Episode 412 - Remixed: A Journey from Marine to Proptech CEO

Yeah, we, the product strategy for Rayse was intentional. We wanted to provide a buyer. First of all, we knew this lawsuit. We were aware of this lawsuit for years and years and years before.So we weren't gambling. It was definitely a tailwind. It helped us get our message out and everything we thought was going to happen, frankly, has happened.

You're listening to the Real Estate Sessions and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers and really anyone with a story to tell.It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me in my 10th year and over 400 episodes of the podcast. And now I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 412 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast.As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend. Passion, it's a word I love.And passionate people are what really drive me, especially with the podcast and that is what we get. Today. I'm going to be talking with Christian Dwiggins. Christian is one of the Co founders, co CEOs of Rayse. Rayse is a platform like no other.We'll leave it right there. And I can't wait to get this thing going. So let's get started. Christian, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.

Yeah, I'm very excited to have you on the show. It's. Look, I'm going to be really honest right up front. I'm speaking with a gentleman who has a huge background in the audio space. He's all about.We'll talk about that part of his life. It's pretty cool.But it's the first time that's ever happened on the podcast where I've had somebody who understands what's happening here more than the average Joe. How's that make sense? Yeah. And big shout out to Bondland for another great recommendation for a guest.I have a couple of top, I call them referrers who are really good at bringing me people that I super fun to talk to. And Christian, you are a co. Founder, co CEO of Rayse.We're going to talk a lot about that, but I like to kind of start at the beginning and I think I kind of warned you about this.

Yep.

I, I know you're a Nor. Cal guy now. No, Cal. Right up north. But tell me, tell me, are you, you're, were you born in California? Are you a native Californian?

I am a native, yes. I was born in Santa Monica down south, but I don't really remember that. I think at a very young age. Let me see if I remember this correctly. Yeah.Born in Santa Monica. My parents lived in Eagle Rock at the time. But before I could really remember, remember anything, we had moved up to San Luis Obispo.So I grew up in Slow Town. My grandfather and grandmother were there. And my grandfather was one of the older founding ranchers of the area. So we had. He.He was just an old school rancher. He knew everything about anything that had to do with growing things and the earth.And probably the most influential person in my life was my grandfather. And I, you know, as the kids growing up, would say, my dad was stronger than your dad. I was.Would always talk about my grandfather being the strongest man I know. He used to chew on an old cigar. He never smoked it, but chewed on an old cigar on the side of his mouth.And his dad would chew on dried poison oak stems to build up immunity so that when he was working on the ranches, he never got poison oak. And they would chew willow branches because there's aspartame, natural aspartame built into willow for sore throats and all kinds of stuff. He even.Oh, this is a good story. He already got me into the good stories, man, it's awesome. He. Have you ever heard of water witching?

I have. It involves a stick with a fork at the end, right?

Yeah. A willow branch, specifically.

Okay.

And my grandfather wanted to perfect. Oh, my God, this is a great story. I haven't told this in a while. Perfect. Water witching.So he would have friends bury giant jars out in the crop crops, the croplands. And he would practice with the willow branch, going and seeing, seeing if he could identify where the water was. And he got so good at it.I never got to see him do this. So this is all stories from him. But. But there is one resulting story.We had 52 acres above the country club, and that's where I knew my grandparents mostly living. And we were expanding the well. And he went in by him himself. He never let anybody watch it. He went and water witched it.And he staked where he wanted the well to be placed. And then the big truck, right, the big drilling trucks come in and they have to position themselves in a certain way.And then they go ahead and they start drilling. Well, the truck couldn't get it in the right area. And so they decided that, you know, 15ft over one direction was close enough.So they started drilling there.And my grandfather Was one of those, like, would do deals by shaking his hand and his word was solid and you do what you say you're going to do and all that stuff. And he could not understand why they drilled it 15 foot different. So they drilled it and it came back.It was like 50, you know, 50 gallons per minute or something. It was not great. And, you know, the drillers were like, sorry, I guess there's no water down there. He's like, no, I asked you to drill here.I want you to drill here. And he kind of, you know, kind of verbally go back and forth with them.They finally moved the truck in an area they thought he was, you know, this crazy old man. They put, you know, they started drilling exactly where he put it. You want to. You want to guess how many gallons per minute that sink was?

You said 50. I'll go 500.

It's 500 is a little crazy, but. No, it's okay. Yeah, 100 and is somewhere between 120 and 130 gallons per minute. NASA all in well. And so.

Wow.

Yeah, that's a little insight of my grandfather. He. So, yeah, I grew up a lot with him. He taught me pretty much how to critically think and build anything.He had a lot of old trucks and built his first car for himself as a kid. And I learned to drive the ranch truck when I was, I don't know, 12 or something. Big stick GMC thing. So. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I'm a California native.Bring it back.

No, that's. Look, I love that story, you know, and the way you closed it with the term critical thinking.Think about how that sets you up for life at a very young age. Well, that's just. That's fantastic. Water. Witching water. San Luis Obispo, right on the coast.I'm just going to guess, you know, I grew up in San Diego. I'm just going to guess that the Pacific was a part of your life in one way shape or another.

