November 14, 2024 • 40 mins
In this episode of the Multifamily Innovation® Podcast, host Patrick Antrim, Chairman of the Multifamily Innovation® Council, sits down with Brad Robins, Principal Product Evangelist at Flex. Flex, a financial tech innovator and official partner of the Multifamily Innovation® & AI Summit, offers a unique approach to providing financial flexibility to renters.
Brad dives into Flex’s mission-driven approach, which empowers renters, reduces pressure on property owners, and contributes to the overall financial wellness of the multifamily industry. As Principal Product Evangelist, Brad explains his role in storytelling and building customer understanding of Flex’s mission, differentiating his focus from the product engineering team. His work emphasizes communication, helping both industry partners and renters understand Flex’s value.
Flex’s product is designed as a financial wellness app, giving renters the option to pay their rent flexibly by splitting payments into two smaller, manageable portions each month. Brad notes that this approach meets renters' needs, especially for those with irregular income or sudden expenses. This unique product-market fit propelled Flex’s rapid growth, reaching over 8 million units across 2,000+ management company partners nationwide. Brad highlights the importance of this growth, emphasizing how Flex’s offering reflects a larger trend set by leading consumer brands, such as Amazon, which now provide diverse payment models to align with consumers’ financial situations.
Collaboration with partners is central to Flex’s product development. Flex is continuously iterating based on feedback from clients in the multifamily industry, such as the suggestion to create a rent payment flexibility option specifically for employees of management companies. This co-created solution reflects Flex’s commitment to its partners and to enhancing its product to better fit the needs of multifamily clients. Patrick and Brad discuss the impact of Flex’s product on multifamily operators, detailing how Flex streamlines rent collections while improving the resident experience.
Flex’s mission extends beyond payment flexibility, encompassing a culture of genuine support and understanding. By empathizing with renters’ financial challenges, Flex strives to make a difference in the resident experience.
About the Multifamily Innovation® Council:
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is the executive level membership organization that makes a difference in your bottom line, drives a better experience for your employees, and allows you an experience that keeps demand strong for your company. The council is uniquely positioned to focus on the intersection of Leadership, Technology, AI, and Innovation.
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.
To learn more or to join, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com.
For more information and to engage with leaders shaping the future of multifamily innovation, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/.
Connect:
Multifamily Innovation® Council: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/
Patrick Antrim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickantrim/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome back.
So, as part of the MultifamilyInnovation Council, we spend
time with our partners that arebuilding great stuff, and how
this typically works is, youknow, throughout the year, you
know, as chair of theMultifamily Innovation Council,
I'm spending time withmultifamily owners and operators
and they're telling us what thechallenges are and what
problems they want to solve,what opportunities they want to
(00:22):
create in their business unitand also prioritization of
solving those problems.
And then what we do is we lookout into the industry and we ask
well, who's building stuff thatcan either make a problem go
away or create a bigger andbetter opportunity for
multifamily owners and operators?
And so we brought on our guest,Brad Brad's, here with us,
(00:44):
Principal of Product at Flex andexcited to bring him on the
show.
He's going to join us at theMultifamily Innovation and AI
Summit and we've got him in herein the Innovation Lab talking
about how he's creating valuefor multifamily companies.
So, Brad, welcome in.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, so, Principal of Product,I want to know what's that all
about?
(01:04):
Let our viewers know who youare, what you're working on.
Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, I'll start by just making sure our product
teams aren't going crazy.
So product evangelist, to beclear, as opposed to head of
product.
I don't design the product, butI love talking about it, and
I've been at Flex for a littleover four years and, honestly, I
love telling our story.
I love our mission, I love whatwe're about.
I love this industry.
I've fallen in love with itvery quickly, only having been
(01:29):
here, like I said, for a littleover four years, but it's
something that I and everyonethat I work with are deeply,
deeply passionate about.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You know it's interesting you mentioned the
evangelist versus the productengineers and those building and
innovating.
You know, through the customerexperience and things like that,
you know a lot of the companieswith AI and sort of the way
that pace of innovation ishappening.
Some of these brands are cominginto industry with literally
product-led growth or justbuilding something great.
(01:58):
You think of, like ChatGPTright, we learned about that
because they built a greatproduct right.
And here you are evangelizinggreat products that you guys are
building and you guys are intosome units, right, yeah, you
could say that We've had somesuccess.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We had what I call the unfortunate good fortune of
coming to market at a time wherenot only did we have great
product market fit, whichobviously is just crucial in any
business, but coming to marketat a time where there was a huge
need.
I mean, we were a pre-COVIDsolution that really kind of
gained traction and awarenessmore broadly during COVID,
(02:35):
during the pandemic, when theneed for financial flexibility
became immediately apparentacross the country.
It didn't matter who you were Imean even me.
I have a very personal storymyself of needing financial
flexibility really for the firsttime in my adult life and
having very few options, nowhereto turn.
And so you know, fast forwardto March of 2020, to September
(02:57):
of 2020, when I found andstarted to flex for me it was a
no brainer.
I was like man, like um.
There are people out here thatneed flexibility, sometimes due
to no fault of their own andsometimes due to the fact that
things are just tough and tight.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, well, let's talk about that.
What is the product, what is itsolving and how are you guys
bridging that gap in thatmarketplace?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So Flex, a New York-based company, financial
tech company, in a kind of broadstrokes picture, we're a
financial wellness app thatprovides solutions to empower
the lives of renters to reallyprioritize and pay for the
things that matter most, to givethem flexibility over their
largest, most significantrecurring expense, which is rent
(03:41):
, and it's traditionally apayment that's been due upfront,
in full at the beginning of themonth, for all the reasons that
we know why.
