Model Development, and Model Deployment (DaRMoD) program. This four-month program is designed to help startups fast-track their machine learning initiatives, providing the tools and insights needed to make AI-driven innovation a reality.

• Our friend Cormac Repman featured the RealDesk story on his Nurturance podcast about scaling startups:

• We hosted a webinar called “The Million-Dollar Workflow: 5 Strategies to Work Smarter, Not Harder”, focusing on actionable strategies brokers can use to simplify, optimize, and grow their businesses. Given the positive response, we’ll be adding new webinar topics, as well as turning the materials from this talk into a white paper that will soon be available from our website.

Platform Updates

• We’ve added Pre-Authorized Debit (PAD) for agent expense recovery, giving brokerages a seamless way to collect outstanding balances directly from agents’ bank accounts. This new option works alongside our existing credit card recovery, offering brokerages a lower-cost alternative that avoids credit card fees while still eliminating outstanding A/R.

• Speaking of A/R, we released a new Accounts Receivable Report that allows offices to keep better track of their aging receivables (for agents who perhaps don’t have a card on file). This furthers our goal of building all of the necessary reporting capabilities required to centralize all accounting functions within RealDesk.

• It wouldn’t be January without some updates to the T4A process! CRA made some changes to their preferred submission file format, so we accommodated these, and made a few other enhancements to speed up the process of previewing and generating the slips for agents.

• Last but not least, we continued to progress our AI-powered document ingestion prototype, and will be starting the work of integrating this capability into the main RealDesk platform in February.

Priorities for February

• Closing Pipeline Opportunities: We have several prospects that we believe can be successfully closed this month.

• Cold Outreach Campaign: Working with a partner, we’ll be launching a short-term outreach initiative during the second week of February that should open up some more top of funnel.

• Expanding the Webinar Series: We’ll be hosting a second webinar, specifically on the topic of AI, in late February.

• Enhancing Our Website: Introducing new resources, improved navigation, and better tools to ensure visitors find the information they need quickly and easily.

• Recruiting New Advisors: Seeking experienced professionals to guide RealDesk’s next phase of growth. If you’re passionate about real estate and technology, we’d love to hear from you!

• New Platform Features, including:

  • Dynamic Payment Links to request payments securely and seamlessly.

  • A full refactor of the Deduction Manager for enhanced flexibility and performance.

  • Reworking our data model to support additional third parties, which will open up more payment capabilities for vendors and other parties.

Asks

Like any startup, we’re always keen to meet anyone with whom we might collaborate:

• Industry Intros: Real estate brokers, top-producing agents, industry influencers, or anyone else who can help us in our product discovery

• Fundraising: Introductions to angel and early-stage venture investors

• Partnerships: Innovative proptech / fintech / legal tech companies and founders

• Advisors: We’re seeking those with deep connections in the North American real estate landscape, and/or specialized skillsets in AI, design, and information architecture

More generally, If our mission resonates with you, then we’d love to have you with us as we navigate this journey. Whether you’re a broker, agent, technology partner, investor, or just interested in what the future of real estate could look like, please do reach out, and follow us here and on our various social media channels.
Thanks so much for your support!!

— The RealDesk Team

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