It definitely was. I finding my place as a kid was. Was difficult.I mean, I'm sure it's difficult for most, but I went to a small Catholic school since third grade, and so I was with the same group of people, same 30 kids or something from third grade all the way up through high school. I went to Mission College Prep high school and graduated class of 36 or something like that. Super small. So I was always trying to find my identity.And so I was split between, as I mentioned before, time with my grandfather, which was a lot of time on the ranches. He Had a number of properties. He had, you know, hundreds and hundreds and maybe thousands of acres out in crease of plains that was wheat farming.So I spent a lot of time there and the other half of my time I spent trying to be a beach bum. And it's interesting about San Luis Obispo specifically because it's so rooted in a lot of agricultural, you know, history.But it's also part of some of the most beautiful coastline you can find in the state. It's such a, such a unique area. And so my childhood very much looked like the dichotomy between those two.Sometimes you would even catch me at the barns with my flip flops on and my Bermuda shorts. So yeah, that's. Yes, I did spend a lot of time surfing, which led me into volleyball. Beach volleyball was a huge thing. Mine, it still is today.I still love playing on the sand courts. But yeah, so, yeah, a lot of, a lot of water sports.

I gotta tell you, I didn't know about the volleyball. So I live here in St. Petersburg, Florida and there's a great court set up right down just past the Vanoy Hotel.And I walk by those, those players, you know, every Saturday for sure, but other days while they're out there, I, I've tried to play two man volleyball and there is, I don't think people appreciate just how difficult it is to in thick sand and then try to jump high enough. It's brutal, it's incredible. And watching people play it well is amazing.

Yeah, it's. I love it because of the culture.I love the warm sand, I love being out on the beach and I also love the sport mostly because it's a two man sport and you have to. A lot of high communication is required for you to work really well. So I like the bonding between, you know, the partner that you're playing with.There is a lot of strategy. But also, you know, growing up as a kid, I'm 6 foot 4, I'm lengthy, lanky and a bit on the skinny side.And all of the volleyball players look like me. I was like, oh, there's a sport where everybody looks like me.I don't have to be £250 and like in the gym every, you know, every day to play this sport. So yeah, I played that and I played tennis. I almost went semi pro with tennis. James, by the way, my brother also plays tennis.We, we, we both grew up playing tennis and we were both very good. And then soccer too.

Very tall. Two very tall men who can probably whale on a first serve. So that's a huge advantage.

Yeah. And he and I both played soccer and I guess you can probably imagine the position. We both played soccer. We were both keepers. Yeah. That's awesome.Yeah.

Cool.It was funny when you were talking about the, the two people working together and why it's so important, the communication once again, I'm thinking a raise there. I'm thinking of that having some power and some, some impact. Right. It's the ability to communicate. So we'll keep moving down this path.I, I mean, I could talk to you about. Because I'm a California kid, we had to talk here for the next three hours, but let's, let's accelerate this through.After finishing university, you joined the Marines.

I did.

And that's, that is not something that I get a lot of on the podcast. So I would love to have you share with me, you know, why that path.And then ultimately, I think, you know, of the, of the, of all the services you can join the, the, the Marines, I think really are going to set you up, down a path for success. Am I correct with that assessment?

Yeah. I think any time spent in the military, regardless of brand, is important.There are countries in the world that require that of their citizens, and I find that very interesting. You know, growing up in San Luis Obispo is wonderful, but it's also a very small town and I was, you know, very young. I tried.I went a year to Cal Poly and I studied materials engineering and it just wasn't a fit for me. I needed, I don't know, I needed something. I needed something bigger. I hadn't really left St. Louis that much, so.And I needed, I know I, I knew I needed something really tough because I have a ability to see systems very easily and navigate around them and sort of, you know, if I can find a way to kind of get things done but not be fully invested in it, then I'm going to circumvent that system a little bit because my brain gets kind of crafty like that. So I needed a branch that wasn't going to let me fly. I needed a branch that was going to hold me to the utmost accountability.I'm also slightly elitist, so I like the idea of like, the Marine Corps is the elite brand. Right. So there was a lot of that in the decision making. And boy, was I for, in for a wake up call. I mean, it happened.When you sign up, things happen awfully quickly. And from the first bus ride down to the processing station to where you get off that bus onto those Yellow footprints.

It's.

It's a whole thing. You. It is Alice in Wonderland, like. And, you know, I could.We could do a whole podcast on the design of boot camp, by the way, because it's actually quite fascinating how they psychologically move you through three phases.You know, the first phase being breaking you down, the second phase being all about giving you the tools to be effective in combat, teaching you every single weapon. And the first one is polishing you up.You learn about all the history, you learn how to do parade, march, you learn about the customs and all that stuff. So you come through with a fully. A fully polished, you know, identity as a Marine and not a robot by any means. It's a. It's a, you know, a full.A fully fledged human who is really focused on mission accomplishment.I bring up mission accomplishment, and this will be a little kickoff later on in this podcast when we talk about what I draw from military into my corporate work. But, you know, the Marine Corps is very clear about their goal setting.Mission accomplishment is number one, and number two is unit cohesiveness or unit morale. And above all, mission has to be accomplished.But they are very acutely aware that you can't accomplish a mission if you can't take care of your people.And so that really becomes a framework for almost everything I do moving forward in my career is how do we drive goals forward and how do we accomplish where we're trying to get? But I know that humans are not a commodity. The most important part, and the strength is how well your unit moves together.And you're only as good as your weakest link. And how do I move these people along with the goal and take care of them? Because they're really the ones that are going to get you to the end.