That's just the way the modelworks, but there's been
relatively little innovationaround how to make that more
flexible and do it in a way thatworks not only for renters but
also for operators as well.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You know, we experience so much software in
our day-to-day life.
You know and you have.
You can pay annually, you paymonthly.
There's different ways thatsubscription services scale
operations and capture paymentsthrough innovation, and now
there's even discussions aroundeven like performance models and
(04:23):
consumption models and thingslike that.
And you're right.
I mean apartment rentals havebeen a subscription business for
as long as ever.
Right, like they've got thisrecurring revenue and we kind of
take for granted some of thethings that have been in place
for many, many years.
They've worked for us andthings like that.
And there's, I imagine,pressure in the world today,
(04:46):
just not even in control of themultifamily owner and operator.
It's just.
Costs are going up, it'sgetting harder and harder.
Work is changing, pressure onthe renter and you guys are
coming.
I like how you positionedwellness.
You mentioned it as wellness.
How much does that part of thevalue of the organization?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You know, I think it plays a huge role.
I mean, you know we are.
I can honestly say we are amission driven organization.
This is a very unique companywith a very unique culture.
In fact, one of my favoritethings to observe more broadly
is, you know, just like any anygo to market or sales
organization, we have a bigkickoff at the beginning of the
year and inevitably, you knowyou have new faces, you know new
(05:32):
hires who are thereexperiencing it for the first
time and to kind of sit back andobserve their experience as
they see this group of folksthat, like I said, are fiercely
passionate about this idea ofempowering renters with
flexibility, with optionality,providing a better rent payment
experience for operators andresidents, but also to be around
people that just have fun, thatare kind, that are genuine.
(05:54):
I think a former boss has put itbest.
He said I don't know that I'veever been around a group of
people that are more talentedbut more wonderful to be with,
and I think that translates intouh, just what we do.
You know and and you knowchances are, folks listening to
this or watching it have seenflex in our booth at one of the
big trade shows and people arekind of like sucked into it, and
(06:17):
I think it's a combinationagain of just great people but
also a product that, that is, ishonestly making a difference.
One of my favorite things everyMonday to wake up to is one of
our sales leaders will post themost recent reviews in our app
store, and you know, it's notjust like oh, flex is cool, flex
(06:38):
is awesome.
Like you know, flex is a reallynice design.
It's like no, I was.
I'm a single mom.
I was literally at at wit's endthis month and this flexibility
made the difference, allowingme to do this for my child, or I
unexpectedly lost my job, or Imean there's a million
variations out there.
Right, it's just, it's crazyand it's very fulfilling work.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I always look at you know, sometimes it's not
that they don't want to pay.
They may not have the abilityto play, to pay at that moment
in time.
And you start to think abouthow work is, even the gig
economy, and how people evenstructure their, their income.
They do need more flexibilityin that aspect.
You know, you're a, you'regreat at the marketing side.
(07:22):
You came from outside theindustry and the ability to do
storytelling I imagine that ispart of your role.
And products the more complexthey are, the more time it takes
to transfer the knowledge interms of, like, this is
something we haven't done before.
Maybe they haven't even knownabout this.
(07:43):
How do you take that approachto communicate messaging to get
people to?
I mean, you kind of have thisconviction and you know that and
you're in the app store, you'reseeing all these value that's
being created.
But for somebody else out therethat maybe hasn't heard of this
or maybe would be consideringit like, how are you going about
communicating those things?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, you know it's an interesting question.
Like I said, like you alludedto, I have a really unique
journey to get here.
So I like to tell people I'm aperformer first and a
professional second, and what Imean by that is the majority of
my professional experience isactually in entertainment live
entertainment, performance,singing, musical theater.
(08:27):
You know movies, film, like allthose different things, and you
learn a lot about theprofessional world of presenting
by being on stage, for a coupleof reasons.
Number one there's, you knowthe old saying goes like there's
just nothing like live theater.
You can rehearse until you'reblue in the face, but at the end
(08:48):
of the day, once you get onstage, whatever happens happens,
and you need to be ready tokind of roll with the punches
right.
The other thing that you learnreally quickly is that it's not
so much about how good you dosomething, but more what do you,
what do you?
What kind of emotionalexperience are people having
with you?
Um, my first professionalexperience we were talking about
this before we went live is Ispent six years working for
(09:11):
Adobe.
They have a headquarters, youknow, just south of Salt Lake
City, and they were all aboutempowering the largest
enterprise brands in the worldto bring digital experience to
their customers, and I thinkthat we live in an experience
economy.
I think that the best brands inthe world, regardless of size,
(09:34):
industry, whatever they play in,understand that experience
matters and they focus on it,almost like with a level of
obsession that there's aconstant innovation, like it's
never perfected.
We can always be doingsomething a little better,
tweaking this, and I think itcomes down to performance and
marketing one-on-one.
(09:54):
Do you know who you're sellingto?
Do you know who your audienceis?
Because if you don't, uh,you're gonna the market will
tell you, and sometimes thatwon't be so forgiving.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, no, I love what you keyed into on performance,
because we have performers evenon our team here.
Lauren's a performer, I thinkeverybody's a performer and with
storytelling today, I mean youcan pretty much tell your story
in more places and more waysthan you've ever been able to,
more places and more ways thanyou've ever been able to, and I
(10:26):
feel like I feel like it's goingto more of like a vibe than the
story, like the vibe is whatyou know.
You're in our innovation and AIlab, right, and that is an
energy that can't be producedother than like, let's say,
you're face to face in themoving.
I like what you said about thelive performance on a stage.
I mean you can watch it, butsay you're face-to-face in the
moving.
I like what you said about thelive performance on a stage.
