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How Do You Build a Community Using Innovative Technology in the Residential Space? with Nobu Iguchi and Fatima Dicko

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Jun 22, 2022

Summary: In the
penultimate episode of season 9 of the Propcast, Louisa is joined
by Nobu Iguchi, Managing Partner at Agya Ventures, and Fatima
Dicko,
Founder & CEO
at
Sugar.

In this episode, they discuss
their journeys into the real estate innovation space and how, over
the years, they’ve come to realise how important the concept of
“community” has become. 

We hear from Fatima about the
mission, product and value of Sugar in the real estate industry,
while Nobu explains how Agya Ventures helps businesses expand into
Japan. The key takeaway from this episode is that
i
nnovation happens as a
result of people taking risks.


Resources:


Companies Mentioned:

 

 


Shout Outs:


Key Insights From This Episode: 

  • The largest expense for building managers and
    owners is apartment turnover. – Fatima
  • Gen Z will represent over 40% of the workforce
    by 2024. Most of them will be renters versus home buyers. –
    Fatima
  • Community is a universal need. –
    Nobu
  • If we continue building a product that
    customers love, continue listening to the product feedback, and
    continue solving this large and growing problem then we can build a
    company that is not only relevant right now, but sustainable over
    the long run. – Fatima
  • Real estate has both a local component to it
    and a global component to it. – Nobu 
  • Innovation happens as a result of people taking
    risks. – Fatima 
  • Real estate is the largest global asset class
    with a 1% technology utilisation rate. – Fatima

 

About Our Guests:

Nobu Iguchi, Managing Partners at Agya
Ventures

Nobu Iguchi is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at
Agya Ventures. Before Agya Ventures, Nobu worked at
Bridgewater Associates, as a senior investment professional on the
micro equities team. Nobu started his career at McKinsey & Company,
where he was based out of the Tokyo office, and worked on projects
across the United States, Thailand and Germany. Nobu holds a BS in
Chemistry from Yale College and an MBA from Harvard Business
School. 

 

Agya Ventures
Agya Ventures is a technology-focused real estate fund
investing in exceptional entrepreneurs and early-stage
companies.

 

Fatima Dicko, Founder & CEO at
Sugar

Fatima Dicko is the Founder & CEO of Sugar, a resident experience platform that helps
property managers build stronger communities. Before Sugar, Fatima
spent 5 years at P&G as a senior engineer on a product
innovation team. While at P&G, she received several patents and
was 1 of 127 nominated technologists awarded the annual ‘Most
Transformative Product Innovation’ award.


Fatima came to the U.S. from Mali at a young
age and grew up in New York City, receiving her B.S. in Chemical
Engineering from Columbia University and MBA from Stanford Business
School. She was named as ’18 Inspiring Women to Watch’ by Inc
Magazine, listed on the 2021 Forbes ‘Next 1000’ list and has been
featured in major publications such as TechCrunch, Business
Insider, Crunchbase, Black Enterprise and CNBC.

 

Sugar

Sugar is a modern resident engagement platform that
turns apartment buildings into vibrant communities. Sugar allows
residents to pay rent, unlock doors and earn rewards for engaging
with their community. By elevating the residential experience at
their properties, Sugar helps managers attract new residents,
increase lease renewal rates and introduce additional revenue
streams. Sugar’s vision is to turn strangers into neighbours and
neighbours into friends.

 

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly
become the market-leading global PropTech recruitment platform and
search consultancy with operations across North America, the United
Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is
so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast


‘The Propcast’
where she
hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join
her in conversation about innovation.


About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in
Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was
to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to
the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart
Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed
at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and
clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking
exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK,
Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.


Timestamps:

[02:20] Fatima: Can you share
your journey to this space? 

  • My background is in chemical
    engineering. 
  • I started thinking about communities when I was
    at Stanford Business School, how do they  form, what
    strengthens communities and what keeps communities
    alive?
  • When I moved to LA, I lived in an apartment
    building with hundreds of people and I started an experiment where
    we put a QR code in the elevator, from there we started looking at
    traditional property management platforms and found residents
    weren’t very happy with them.
  • The name Sugar came from the cup of sugar from
    your neighbour. 