Wow. Yeah, that's. That's fascinating.I know a few Marines, I play golf with a couple of Marines, and there's no, no one that I would want to be stuck in a bad situation with than them, just by the way they react. And some of the things that I've seen them do, I mean, it's just incredible. So. And I have to. I'm going to say thank you for your service because.Unbelievable. I think that's fantastic. There's a lot of people in this business whose families were in real estate. You talked about your grandfather. That's.There's definitely. He owned a lot of properties and things. Your brother. I.I'm not sure if there are other people in your family that are in the business, but you didn't decide to go that route. And was it, was it the rebellious side of Christian that we're going to talk about here?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good. Every young man goes through, I assume every child goes through some sort of rebellion. A young man goes through it, I think differently than.Than a female child does. I know from my experience, I pretty much wanted to shed everything and, and create my own past that I owned intentionally me.And I think the first real decision that I made onto that path was joining the Marine Corps. That was my decision, that was my accomplishment, and that was the baseline for everything that came after, for sure.But, yeah, it was definitely a rebel against what I had grown up around, which was wonderful, frankly. It was. It was great.Again, my grandfather was a truly key figure, but to take nothing away from, you know, my mom and my dad, My mom was a real estate agent. My dad was a broker and a finance guy.My grandfather, even though he was so much into ranching and all of that, he was also a brilliant businessman who owned a brokerage. Also my grandmother, his wife was into architecting and creating floor plans and also property owning and flipping.And all of this was around my, you know, was just in my peripherals as I was growing up. So much so, by the way, I imagine my first.My first, my first word was either escrow or some profanity related to something that happened in some transaction. Because my mom, My mom is a very fiery person. Yeah.And, and, but, you know, as a child, looking up at your parents in this way, I think, you know, you look up at your mom and your dad who are providing for you and who are struggling and you're trying to make sense of the world or whatever. But my mom, being a uniquely a real estate agent, gave a very. Gave me a very interesting perspective.You know, agents struggle every day, like every single day.And I watched my mom sacrifice commissions just to make deals happen and struggle to make sure that she was, you know, making enough money so that we, you know, me and my brother had whatever we needed to have, whether it was going to private schools or, or sometimes just, you know, food and clothes. We were not the most well off family growing up. And so, you know, my mom and dad worked really, really hard.And so watching my mom, you know, struggle or watching my mom really. And I imagine any real estate agent that is listening to this can. Can attest, but, you know, she, she's a pleaser person.Like, she went through all of her professional experience trying to do great things for her clients. Like she, she Celebrated in their successes. Getting them to the finish line and into their home was the whole goal for her.And whatever it took, if she had to cut her commission in half, then that's what she had to do. But oftentimes, and I can remember very acutely the times when, you know, sometimes clients screw over real estate agents. They'll ghost them, though.My mom would invest time and energy and sometimes money into this, and then next thing you know, they're like, yeah, whatever, I found some other agent. We're going to go ahead and write it off over here. And it's like, it's just devastating.And so, you know, through the prism of a young, you know, a young child looking at their mom struggle in that way. I have to imagine, though I hadn't really overtly talked about this in this way, so thanks, Bill.But I imagine that somewhere deep in my programming that drives what we're trying to do at Raise. I see so much of the struggle nationally with the disconnect between what agents do and what their clients perceive that they do.It's like I'm reliving my childhood all over again. So maybe there's some Freudian thing happening, I don't know. But I'm here to help fix it.

Well, I can now say mission accomplished. Before we get to Raise, I. I would love to hear what you did instead of real estate, which is you were.I'm going to really, I'm going to butcher this for you. But you were an audio engineer, but you also ran. You. You were management level, doing things with sound. Not only, not only music, but also film.I mean, I see that all the time. Like, my wife and I love the movies. We go to the movies all the time. I see all the people that were involved in the sound of the movie.I have no clue what they did.I mean, I mean, I know they all had microphones probably, and really good recording devices, but talk about that world a little bit, I think it's fascinating.

So let's go, let's go. I'm going to make a reference and then I'll bring it full circle. So, all right. The end of my.Towards the end of my audio career, what I was doing, what I did for fun was I was a dj. And so. And I'll come back to this, but I'm going to use a reference from DJ Land to go back into my childhood, and then I'll bring us back forward.So when you're looking for some old record, we refer to that as going deep in the crates. So we're going to go deep in the crates for a second and then I'll come, come back.So I have a long history of music in parallel to all that was happening in my childhood and the sports and. And, you know, being with my grandfather and watching my mother and all that stuff. My mom took me to violin lessons for the first time.So my first instrument instrument was violin. I did that for a period of time. I was pretty good at it, but I kind of lost interest and dropped it.Then my grandmother was like, well, you should learn piano. And so I learned piano. I have nearly perfect pitch. And would drive her absolutely bonkers because she would try to teach me how to sight read.And I would just be like, grandma, just play this. Just play it for me. And I could hear it. And as soon as she would play it, I'd be like, okay, it's this and this and this. And then I could be play it.And she would just. She'd lose her mind. And so to this day, I can't read any music. So I never got her to teach me how to sight read.But I can pretty much figure out anything, anything by. By listening to it. So that was my next instrument. Then I left for the military.And halfway through the military, my roommate was a guitar player and we went to some bonfire and he and I wrote a song together. And he was playing guitar and I was singing backup and he was singing lead. And then that was really cool.And then he's like, you know, it's kind of stupid that you just are sitting next to me singing backup. You should learn how to play an instrument with me. I was like, all right, what bass? And he's like, yeah, learn the bass guitar.So taught myself the bass guitar. And so then Adam and I started a band while we were in the military, because why not? And we actually were fairly successful.We had some newspaper write ups. We played probably some venues you've heard of down in San Diego, so. Belly up.