I mean you can watch it, butwhen you're in there, even if
(10:49):
it's a championship game,wherever, it is like be where
you are and be with the peoplethat you're with, and it seems
like today it's the opportunityto differentiate from all the
other things going on.
And so you mentioned at yourtrade show booth, when people
can kind of just kind of they'rejust drawn into the energy you
know is that the culture is atthe team.
It's the way people feel andyou mentioned emotional in there
(11:13):
.
I, uh, I think there's more tothese products and these
innovations and these thingsthat we're trying to tackle
where we've got to live, leavepeople feeling a certain way, uh
, vibing a certain way, likeknowing, like I want to feel, I
want to be around people thatare prepared, showing up to win,
doing the right things, puttingin the effort, caring, doing
(11:34):
these types of things.
This reflects in the product, Iimagine internally.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean, you know I talked about, you know,
living in an experience economy.
We also live in an era ofauthenticity and I think that
you know people, they seethrough the fluff.
I think your mission can bepure but if it's not portrayed
in a genuine, authentic way thatpeople are going to see right
through it and we'll be thefirst to admit it's like you
(11:58):
know, innovating around theworld of flexible rent payments
is well, it's very simple toexplain.
Right, it's like we allowresidents to split rent up into
two smaller, more manageablepayments, while helping the
operators get paid upfront infull at the beginning of the
month.
Like that's not hard toarticulate.
But putting that together hasbeen wildly complex.
(12:19):
You know, we started out, Ithink, when I joined in
September.
We were somewhere between 25and 30 employees, I think, if
we're not already on track to benorth of 300 here very soon.
I mean the growth has beenphenomenal, you know, in over 8
million units across the country, 2,000 management company
partners across the country.
So the intricacies that areextremely complex and I think
(12:43):
it's just a matter of learning,growing, testing, evolving,
iterating and, like I said, justbeing authentic along the way.
Like you're not going to get itright every time, and you know
what.
That's okay.
Some of our best innovationshave come because products have
or partners rather, have comeback and said this doesn't work
for us, this doesn't work forour industry.
Here's how you can do it better.
Perfect example.
So one of the things that weoffer that you know we get to
(13:07):
talk about in these productdemos and sales pitches to these
management companies is that weoffer an employee benefit, so
anyone that works at amanagement company gets to
utilize the service, you know,at no cost.
And what's really cool aboutthat is, you know, inflation,
the cost of living you know justthe realities of today's world
(13:27):
Like they're not immune justbecause you have a job Right.
It's like everybody feels thepressure of it and so it was a
really cool way Again was, Ibelieve the story goes like it
was brought to us from one ofour partners saying, hey, have
you ever considered offeringthis as a, as a benefit?
Like that's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Like why didn't we think of that?
Right yeah, build with them,right, like.
So that's where the innovationgoes and it's never done.
You guys are constantly workingto make it better with the
customer, not just here.
We made this use it.
You know that type of thing.
What are you hearing insidethese conversations, both in
marketing or even in sales,where they're trying to
understand, because you kind ofserve both customers right, so
(14:10):
it's a huge benefit to theproperty owner they're getting
their rent payment up frontright and obviously a huge value
add for the resident.
How do you manage the messagingwith both of those audiences?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, I mean.
So we have dedicated teams thatmarket specifically, you know,
to partners and operators, andthen those that market more to
the consumer or the end user,which, of course, is the
resident.
And you know, this B2B2C model,which, you know, in and of
itself isn't by naturerevolutionary, right, many
companies have found successdoing it.
I think it was a reallyinteresting approach from our
(14:44):
perspective because, again, notnot coming from this industry,
right, not even knowing what Ididn't know coming in here, it
became very apparent to me earlyon, though, that that
relationships in this industryreally matter, and I think that
if it's something that, ifyou're just coming in from a
tech standpoint, because you'reawesome and you know, can
blindside you and probably oneof the harshest ways possible
(15:07):
because people in this industry,more than others that I've
either worked in or beeninvolved in, they simply do
business with people that theyknow, people that they like,
people that they trust, and soyou know if you can combine that
with a great product that alsoprovides value, addresses pain
(15:27):
you know remedies and managing aplus luxury um housing in
downtown Manhattan where rentsare five, six, $7,000, or it's
(15:49):
it's a rural part of Kansas, youknow subsidized housing, like,
whatever the case may be.
Um, financial flexibility issomething that that everybody
wants, needs or prefers eitherin some way or at some point in
their life and, like I said,sometimes it's not simply
because someone's bad with moneyor because they're living
paycheck to paycheck or you knowsomething on that end of the
(16:11):
spectrum.
Sometimes it's just becauseit's convenient, it's preferable
, and so, like that's been.
The thing that's been awesomeabout working in it for me is
just being able to, like yousaid, learn from these partners,
understanding how we fit inthis complex puzzle of
technology in this industry andbeing able to continually
innovate and provide value tothose that need it and want it.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah.
What do you think is the mostmisunderstood thing about this
whole process?
Are there people that evenhesitate?
Are they pushing back, or whatwould you want others to know
that maybe they don't alreadyknow?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, I love that question.
So we especially initially, ourvery first public trade show
presence was NAA Chicago 2021,which was, again, my first trade
show in this industry, and andat that time, it was less about
telling people how it worked,but having to even educate the
(17:10):
market in terms of like, whythis was a thing.
It's like, well're notrevolutionary, we're
evolutionary, and if you lookback, it's like we've evolved
from cash payments to check toACH, debit and credit, and now
(17:37):
we're not discounting any ofthose other payment options,
we're simply expanding them,offering the flexible payment or
the split pay, the alt pay Imean, there's a million names
for them out there right?
The?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
point is like this is working.
