Its awesome having the talent we have in the building here @CreativeCubes.Co Daniel is another phenomenal example.
Today Daniel Slomoi from District Data and I got to vlog – Daniel is onto something big in my opinion. Metaphorically, he’s lining up all the carriages on the tracks and instead of attaching a bullet train he’s attaching his rocket ship.
Check out the vlog 🙂
Transcript
Tobi Skovron: Hey guys, welcome back to the vlog. A bit of noise in the background here as we celebrate Lucas’ birthday here at Creative Cubes.
Daniel: Happy birthday Lucas.
Tobi Skovron: I’m very lucky today to have Daniel here from District Data. Daniel’s actually a new member here at Creative Cubes doing some really big things in the property space.
Daniel: Yeah.
Tobi Skovron: Tell us a little bit about you. What have you done historically before District Data?
Daniel: Yes. I’ll give you a bit of background. Basically, I studied accounting and finance and was really opposed to that whole corporate suit and tie life, that 9:00 to 5:00 life. Always wanted my own business, but still had that sort of analytical brain. Always had a passion for property. So get my Master’s in property and then was working for a big national consultancy store just under two year. And just sort of-
Tobi Skovron: …Â being in big corporate, big business.
Daniel: Basically once I got this idea, and once I saw the scope to- I’m trying to modernise the way these big consultancies operate. So they’re historically really about static reports, doing significant back end research, charging ridiculous fees, and it’s we’re in 2018 and its time to move forward and use a bit of-
Tobi Skovron: So what you’re saying is you thought there could be a better way.
Daniel: Yep. Spot on.
Tobi Skovron: True entrepreneur right there. Okay. SO you pulled the shoot on being in big corporate, and started District Data.
Daniel: Correct. So basically the idea behind District Data is, if you’re a property developer or real estate agent or architect or account planner or anyone in the residential landscape, there’s a whole lot of information that you need in order to make the right decisions about where to buy, what to build, what to cost a project out, how many bundles of three bedroom apartments should you build, who’s going to be your main target market in the main suburb area that you’re in, what competition’s going on around the area. So that there are heaps of factors that you need to consider. And at the moment the information’s scattered all over the place.
Tobi Skovron: Is the information scattered because the market is really local real estate agents that don’t have a national reporting data analytical system behind them?
Daniel: Yeah I think that’s definitely part of the reason. The providers of data, a lot of the collect the information and don’t really know what to do with it.
Tobi Skovron: And then manually, I’ll go to a open house, for example. And it’s a manual, pen and paper for the agent wanting to close a deal on.
Daniel: And a lot of people ask me what a developer does. I’m not a developer, but I work with plenty of developers. And they really basically trying to put a bunch of pieces together. And each piece of the puzzle has their vested interest in their separate team. So an agent wants to make a sale as quickly as possible. A town planner wants to get the planning approval approved through the planning system as quickly as possible. An architect wants to design the most beautiful building in the best of worlds that he can design. And the developer want to make the investors happy and make money. And often those interests don’t align.
Tobi Skovron: So you’re saying there’s a disconnect at every junction.
Daniel: Correct. So the developer needs to basically- and this is where data comes in, and it’s difficult to get data with the computer systems and everything else. So it’s something that’s relatively new in the industry, that can help make logical and rational decisions whereby all of those players can have a bit of rational behind what they’re doing, rather than just, I want to build the most beautiful building. What’s actually going to sell, what’s going to serve the community, who’s going to buy it, and really target it correctly.
Tobi Skovron: Pretty clever guy. So are you creating a software? Are you creating a platform?
Daniel: Yes. So it’s going to be a platform, but it’s a subscription based platform when we get to launch, though we’re getting pretty close, just a few months away. And basically the idea is to bring together- it’s going to be a one stop shop for developers, agents, architects, to know what’s going on in their space. Pricing information, so what’s being sold in the area, how much is it being sold for, how much has it grown, rents, yields, all this pricing sort of information that one would need to know.
Daniel: There’s planning information, so looking at what the planning scheme would allow at a particular sites. How many stories can we go, is it targeted, which zone is it, any overlays that prevent certain builds on a site. Looking at demographic information, who’s living there, how’s it changing over time, tracked it down …
Tobi Skovron: Now is that the secret sauce?
Daniel: Yeah, well, there are so many different data sources, so I’m trying to bring it all together into one place. A Lot of the bigger developers will pay quite a lot of money, even to a big consultancy firm, to do the research for them. Or they will have an in-house team who generally don’t know where to get a lot of the information and then they do it. So time consuming, downloading massive Excel spreadsheets. A lot of computer scope just downloading the Excel spreadsheets, let alone actually analysing it and turning it into capital-able information. So yeah, that’s the business, to bring the …
Tobi Skovron: Do you have a landing page right now?
Daniel: At the moment we’re doing a bit of consulting work as well. And that’s keeping me quite busy juggling consulting and obviously developing this platform. My developers are really talented and keeping on top of that. So a few long hours, quite a few days of long hours.
Tobi Skovron: I’m surprised you’ve only got one side hustle going on. Most people have several wanting to just keep themselves above water.
Daniel: So that consulting page is up and running. So if you visit www.districtdatat.com.au you’ll have a look at what’s an offer in the consulting side of the space, the business.
Tobi Skovron: You don’t have to remember that. I’ve dropped the description in the link below.
Daniel: He looks after me.
Tobi Skovron: So districtdata.com. You’re on LinkedIn so people can reach out to you as well. Keep watching this space. I think this is a really interesting space. I think that you’ve aligned a couple of things which are critically important to the future of development and actually line up all the cards on the train. So very cool. All the best.
Daniel: Thank you very much Tobi.
Tobi Skovron: Really, really honestly, really proud to have you here.
Daniel: Proud to be here.
Tobi Skovron: So if there’s anything that we can do, or anything out there that’s close to what Daniel’s out with, what he’s doing. Not that we’re asking quite exactly for help but if anyone wants to reach out, reach out.
Daniel: Always happy to help.
Tobi Skovron: And let’s try and make District Data a household name for Welded Industries. We’ll see you guys next week.
Daniel: Thank you.