Oh, my God. Doug was the lead guy for the Mardells, and we were up there all the time checking them out. Continue.

I know, yeah, we've played a bunch of venues all over Oceanside and all the way down into San Diego. And we even did Battle of the Bands with some fairly famous bands that we won't talk about.But ultimately, the Marine Corps didn't necessarily love the press we were getting and split us all up. So drummer went to. Where did drummer go? Camp Lejeune on the East Coast. Adam went to Okinawa, Japan, and I was.I was well, enough connected on base, I got to stay put, so I didn't have to go anywhere. So, yeah, so that the band sort of dissolved. And then I found Raving.I went to my first electronic music festival in San Diego at the Sports arena and I saw Rabbit in the Moon, Planet Soul and a bunch of other. A bunch of other DJs. Mind blown from that moment and I fell deep, deeply in love with electronic music.And that started my trajectory into electronic music and DJing. I had about a year left in the military, and by the time I got out of the military, I needed a job.But I was deeply into that scene and beginning to DJ on my own.And my uncle is a assistant director for film and he got me my first PA job and I started working different films in LA as a PA and sort of working my way up through those ranks while I was also partying and DJing and doing all the things. And then ultimately I got a call. My uncle got.Got called in with his best friend Peter Donen to direct a special effects department for a movie called U571. It's a submarine movie with Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi about, about finding the Enigma machine.We cracked the code and that saved us from losing that war. But the. That took us to an island in the middle of the Mediterranean called Malta.And Malta is unique because it has the largest water tank built on a cliff on the side of the island so that you can do models inside of this water tank and you can shoot underground underwater with it and control the environment. But if you set a camera on one side and shoot across, you can shoot across the horizon until the ocean.And then it looks like you have a model that's in the ocean. And so that's where we were as a Dino De Laurentiis film. And I was there for eight months.I brought my DJ records with me and went to Finland and DJed there while I was working on the film and came down and, you know, just had all kinds of fun in Europe. And then when I came back to the States, that's when I wanted to settle down and focus on how am I going to actually make a career out of this.So I put myself through engineering school, audio engineering. It was called Los Angeles Recording Workshop at the time. I graduated like second to top of the class.And they invited me to stay back and teach for a bit, which I did. My first internship was.My dream internship was working alongside the producer at Moonshine Records, which is the largest electronic label, independent label in North America at the time. Wow. And that's kind of where it all began. I was interning by doing things like copying CDs and, you know, doing some basic audio editing.And then I ultimately took over the entire production.Over the years, I did all of the mastering, I did all of the editing, all of the vinyl production for that label, and started to carve a name for myself in the industry because I would work with everybody, and I also would Ghost mix, Ghost DJ mix for a lot of big European DJs that didn't have the time or they couldn't come here to record something. So they would send me their track list, I would dj, they'd approve it, and we'd send it out. I did that for many, many years.And then our generation, we get to see a lot of median shift. Right. We saw vinyl that went to tape, that went to CD, that went to MP3.And during the MP3 era, a lot of the independent record labels really were hurt by, you know, the ability to share music. And so Moonshine ultimately started to close down. They gave me all the equipment and they said, you should go start your own thing.And I was like, how? This is amazing. Thank you. And I still did work for them, but I started my own company called Engine Room Studios.And from there, I did both independent film, audio, and audio mastering for all electronic music and vinyl creation. I think I handled something like 60% of all domestic vinyl production for a few years for electronic music there for a while. Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

So, like, I think it's called. Is it Sound City? What's the name of the Dave Grohl documentary? Yeah. Great. It was so cool to watch that right in this board that this.This thing that they could do with all the performers that came in and all the stars from the 60s and 70s. Yeah, that's not your world. You're not bringing people in. A lot of that stuff is going to be done, you know, in files. Right. For the most part.And that. So it's a different world.