We're collecting our rent.
But I love the idea when we'retalking about Adobe and these
other brands that have donereally creative things and
interesting things in the world.
You know I follow a lot ofbrands like that and I can pick
on a couple here.
But if you picked on Tesla andyou looked at vehicles, if you
ask the smartest people,industry insiders in the
(18:09):
automotive industry, you knowthey're thinking like how do I
make the customer pay more?
Right?
Like, how do I get financingterms and sell more?
And sell more cars?
They're units, like multifamilyunits, and you have Elon Musk
who's like hey, we have acustomer relationship here.
How do I increase the value ofthe vehicle?
Not just the relationship withdoing things?
(18:32):
I mean, this thing is drivingitself now.
So I like the idea of a realestate owner and manager
disrupting dominant logics,which means habits that they've
formed over success.
So there are patterns of how itworked and why do you want to
mess that up, right?
And two, something asinnovative as like, yeah, we
(18:55):
have a way to collect rent nowand it's working, but wait a
minute, let's increase the valueof the resident.
Like, make renting morevaluable.
That's what you guys are doing.
You're making it more valuablebecause you're giving them more
options, more flexibility, more.
Maybe they can do other thingswith that money and that time.
I don't know, I'm not going tomake those assumptions, but I
(19:15):
love that people are making thatshift in conversations with you
, where they're like this isworking, why would we do it any
differently?
Oh wait, a minute.
Now we're increasing the valueof the renting experience, not
just taking away purchasingpower.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Let me give a great example.
People are willing to pay morefor great experiences.
So anyone who's talked to mefor 10 minutes knows that I will
only fly Delta Airlines.
Like I'm an unabashed travelsnob, it is that the is second
to none, at least, at leastdomestically, when I fly Um and
I think that that's somethingthat people often underestimate
it's, it's, it's less about howdo I, how do I try to like,
(19:58):
force or or or extract moremoney from someone as opposed to
like?
How do I just make sure thatthe things that I'm offering are
actually meeting their needs?
And a great example of this iswe released a report with Jay
Turner Research a few months agoand the whole report was around
this premise of is there adisconnect or a misalignment
that exists between whatoperators think residents want
(20:23):
and what residents actuallyvalue and prioritize?
And one of the takeaways fromthat, among other things, was
that they want flexibility andoptionality.
And we're down here inbeautiful Scottsdale.
I'll quote one of my all-timefavorite industry folks, linda
Coburn, vp of Asset Managementat Next Metro here,
arizona-based.
That said it's about so muchmore than just offering a box to
(20:46):
live in.
It's got to be an experience.
Are you providing flexibility,optionality the basic things
that, frankly, we've come toexpect in every other aspect of
our lives.
I mean, I remember 20, I thinkit was 2020, 2021, when I had
first started.
A colleague of mine shared akind of a funny anecdote.
She was online shopping forlike a face cream.
(21:10):
It was like $200.
Why we're shopping for $200face creams, that's another
discussion for another podcast.
But the thing that wasinteresting is she said, check
this out, and she sent me thisscreenshot.
There were 12 different ways topay for that face cream and I
just had this light bulb moment.
It's like we live in a countrywhere you have, you know, four
(21:33):
to six times more ways to payfor a luxury item than to to
meet your basic monthlyobligation of paying for rent,
and you know that, among otherthings, we're just like man,
like, like we need to get thisout there.
People need more flexibility,more options and, like I said,
even the research is provingthat is of great value to people
.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, and the consumers being trained by even
like an Amazon or even like aPayPal, even the checkout,
commerce, e-commerce stuff.
They're giving them differentmodels for that, like you
mentioned, in terms of gettingwhat they want, want when they
want it and how they want it.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Well, and to use Amazon as a perfect example of
that, I think it was two yearsago or something around that
time they offered a firm as kindof their flexible payment
option of record or whatever thecorrect term is there, but
meaning like if anything overaround like 50 bucks, I think,
is what it is you had theability to split it up into
smaller interest-free paymentsand and the example I love to
use all the time for people thatthat maybe hear about flex and
(22:33):
this option like well, I don't,I don't like have a collection
issue, or like I don't even knowif people are going to use this
.
It's like well, two things toconsider.
Number one there's a highlikelihood that that people that
are renting at your communitiesare probably utilizing some
form of flexible payments inother aspects of their life to
to travel, to pay for everydayessentials, to to pay for
(22:53):
electronics.
I mean, even certain charges onyour credit card can now be
paid over time in a moreflexible manner, right, and then
when you consider kind of at aat a bigger level, uh, that that
again this, this researchreport kind of talks about that
it's Gen Z and millennials thatare leading this global demand
(23:13):
for flexible payments.
And when you boil it down tothe rental housing industry, I
mean that's a demographic that'sprojected to be the largest
demographic of renters maybe inhistory, and so if they're
leading this outside of theindustry, it just stands to
reason that they're going towant, and at some point start to
expect, that level offlexibility with their rent
(23:36):
payment.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I love the way you tell that story because it's so
important, because we're makingparallels to other things that
people already experience inlife.
And for example, alana, ifyou're building a car today and
you make a car company, you'reprobably in a car every day,
usually in some aspect, or you'dsee one.
I mean, go a day without seeinga car right, and so it's pretty
(23:59):
easy to get to the product,knowledge and the fit and how
you'd make it different.
But if some of these owner andoperators have been so
successful with the purposes tocreate wealth right and then
protect it, and if they're theones making the decisions and
yet they're not living in theapartment, they may be a little
disconnected from this flexiblepayment kind of need, because
maybe they themselves don't needit right and so they're not
(24:21):
prioritizing that, they're notasking that question in the
meetings and it just kind offlows through, and so I love the
way that you're, but you can.