[04:20] Nobu: Can you tell us
about your journey to the VC space? 

  • My co-founder and I were at college together
    but we went on very different paths. 
  • In 2019,  I had an idea about raising
    capital from real estate developers and other entities with an
    interest in real estate and investing the capital in promising real
    estate technology startups.
  • We left our previous jobs and started Agya
    Ventures. Our LPs are real estate developers, construction
    companies and other entities that are interested in real estate and
    construction innovation.

[05:40]  Nobu: What do you
call “early stage” and how much capital do you look to put
in?

  • Seed is our sweet spot but we invest
    pre-seed.
  • $500,000 to $1 million. 

[07:40] Fatima: Can you talk a
bit more about how you can strengthen community resident spaces and
how did you go about your raise with Nobu? 

  • Building Community in Residential
    Spaces: 
    • The largest expense for building managers and
      owners is apartment turnover. 
    • Gen Z, who will represent over 40% of the
      workforce by 2024, most of them will be renters versus home
      buyers. 
    • Community is not a nice to have or luxury, it’s
      a necessity. 
  • Raising with Nobu: 
    • Nobu understood the vision and the importance
      of community from the early days.
    • When we dove into the nuances of the actual
      opportunity and what things are going to look like moving forward,
      they continued to resonate. 

[09:30] Fatima: Where is Sugar
based? 

  • We are alive in properties in different regions
    across the country, our largest presence is in LA but we live in
    properties in Florida, North Carolina and New
    York. 
  • What makes an ideal Sugar property and profile
    – 30 or more units and we have seen a lot of engagement in senior
    living properties so our ideas about demographics are
    changing. 
  • Community resonates with people of different
    ages and geographic regions.

[12:40] Nobu: What change have
you seen pre and post-COVID? Have you been investing at the same
rate? How many more investments are you looking to secure by the
end of this year? 

  • What changes have you seen pre- and
    post-COVID? 
    • The need for community has been direr and has
      been more pronounced with COVID.
    • Some people were working remotely before COVID
      and now hybrid work is an integral part of how employers are
      thinking about their workforce.
    • Our fund started investing post-COVID and one
      of the things that emerged with COVID were a lot of amazing startup
      ideas.
  • Have you been investing at the same
    rate?
    •  2021 was a booming year for VC and many
      startups emerged. 
    • There has been a change since then because of
      inflations. 
    • Some of the best companies come out of these
      uncertain times.

[16:20] Nobu: Do you think
valuations will go slightly down or be more slightly
realistic?

  • We are already seeing late-stage correction
    that’s in response to a public market correction and we’re seeing
    mid-stage valuation correction in response to the late-stage
    correction.

[16:50] Fatima: How have the
last nine months been since securing your investor?

  • Over the last year, we’ve invested heavily in
    the product which has led to greater efficiency within sales and
    marketing.
  • If we continue building a product that
    customers love, continue listening to the product feedback, and
    continue solving this large and growing problem then we can build a
    company that is not only relevant right now, but sustainable over
    the long run. 

[19:15] Nobu: You help
businesses expand out to Japan, how do you go about
it? 

  • We invest in US-based technology companies and
    one of the things we do bring to the table for founders is an
    expansion to Japan.
  • We also work with companies that are not
    necessarily portfolio.

[22:20] The ‘LMRE’ part, Louisa asks the guests to talk
about; 

L – Touch on
the main 
lessons you have learnt throughout your
career.

Nobu: There is a risk in not
taking a risk.

M – Please give
a
 mention to anyone / product / service.

Nobu: Kunal, Aaron, Elian, my
wife, Megan and my daughter, Ruth. 

R – What has
been the most  
rewarding  aspect of working in PropTech?

Fatima:  It’s a very
relationship-driven industry. 

E – What are
you 
excited about in the future of PropTech?

Fatima:  There’s so much
opportunity in this space.


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