Yes, so. And I may have been slightly misleading. I love electronic music. Like, that's at my heart. But I also. I am a collaborator through and through.And the moment.For anybody who plays an instrument and they played in a band and they lock in with their bandmates and they find that flow state that groove, there's really nothing better than that feeling.And so while I was still doing all of this, you know, production work for film and electronic music, I was also cultivating young bands and working with Actual live musicians and producing and whatever. And this draws me to one of my mentors, if you can call him that. He doesn't know me, but he almost ran me over the car.Funny story, but Rick Rubin was my producer, like idol, and he has a wonderful book that came out, the Creative act, it's called. And I draw a lot of inspiration even today at Raise, you know, we'll get into how much Raise is actually a creative company, surprisingly enough.But Creative act talks about what's important in the creative process. How do you get to the core emotion, or how do you get to the thing you're trying to communicate, regardless of medium.And, you know, I spent so much of my fun, you know, 20s and 30s in audio and film collaborating. But my superpower is I'm able to listen and interpret differently than I think a lot of people do.I listen differently to what people say, and I can read in between the lines. I can feel the emotion differently than what they want. That's why I'm so good at product feedback, because it's never what they say.It's something else. And I. It's hard for me to really nail it down. But, you know, even my. My trainers are like, how do you get to the core so quickly? What they're.What they're trying to. Well, it's because I' spent decades working with artists who want space and need to get something very true and pointing out.And it's really about reducing barriers and clearing out noise. And sometimes that process is super messy. Oftentimes it's get it all out and let's start stripping away. Let's get it, let's minimize it.Let's find what we're really trying to say until we get to the most purest thing. So. So, yeah, it's, you know, again, I love the electronic music, but I.Anytime I can, I can collaborate with somebody and I can work on, you know, work at that level is everything. By the way, I did leave out something you might like.I don't talk about this very often because I just having me talk about me in the first place, Bill, is tough. I don't know why you got me going and I'm having fun, but my.

Job, I've been doing it for 10 years, so it's, you know, you pick up skills.

The end. The end. Ish time. My, My.My work in audio, I was working as a mix engineer for Dave Auday, who was the guy who hired me as an intern way back when I came out of school. He was the guy the producer at Moonshine Music, and I had stuck with him for decade or more. And ultimately we won a Grammy for.For remix of the year for Uptown Funk. So that was Bruno Mars. Yeah, Bruno Mars. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a lot of fun.And some other time when we have a beer or something, I'll tell you the story of the Grammy, because that was.

I can't wait.

Yeah, I. I almost missed the whole thing. And it was. It was. It's a good one.

Sorry. Sorry, Listener.

This is for.

This is for me. All right, well, let's. Let's. Let's talk about. Let's talk about what you're doing with Rayse.So I mentioned Bondylin earlier, but Bondylin Jolly now with the Wav group. Right. She wrote an article, and I love the headlines. I wanted to just give you this.And it said that Rayse has created the buyer presentation on steroids. And I think that had to feel pretty damn good. Right? I mean, that's a. That's a great way to look at it.

Talking about the creative act and then talking about this. Bar's presentation is an interesting. It was an interesting connective tissue there. I did.When I, you know, when I left, started working in operations and started crafting my corporate acumen and these sorts of things.But towards the end of that path, before I landed at Rayse, I was running a real estate team for my best friend out of Beverly Hills who may or may not be on one of those Netflix shows. And so we're talking luxury. Yes, we're talking. Yeah, we're definitely talking luxury. But what was interesting is that team was highly sophisticated.It was a team of 60 hardcore, really hungry agents who were trying to make it in the luxury market. And we. That team was running one of the most advanced flex programs. Something like 1500 leads were coming down per month for this flex team.We had no ISA department. We were standing up an ISA department and working on the operational efficiencies to get this all worked out.And essentially, I was watching these really dedicated agents driving all over Southern California for clients that were showing up with zero context, zero history. They had no idea who this is. They got a lead. They took the lead because they need a lead. They have no real life much.They don't have much idea about who this person is. The client certainly has no idea who this agent is.And then they show up at the driveway, and I like to call it the driveway consult, where the agent is supposed to dance this strange and awkward scenario where, hey, I'm here to show you this house. But you don't know me and you probably don't really want me talking too much or do you want me talking?Or are you working with an agent or not an agent? And I'm trying to make you my client. And we're going to do this awkward thing and we're going to try and figure. And I just like, this is insane.This is. I. You're putting these poor agents who have.Now this one agent in particular was all the way in like van eyes and drove all the way down to Marina Del Rey for this particular appointment. So spent an hour and a half in the car. And this is, this is their experience of trying to navigate.I use that little story as, as one side of the spectrum that we try to solve with this buyer's presentation. So one side of it is there's clients and agents who are meeting the first time and they have to somehow.Agents have to somehow convince this client that they're the best agent for the job and that this experience is going to be different.And if they're coming off of a portal experience, it's hard to compete with the rich information and data that comes off of realtor.com or Zillow or whatever. That experience for a consumer is very rich. Like they get all a lot of information.So they're showing up to these things thinking they know everything. And then there's an agent who's trying to be like, eh, you don't really know everything.And now I have to convince you to come off of dreamland and into some reality that I know. And that's a tough thing to do. Right? There's a big psychological leap there. So one half of the spectrum is for that scenario.The other side of the spectrum is, well, some agents are working directly at other sphere and they have a relationship with this person. They don't need to convince this person that they're awesome.They need to convince this person that they're going to, you know, that this process is going to be different or what is their strategy that's different than from another agent or this agent that they're competing against is offering a cheaper commission. So what makes, you know, this agent worth more money. So those are the two sides of the spectrum that we tried to solve.Being a nonlinear thinker, I thought that the best approach here would be a nonlinear approach. So the biggest difference in our buyer's pres is that we do not take it in a linear approach.This is a fully modernized, digital interactive, nonlinear experience that provides the agent the ability to articulate in Any story form they want from I've known you for 30 years to I have no idea who you are and you have no idea who I am. I can craft a story tailored to that client based on choosing this nonlinear format. And it's been well received.First of all, it doesn't look like anything like it is, it's, it's gorgeous, it's multi dimensional, it's nonlinear, it's data rich. So a lot of it draws on the value and historical things that this particular agent has done so they can speak about them.Because agents really don't know how to talk about themselves very well. It's an awkward thing to talk about yourself. So you don't see this because you get people to talk about themselves all the time, but people do.Yeah, but, but, but selling yourself is, is, I mean, let's be honest, selling yourself sucks. Right.