But most people are buyingthings around the world and
they're getting stuff to theirhome and and these types of
things, and so that gives that'sa great trend to follow, and it
stands to say that multifamilyis a wealth creating engine, but
(24:44):
also it has a lot of paymentsflowing right through that
business.
I mean I can't believe it'sbeen this long.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Well, and again, I think that's what makes Flex a
really interesting company.
It's kind of like it's paymentsmeets real estate, meets
consumer finance, right, and sowe have a really interesting
perspective on a few differentareas that not everybody does.
(25:13):
And I like to say, you know,just to put it in my own words,
like the best brands in theworld, make it as easy as
possible for you to give themtheir money, yes, or for, yeah,
you give them their money, and Ithink that that is something
that we don't always consider.
Some of my least pleasantshopping experiences have been
going to a store or paying for agood or a service with the
(25:36):
expectation of I'm going to usethis payment option because
that's what I want, or I getthis benefit from it, only to
find out I have to use the otherone, and it's frustrating.
I mean, I'm a guy that loves mypoints, I love to travel and I
try to maximize them in my ownway, but when I don't get to pay
with my Delta American express,I get frustrated, right, and I
(25:56):
think that's something that wecan all learn, regardless of
industry.
Uh, is that like?
At the end of the day?
Again, people want options, they, they want choice, they want to
be able to dictate what worksbest for them and want options.
They want choice, they want tobe able to dictate what works
best for them.
And going back to your questionabout misconception, I think
again, oftentimes we'll comeinto this conversation where
it's like well, again, I don'thave a delinquency issue, my
(26:17):
renters have no trouble makingrent payment.
If they did, I probablywouldn't want them in this unit
anyway.
And they don't step back andconsider well, maybe people want
more control over their cashflow, or what happens if they
are part of that 60%, 70% thatcouldn't come up with $1,000 in
the case of an emergency, orhave no emergency savings at all
(26:38):
.
And life happens, because, ifthe last five years has taught
us anything, life happens and ithappens to all of us.
Life happens and it happens toall of us.
That's just one of a millionreasons why at least considering
or having the conversationaround an expansion of payment
options is a really, really, notjust good and sound strategy
but, frankly, an easy way toenhance the experience which, as
(27:01):
you so eloquently put it, willultimately lead to return value
in the long run.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, who do you want to spend time with?
Is it the CFO, is it themarketing or operations?
Because I mean you kind of hitall of them really.
What's the ideal conversationyou want to have with somebody?
Who's that in the organization?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I mean, look, you're talking to someone that sits on
customer calls and salesconversations, right, or
partnership conversations as wewould kind of put it with our
model.
But you know, I mean the shortanswer is, of course you want to
be in the room with a decisionmaker, someone that can, you
know, make this work.
But I think that the correctanswer is you want to make sure
that you have the buy-in fromanyone that could influence that
(27:47):
decision, anyone who wasaffected by that.
And what's interesting,specifically about rent payments
.
I mean it's the lifeblood ofthe industry.
Like you shut rent off or youaffect rent, like everything
goes with it, right.
But think about some of theindirect consequences of you
know, if rent doesn't getcollected, all of the time and
(28:11):
energy that's spent, you know,serving late notices, following
up, having uncomfortableconversations.
I mean again, even more indirectthings that we don't often
consider just the strain and thestress that comes on the
landlord-resident relationshipand just the toll that that can
take and play into the residentexperience.
(28:31):
So it's a combination ofexecutives, it's a combination,
obviously, of technical folks.
On the implementation side.
You know it's not a large liftto get Flex implemented but it
does require a little bit ofwork that you know takes us all
of a day or two to get set upand running in the background.
But you know you want to makesure your accountants are happy
and making sure that theintegration is reconciling in a
(28:54):
way that doesn't add burden tothem.
So again, kind of a biggeranswer, but all that to say is
you know, we want to make surethat everybody's on the same
page and understands how youknow offering a tool or a
solution that ultimately, youknow serves the residents need
of wanting flexibility,complements everything that
(29:14):
they're already doing today anddoesn't add additional strain,
additional workflow and in somecases even create some great
efficiencies, which I think isprobably the buzzword of the
decade in this industry thateverybody's looking for.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Right, right.
So you have that executive.
You're in that meeting.
Maybe they're walking into yourtrade show booth, maybe you're
just walking into theirboardroom, whatever that may
look like.
What do you want them to know?
What's the high level?
Just short pitch product offer?
What do you want them to knowif you have that time?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, I mean I always start these discussions with
like, look, this is a simpleproduct, it's pretty
straightforward.
We allow residents to splittheir rent into two smaller
payments, while doing it in away that's operationally
efficient for you.
Once we get that out of the way, you know we've got 29 to 59
(30:03):
more minutes left in thatconversation.
Well, what are we going to fillit with?
I think goes back to what wetalked about earlier.
It's it's painting the story asas to why, because if you don't
know why, it's like you'd havethe coolest best thing in the
whole world.
No one's going to care about it.
So it's like what's therelevance?
To me and I talk to my teamsabout this every every day it
seems like it's like we, we buyand we make choices based on
(30:28):
things that don't just like lookgood on paper but actually
solve a need, provide value, andso, again, it's an education
opportunity to help themunderstand what are your
residents actually dealing with.
Even if everything's greatthey've got stable jobs, they've
got good savings the realitystill exists that there is a
(30:50):
fundamental misalignment betweenwhen rent is due and when the
other 15 to 20 expenses are due,or when cash flow comes in, and
how that all aligns, and andour financial situations are
unique and they're constantlychanging, and you know I mean
you, you could be a high earner,uh that that suddenly gets
(31:10):
affected by tech layoffs, ormaybe you're you're at the mercy
of a commission check and it'sfeast or famine anyone that's
ever worked in the world ofsales right.
