David Nellessen @SYTE. Great talent will take your product to the next level

In this episode #26, we are talking with David Nellessen, the co-founder of SYTE (https://www.syte.ms/), an artificial intelligence engine that helps real estate developers in their search for sites. David shares his opinion on the was AI is changing the proptech industry among others, how important it was for SYTE to attract the top talent to be able to drive the product to the next level, and why raising investment should be a conscious choice of the founders.

(0:00:07) – AI and Sustainable Real Estate Development 

On today’s show, I chat with David Nellessen, CTO, CEO, and co-founder of SYTE, a VC-backed AI engine that discovers real estate development potentials in real-time. David shares his journey with his co-founder, Matthias, an experienced architect, and entrepreneur, who had the idea to use modern technologies like data and machine learning to automate the process of understanding what can be done with a property. Finally, we talk about how David developed his interest in architecture and the B2B space.

(0:11:01) – Sustainability and Real-Time Building Potential

We discuss how SYTE is leveraging data to create a digital platform for project acquisition in the real estate space. We explore how SYTE is able to identify potential, current utilization, and sustainability factors for more than 15 million buildings and properties in its database. Regulations, subsidies, energy consumption, and soil sealing play into the sustainability of buildings and the need for a holistic view of the property. We touch on the importance of real-time data and how SYTE is able to provide faster and cheaper answers than going to an architect.

(0:26:54) – Fundraising and Team Building for Startups 

I’m joined today by David Nellessen, CTO, CEO, and co-founder of SYTE, an AI engine that discovers real estate development potential. We discuss David’s experience with raising capital for SYTE during times of crisis, and how he created relationships with customers and prominent brands early on. We also explore how they approached VCs, and how they hire people to build their team. David shares that they have a very open-minded and diverse team and that his goal is to always hire people who are better than him and his co-founder.

(0:41:12) – AI in Real Estate Challenges

On today’s show, I’m joined by David Nellessen, CTO, CEO, and co-founder of SYTE, as we explore the journey of releasing AI directly to customers, the differences between B2B and B2C, and the challenges of adapting to changing market requirements and economic situations. David shares his biggest aha moment about the importance of explainability in order to build trust with customers, and emphasizes the need to implement explainability measures into an AI product. We close by discussing the importance of building trust with AI and how machines can be more reliable than humans.