Well, it's just true. But if you know the power of getting someone to talk about themselves.

Right.

I think is, is a skill and I think it's important. Right. And being curious is, I think, something that, you know, really good salespeople in all kinds of types of business are good at doing. Right.

Agree.

Instead of just spewing out their stuff, they're trying to really figure out what that pain point is. And you obviously, as a company, you've done that very well. And I know it's you, James and Christine who are the co founders of the company.And obviously you all have this incredible passion. You know, you might have a different level, I think as I'm talking to you. But, but it's just been amazing to see.I think I saw you for the first time a couple of years ago at a T360 event. Right. You were just talking about what it was going to be. I don't think this buyer presentation was there yet. Didn't exist. Yeah.So this is, you're constantly, constantly kind of evolving and growing while you're starting up a company. It's pretty, it's amazing.

Yeah. The product strategy for Rayse was intentional. We wanted to provide a buyer.First of all, we, we knew this lawsuit, we were aware of this lawsuit for years and years and years before.

Yeah.

So we weren't gambling. It was definitely a tailwind. It helped us get our message out. And everything we thought was going to happen, frankly, has happened.We, we, we knew those lawsuits were going to come across. We knew buyer's agents were going to get left, you know, hung out to dry.We figured that commissions, if Brightside was able to negotiate their own commissions that those commissions might increase, which is true. We're seeing those some agents are not winning, some agents are.But those who can articulate their value and process the best are winning and now have the power to negotiate their own commission away from what the seller side is giving them. It's a whole new paradigm. So, and it just hasn't completely settled, right. Like we're BCS are being signed. Great.That's the first hurdle and that's wonderful and that, that's really healthy for the industry. But you know, I, I go to, I go to a number of brokerages and I'm like, yeah, what's your average, you know, commission rate on your buy side?They're like, oh, it's holding strong in 2.45. I'm like, that's great. Why isn't it? Three?

Yeah.

Why isn't it, why, why you don't think your agents are worth it? Do your agents not think they're worth it?I mean, you know, I, I, I know on the raised data platform, I know the number of hours that agents are putting in it. I know the strategy and the negotiations and all of the things that they do based on what our platform is defining. I know that they're worth it.And so again, back to this Buyers prez was, was a way for them to not only win more deals and stand out and differentiate themselves, but also let's sign those BRBCs at the highest number possible so that you are empowered if you need to negotiate your commission down, at least you're starting at the highest possible number and raise gives all of the proof and all of the data about what's happened and what's going to happen. So that again, agents are empowered to negotiate from a place of power.Like they have that, that validation and proof and the clients aren't left wondering, well, I don't really know what you've done or what you're going to do. And this other guy says he's going to do it cheaper, so I'm out.And then, you know, you have a young child looking up at his mom crying that she lost a deal. And now we've gone full circle. Right, Bill.

You bring it back like no one I've ever interviewed.Let me, I've, you know, I do research a little bit when I'm going to be talking to someone I haven't, I don't know very well and some other outlets I found you having conversations and you talk about the fundamental difference between that typical SaaS prop tech, right? There's tons of companies out there. And what's that big differentiator for Rayse?