So I think that's where I enjoyspending the majority of my time
is just informing and educatingpeople across the country of
the many, many differentsituations.
And I know it's a long answer,but I wanted to say one more
(31:31):
thing real quick.
I think the best multifamilyexecutives that I've had the
pleasure of networking with,learning from and speaking to
are those that started outleasing apartments, which seems
like a very common way to breakinto the industry.
Yeah, you know, I mean thestory goes.
It's like, well, I was 19 and Icouldn't afford rent, so, like
(31:52):
I just started leasing them andslowly, over decades, they
gained experience, they rose inthe ranks and, like you said,
they have become not justexperts of their domain that
understand this industry fromall levels, but they are
empathetic, like they understandwhat it's like to be on the
front lines, both as a communitymanager who is having an
(32:15):
uncomfortable conversation withsomeone who's struggling and,
frankly, having been thatresident that was struggling
themselves.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, you're asked to do so many things in the role
and and you know, I don't knowthat that's changing at all
anytime quickly, but the skillsrequired to be on site are
really fundamentally impressiveto be able to, on one end, do
sales and and other now you'recollecting and then you got to
deal with, you know, issues onsite and things like that, and
(32:42):
so, uh, yeah, having access tothe experience your customers
actually go through is reallyinteresting and I like how you
have this sort of you mentionedthe bdc part this sort of
consumer behavior stuff that youcan bring into these
conversations that maybe youknow we're so heads down in the
industry that we may be missingsome of those insights, you know
, and so that's.
That's a nice value.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So a friend of mine just relocated back to Salt Lake
city, um, where, where he'sfrom, he was.
He's out in Boston for a coupleof years and, uh, I was out in
San Diego a couple of weeks agoand I shared this story cause I
thought it was kind of funny butalso really insightful.
The first couple of weeks thathe had moved home, every time I
would talk to him I'd say so howwas it to be back?
I was expecting to be like oh,I love seeing the mountains, I
(33:25):
love being close to family.
But the first thing out of hismouth for, I kid you not,
probably four of the five timesI spoke with him on the phone
was man, my management companyis frustrating and I was like
that it was so interesting to meand here's why because it it,
it, it was something that waswas just so directly affecting
(33:45):
his life.
Now I've become very defensiveand protective of management
companies, having like workingwith them Right, and, and what I
tried to explain to him is likethey have so much on their
plate, they're going through somuch and you use the site staff
as a perfect example.
They are often the face of theindustry to the general
(34:08):
population, and so we want tomake sure we're equipping our
teams with things that areefficient, that are streamlining
, that are making their liveseasier and more manageable, so
that they can ultimately providethe service that.
I think that's what my friendwas trying to communicate.
He's like I just want to beheard, I want to be seen, I want
my needs to be addressedbecause I chose to live here,
because I was clean, but youknow, they just want to feel
(34:33):
valued.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, that's a true story, no-transcript how stuff
(35:10):
works, what it costs, what thecustomer has to go through, what
the resident has to go through,the employee, the investor
everybody has a differentperspective.
You know one person's lookingat their yield and their cash on
cash and one's looking at youknow, is this property going to
sell and where will I be nextweek?
And then you got a resident.
You got all these differentdynamics going on and it goes
back to that vibe feeling thatyou know it sounds, if I can
(35:34):
feel it I've just met you withinthe organization that you guys
have a can feel it.
I've just met you within theorganization that you guys have
a nice energy about coming inmaking life better for people,
right, and then ultimatelywinning is helpful financially
because then you have theresources to do what you need to
do to take care of yourcustomers.
So I appreciate all that impact.
I know it's a lot of work.
(35:54):
Eight million units, a lot ofcustomers there's a lot more to
go.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, that's, that's the beauty of it.
I mean, our, our internalmantra is, you know the old, uh,
the old, late Kobe Bryant quoteuh, jobs, not finished.
It's like.
You know, our mission is is toempower every renter across the
country with, with the option offinancial flexibility, and so,
yeah, it's, it's something thatthat we're going to continue to
iterate, to evolve, to innovatearound.
(36:21):
And you know, if I could leave,if I could leave anything, um,
it would be with this message isthat, like again, we, we get
better by collaborating together.
And you know we're we're goingto continue to do our best, but
we're going to, we're going tolisten and we're going to listen
to our customers, we're goingto listen to our partners, we're
going to try to make sure thatwe are providing the best
possible flexible rent paymentsolution out there, and we can
(36:44):
only do that by innovatingtogether, by learning and
understanding from each other,and I think that, as a general
rule, is what makes thisindustry so awesome.
Like I say, it's arelationship-driven industry.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
People care about each other and I think, if we
can continue to foster that likewe'll, we'll all be better for
it.
Yeah, so those that want to getin touch with you, how do they
go about doing that?
What's the best process there?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, absolutely so.
In terms of reaching out toflex specifically, I mean, so
it's get, flexcom is the website, and you know that that's a
should to tell you at a highlevel pretty much everything
you'd need to know around who weare and and what we're about.
Um, obviously, ways to to, toreach out via the website, um,
you know, as far as mespecifically, I'm I'm always
open to to if there's notsomething I can answer
(37:32):
specifically making sure you getput in the right hands.
Linkedin, um, but, yeah, checkus out.
Uh, if there are any questionsaround, you know, is, is this
something that I should bethinking about, or why should I
be thinking about it?
Or, you know, I mean, I mean,challenge me a little bit, come
out and say, hey, like, well,actually I offer this type of
housing, you know, in in in thisarea, um, because chances are,
(37:53):
we we probably have partnersthat operate in in kind of a
similar space and learn fromtheir experience and what
they've seen and, you know,ultimately take that experience
and value back to your residents.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, so before we wrap here, I always ask you know
what's the question?
I should be asking that I'm notasking.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I think, as it relates specific to what we do
in the realm of multifamily andrental housing, it's consider
this Ask yourself this questionDo you fully understand the
reality of what your residentsare dealing with in their
financial lives specifically, doyou truly understand their
needs, their wants and theirpreferences around how, when and
(38:48):
where they spend their money?
And I think that starts to openup a conversation even beyond
just a flexible rent paymentoption.
But it causes you to questionwell, how do they think about
this aspect?
You know, another, anothertakeaway from that report was
around.
You know, package lockers camein.
Second is like a reallyimportant thing to residents and
(39:09):
it's like people are orderingstuff all the time, of course,
and you start to take thatframework and apply it to
different areas and all of asudden you've got this, this
experience centric way ofviewing your business, that that
again provides a betterexperience and ultimately comes
back to you and in in continueto help educate the industry on
some of the things that peopleare working on to create not
(39:31):
only more financial stabilityfor the properties, but also a
greater experience for ourcustomers.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
So I appreciate what you're working on and glad to
have you as a partner and, yeah,we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yeah, thank you so much, Great experience.
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
All right, welcome back.
So, as part of the MultifamilyInnovation Council, we spend
time with our partners that arebuilding great stuff, and how
this typically works is, youknow, throughout the year, you
know, as chair of theMultifamily Innovation Council,
I'm spending time withmultifamily owners and operators
and they're telling us what thechallenges are and what
problems they want to solve,what opportunities they want to
(00:22):
create in their business unitand also prioritization of
solving those problems.
And then what we do is we lookout into the industry and we ask
well, who's building stuff thatcan either make a problem go
away or create a bigger andbetter opportunity for
multifamily owners and operators?
And so we brought on our guest,Brad Brad's, here with us,
(00:44):
Principal of Product at Flex andexcited to bring him on the
show.
He's going to join us at theMultifamily Innovation and AI
Summit and we've got him in herein the Innovation Lab talking
about how he's creating valuefor multifamily companies.
So, Brad, welcome in.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, so, Principal of Product,I want to know what's that all
about?
(01:04):
Let our viewers know who youare, what you're working on.
Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, I'll start by just making sure our product
teams aren't going crazy.
So product evangelist, to beclear, as opposed to head of
product.
I don't design the product, butI love talking about it, and
I've been at Flex for a littleover four years and, honestly, I
love telling our story.
I love our mission, I love whatwe're about.
I love this industry.
I've fallen in love with itvery quickly, only having been
(01:29):
here, like I said, for a littleover four years, but it's
something that I and everyonethat I work with are deeply,
deeply passionate about.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
You know it's interesting you mentioned the
evangelist versus the productengineers and those building and
innovating.
You know, through the customerexperience and things like that,
you know a lot of the companieswith AI and sort of the way
that pace of innovation ishappening.
Some of these brands are cominginto industry with literally
product-led growth or justbuilding something great.
(01:58):
You think of, like ChatGPTright, we learned about that
because they built a greatproduct right.
And here you are evangelizinggreat products that you guys are
building and you guys are intosome units, right, yeah, you
could say that We've had somesuccess.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We had what I call the unfortunate good fortune of
coming to market at a time wherenot only did we have great
product market fit, whichobviously is just crucial in any
business, but coming to marketat a time where there was a huge
need.
I mean, we were a pre-COVIDsolution that really kind of
gained traction and awarenessmore broadly during COVID,
(02:35):
during the pandemic, when theneed for financial flexibility
became immediately apparentacross the country.
It didn't matter who you were Imean even me.
I have a very personal storymyself of needing financial
flexibility really for the firsttime in my adult life and
having very few options, nowhereto turn.
And so you know, fast forwardto March of 2020, to September
(02:57):
of 2020, when I found andstarted to flex for me it was a
no brainer.
I was like man, like um.
There are people out here thatneed flexibility, sometimes due
to no fault of their own andsometimes due to the fact that
things are just tough and tight.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, well, let's talk about that.
What is the product, what is itsolving and how are you guys
bridging that gap in thatmarketplace?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So Flex, a New York-based company, financial
tech company, in a kind of broadstrokes picture, we're a
financial wellness app thatprovides solutions to empower
the lives of renters to reallyprioritize and pay for the
things that matter most, to givethem flexibility over their
largest, most significantrecurring expense, which is rent
(03:41):
, and it's traditionally apayment that's been due upfront,
in full at the beginning of themonth, for all the reasons that
we know why.
That's just the way the modelworks, but there's been
relatively little innovationaround how to make that more
flexible and do it in a way thatworks not only for renters but
also for operators as well.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You know, we experience so much software in
our day-to-day life.
You know and you have.
You can pay annually, you paymonthly.
There's different ways thatsubscription services scale
operations and capture paymentsthrough innovation, and now
there's even discussions aroundeven like performance models and
(04:23):
consumption models and thingslike that.
And you're right.
I mean apartment rentals havebeen a subscription business for
as long as ever.
Right, like they've got thisrecurring revenue and we kind of
take for granted some of thethings that have been in place
for many, many years.
They've worked for us andthings like that.
And there's, I imagine,pressure in the world today,
(04:46):
just not even in control of themultifamily owner and operator.
It's just.
Costs are going up, it'sgetting harder and harder.
Work is changing, pressure onthe renter and you guys are
coming.
I like how you positionedwellness.
You mentioned it as wellness.
How much does that part of thevalue of the organization?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You know, I think it plays a huge role.