Yeah, look, there's, there's a lot of good technology out there. When you approach a technological solution, oftentimes it falls into a category of automation or take something off the plate of the user. Right.This is some redundant task that, you know, in the context of real estate agents that they don't need to be doing.Sometimes that's great, but if you take it too far, you can, you can begin to create a separation between what's important and my opinion is the most important thing in this industry is the relationship between that agent and their client. That's all that matters. Everything else is noise as far as I'm concerned.So when you start building CRMs that take on all the automation of messaging, top of funnel and you throw AI on it, that is now just taken care of, trying to, you know, make conversations happen. What's lost there? The agent. The agent. That's. That's not true. None. That's, that's not intentional. That's not what the agent does.And sure there's operational benefits and I'm not, I'm not dissing that like there's a, there's a need for it even. But me personally, you know, as I mentioned, I'm a collaborator through and through.The most important thing, drawing again from my rich history of finding out what the core, the most important core thread is, is building trust between agents and their clients. That's it. That's the only thing that matters. A client chooses their agent to work with based on trust.Whether that's trust is based on I've known this person my whole life or this trust is based on. We saw a raised virus presentation that knocked my socks off and so I trust this guy.Whatever it happens to be the, the, the end result is they trust enough to walk this journey with you. And it's the agent's job to keep that trust intact throughout all of it. Not all of it's going to be great. It's going to be a roller coaster.Some of it's going to be great, some of it's going to be bad, but that's the most important part. James's approach was, has always been.And even in his messaging for his brokerage next home is humans over houses like he and I are so in line with how important agents are. So there was never a question about how he and I, Christine also, we all, she was an agent and so she knew the struggles as well.So we are so, so at the core focused on what agents do. And there is never anything in this product. I will never put anything in this product that does not make the agent look like the hero. And so it just.Even to make it.Make it even more, like, acute, people have asked me, well, why don't you put messaging in your app so that the clients can talk to the agent through your app? I'm like, because the agent has 500 channels that they're trying to communicate already.The last thing I want to do is to create another channel that potentially hurts the agent because they couldn't pick it up fast enough.And we've ruined the experience on the client side because the client is expecting an agent to manage email, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, this new raise app. Like, there's just too many channels for them to do. We're not going to do that. We want to empower the agents, and we.We really only want to put a bracket between agents and clients and make them succeed. That's all that matters. And everything builds out from there. That's why our approach is, Is. Is different. Because there is.There isn't a platform that does that. You have, you. Everything else is what I mentioned before. It's taking things off of their plate, which has its. It has its place.Like, I'm not dissing that.But nothing is at the core, showing an 8 what an agent does to their client and making that experience modernized and unique, customized to the agent and just ultimately making those agents look like the superstars they are, because they really are the ones that are. Like, I had one agent tell me, he was like, hey, how do I put in your platform?An hour's worth of thinking while I was in the shower last night at 4am before I went to the gym. I'm like, exactly. Nobody knows that stuff. Here's one. And this even knocked James over. James, our mom bought a house here at a retirement community.James probably not. Probably is a expert in this field, has, you know, runs a brokerage, is probably one of the most knowledgeable people in real estate.We had an agent go through and do this deal with our mom sent the disclosures back or the inspections back or something with a full summary. And James looked at it, and it was a page summary. And he's like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. Yes, thank you. This summary is great.I totally understand everything. He was about to hang up, and he is like, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait. How long did it take for you to go through and summarize this?Like, how many documents did you have to read and give me the summary. She's like, I spent six hours, I spent six hours going through to get you the summary that you digested in 15 minutes.And James, James, part of the industry, like smart enough to ask the question as we're moving but, but didn't also didn't recognize that this is what's lost.This is the fidelity that's lost for agents and the work that they do because they're, they're service driven people and they, they think that they're supposed to shoulder all of this and, and keep it away from the client. And it hasn't served anybody good. Transparent. Not being transparent has hurt this industry more than anything.

That is brilliant. You know, I don't, I don't want to use shiny object.It's the, it's, it's putting one more thing in front of them that they've got to learn that's going to impact the other 12 things they're learning.

Right.

Is, that's the brilliant part of this. That's, that's really cool. I mean, so you should, yeah, that's, that's amazing. So, yeah, love that.

Thank you.

Congratulations to the whole team at raise for that. And then I, I'm sure the name raise was raising the bar a part of that because it, for me it seems to be this battle cry for over a decade.It's been around a long time. There's been people that talk about the, the education level of agents. Again, I don't think you're creating a tool that educates agents.It takes agents who know what they're doing and gives them the ability to, to show that. Is that, do I have that right?

It's, it's, it's a bit dimensional. So yes, you're right, it can.For the agent who actually knows what they're doing to build out their particular way of working into the race platform and then let the platform just articulate to all their clients what they do.So that experience for the agent who knows what they're doing is they just go into the platform and they're just checking a number of these things off and the platform lights up and it's telling their clients all the awesome things that they did and building reports for them and just making them look like absolute rock stars. There's another side of it though.You know, as I draw from my experience back at the team in Beverly Hills, there was a, they were recruiting very, very hard and a lot of teams and a lot of brokerages, recruitment, young talent, because of the sphere that they bring. And so, you know, some, honestly, the most valuable thing you can bring to most scenarios is a network.The people that you, the circle you draw around you and the people that you have in that, that sphere. But as you know, there's very little training to get your license on how to sell anything and how to market anything.And there are regulations and there is process. And you know, even in la, there was the city of Beverly Hills worked differently than the city of county of Los Angeles.And so there was rules and things that happen very specifically in those sort of micro markets. What raise does is because, because the brokerage has the ability to set this workflow. It can help and train the agents on what you need to do next.Like, here is your workflow and if you ever get lost in your workflow, just default back to this. And it's a way for the brokerage or the team to keep quality control over how, how agents are handling these clients or leads that come in coaching.You know, one of our first investors was, was Tom Ferry.And you know, one of the first, one of the first people I worked with when I built this thing was, was a Tom Ferry coach, while he was an ex Tom Ferry coach. So I, I sat next to a coach and thought like that and built the product so that it can help agents at scale keep quality across all of their clients.And again, it's just a simple workflow that they, you know, the brokerage is handed to them and they just go ahead and crush things off. And again, it lights up everything for them. So it's both, it's two, it's both of those things.Sales managers can get in there and now see what agents do on a daily basis and be like, oh, this thing, you know what I have another agent has a different workflow and they do this thing often for their clients and it's really effective. You should think about bringing this over to your side.And so now we have a comparative on the ground what agents are doing, you know, young agents versus experienced agents and being able to see on the platform how to increase their efficacy. So it's, it's a bit of both.

Yeah. You know, after, after I've talking to you for the last, you know, 45 minutes, you're not one to rest on your laurels.I'm just going to throw that out there. I'm pretty sure I'm right. Okay, so is it too soon to talk about what's next?I mean, it's, it's amazing what you've done, but I imagine there's that head is spinning with opportunities.

The number one thing that we're asked for because we focused on buy side first, where I do the lawsuits and that was the place that was, was at most risk. The listing agents who happen to be the most experienced agents are also finding how valuable this is because it's a great differentiator for them.They want their clients to at any moment be able to log into their portal and go, oh wow, this marketing strategy is working. I can see that this is getting done. I can see that's getting done.And the listing agents who are busy, it's difficult for them to scale, to constantly call and update their clients. And again, I'm going to make reference to something I said earlier. We have to be very careful.The client portal is not a tool that is supposed to replace the agent speaking with their client because then we failed. Right? Like I don't want to create distance between those two. I just want to bring them closer together.But that client portal is a place for those, for the, for the clients to land and get quickly updated. And the most interesting thing that's happening is in that client portal there are descriptions of everything that's happened or about to happen.And so the conversations have changed. It's hey, agent, what are you doing? Like, I haven't heard from you in a couple of days.I'm just looking for an update, which is sort of an anxiety driven, itchy kind of conversation to. I see this thing is coming up and I want to ask a specific question about this thing. Like that's a completely different feeling.That's I'm working with you, agent. I can see what's coming up and I want to partake, I want to collaborate with you on what's happening next.That's the experience that a lot of our agents are seeing right now and want more of. So what's coming next listing side? What's coming up after that? We, we've got, we've got some.

Probably can't share it, I'm assuming.

I mean I really want to and you got me, you got me talking. Well, I'll say this. What's the most popular term in real estate right now for the last year?

AI.

AI. We have to get involved in AI. But we just like everything else, we're going to take a very, very different approach.We're going to stay true to the mission, which is making agents and clients closer.Our, our AI tool, which honestly, man, I'll send you the write up I made on, on our, on our AI assistant I wrote it up, I don't know, like four and a half years ago. It was originally named Sam. Now it's named Rae. So R A E. And we should have something by this year stood up.And it should feel very much like the agent's assistant in their pocket. We, every agent I know is like, gosh, I really need an assistant.I wish I could have an assistant that drives around with me and takes notes of all the things that I've done and tells my clients and bumps the appointments and lets them know if I'm going to be late and what am I supposed to do next and all those sorts of things. Well, we're going to introduce Ray. So that's, that's the, the long range.So, and we have something cooking up for brokerages too, as part of our go to market. But we have, we, we have a big appetite and it's, it'll, it'll be exciting.

That's awesome. All right. All right, Christian, it's time to let you go. I, I, I need one final question answered, though.Every guest has answered this question and it's your turn. It's what one piece of advice would you give a new agent just joining the business?

I'm going to reuse something that I heard at my time working with the team, but I'll put my little flare on it. The power that, and I mentioned this, I don't know, a couple questions back.But the thing that makes you uniquely you and the power that you bring to any scenario is the circle and the people you include in that circle you draw around yourself. There isn't a bigger asset than that. We don't navigate this world without the help of the people around us.So draw that circle as large as you can and find your tribe, the whatever it is that you love.You know, if it's sports, then, you know, draw your sphere of influence around what you're passionate about and try and draw it around sports and the people that you, the people you know in sports. My best friend who runs his team, you know, he and I were, he and I came up through the record, record label industry together.He and I met at Moonshine. He was the A and R guy and I was the technical guy. And so he and I made the perfect team as we were assigning artists.When he left the industry, he brought all of his contacts with him and that became his sphere of influence. A lot of real estate agents, this is their second or third career or something. So draw from your circle. That is your power.That makes you, you know that's your unique power play and you know, cultivate that. Expand it from there. Stay passionate because the this is a human to human business.You are doing service work for a client and clients will trust you if they feel passionate about what it is that you do. So find your passion, find your tribe.

Christian, if somebody wants to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

I don't do it. I'm not fun. I'm not fun.

He doesn't like talking about things.

Yeah, you can, you can find me on, on the website.Go to Rayse.com and, and crush the info at and let me know that you want to talk based on some podcasts that you, that you heard me on and we'll set up some time but I'm going to drag doe with me so whatever. If you want to reach out to me, I'm dragging Bill in.

That's great, Christian. This has been, this has been really cool, really fun. I'm going to tell. I've done 400 interviews. This is way up in the top 10.

Literally.

Yeah.

Why am I not the top five, Bill?

Well, you know, I, I have other people. I've got a tribe. I've got a tribe that I've got to take care of.

Understandable.

Yeah. So anyways, thank you so much for your time today. Just, just amazing.

Thank you. I really appreciate your time and your questions and thoughtfulness and I appreciate your platform. Thanks.

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