I mean, you know we are.
I can honestly say we are amission driven organization.
This is a very unique companywith a very unique culture.
In fact, one of my favoritethings to observe more broadly
is, you know, just like any anygo to market or sales
organization, we have a bigkickoff at the beginning of the
year and inevitably, you knowyou have new faces, you know new
(05:32):
hires who are thereexperiencing it for the first
time and to kind of sit back andobserve their experience as
they see this group of folksthat, like I said, are fiercely
passionate about this idea ofempowering renters with
flexibility, with optionality,providing a better rent payment
experience for operators andresidents, but also to be around
people that just have fun, thatare kind, that are genuine.
(05:54):
I think a former boss has put itbest.
He said I don't know that I'veever been around a group of
people that are more talentedbut more wonderful to be with,
and I think that translates intouh, just what we do.
You know and and you knowchances are, folks listening to
this or watching it have seenflex in our booth at one of the
big trade shows and people arekind of like sucked into it, and
(06:17):
I think it's a combinationagain of just great people but
also a product that, that is, ishonestly making a difference.
One of my favorite things everyMonday to wake up to is one of
our sales leaders will post themost recent reviews in our app
store, and you know, it's notjust like oh, flex is cool, flex
(06:38):
is awesome.
Like you know, flex is a reallynice design.
It's like no, I was.
I'm a single mom.
I was literally at at wit's endthis month and this flexibility
made the difference, allowingme to do this for my child, or I
unexpectedly lost my job, or Imean there's a million
variations out there.
Right, it's just, it's crazyand it's very fulfilling work.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I always look at you know, sometimes it's not
that they don't want to pay.
They may not have the abilityto play, to pay at that moment
in time.
And you start to think abouthow work is, even the gig
economy, and how people evenstructure their, their income.
They do need more flexibilityin that aspect.
You know, you're a, you'regreat at the marketing side.
(07:22):
You came from outside theindustry and the ability to do
storytelling I imagine that ispart of your role.
And products the more complexthey are, the more time it takes
to transfer the knowledge interms of, like, this is
something we haven't done before.
Maybe they haven't even knownabout this.
(07:43):
How do you take that approachto communicate messaging to get
people to?
I mean, you kind of have thisconviction and you know that and
you're in the app store, you'reseeing all these value that's
being created.
But for somebody else out therethat maybe hasn't heard of this
or maybe would be consideringit like, how are you going about
communicating those things?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, you know it's an interesting question.
Like I said, like you alludedto, I have a really unique
journey to get here.
So I like to tell people I'm aperformer first and a
professional second, and what Imean by that is the majority of
my professional experience isactually in entertainment live
entertainment, performance,singing, musical theater.
(08:27):
You know movies, film, like allthose different things, and you
learn a lot about theprofessional world of presenting
by being on stage, for a coupleof reasons.
Number one there's, you knowthe old saying goes like there's
just nothing like live theater.
You can rehearse until you'reblue in the face, but at the end
(08:48):
of the day, once you get onstage, whatever happens happens,
and you need to be ready tokind of roll with the punches
right.
The other thing that you learnreally quickly is that it's not
so much about how good you dosomething, but more what do you,
what do you?
What kind of emotionalexperience are people having
with you?
Um, my first professionalexperience we were talking about
this before we went live is Ispent six years working for
(09:11):
Adobe.
They have a headquarters, youknow, just south of Salt Lake
City, and they were all aboutempowering the largest
enterprise brands in the worldto bring digital experience to
their customers, and I thinkthat we live in an experience
economy.
I think that the best brands inthe world, regardless of size,
(09:34):
industry, whatever they play in,understand that experience
matters and they focus on it,almost like with a level of
obsession that there's aconstant innovation, like it's
never perfected.
We can always be doingsomething a little better,
tweaking this, and I think itcomes down to performance and
marketing one-on-one.
(09:54):
Do you know who you're sellingto?
Do you know who your audienceis?
Because if you don't, uh,you're gonna the market will
tell you, and sometimes thatwon't be so forgiving.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, no, I love what you keyed into on performance,
because we have performers evenon our team here.
Lauren's a performer, I thinkeverybody's a performer and with
storytelling today, I mean youcan pretty much tell your story
in more places and more waysthan you've ever been able to,
more places and more ways thanyou've ever been able to, and I
(10:26):
feel like I feel like it's goingto more of like a vibe than the
story, like the vibe is whatyou know.
You're in our innovation and AIlab, right, and that is an
energy that can't be producedother than like, let's say,
you're face to face in themoving.
I like what you said about thelive performance on a stage.
I mean you can watch it, butsay you're face-to-face in the
moving.
I like what you said about thelive performance on a stage.
I mean you can watch it, butwhen you're in there, even if
(10:49):
it's a championship game,wherever, it is like be where
you are and be with the peoplethat you're with, and it seems
like today it's the opportunityto differentiate from all the
other things going on.
And so you mentioned at yourtrade show booth, when people
can kind of just kind of they'rejust drawn into the energy you
know is that the culture is atthe team.
It's the way people feel andyou mentioned emotional in there
(11:13):
.
I, uh, I think there's more tothese products and these
innovations and these thingsthat we're trying to tackle
where we've got to live, leavepeople feeling a certain way, uh
, vibing a certain way, likeknowing, like I want to feel, I
want to be around people thatare prepared, showing up to win,
doing the right things, puttingin the effort, caring, doing
(11:34):
these types of things.
This reflects in the product, Iimagine internally.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, I mean, you know I talked about, you know,
living in an experience economy.
We also live in an era ofauthenticity and I think that
you know people, they seethrough the fluff.
I think your mission can bepure but if it's not portrayed
in a genuine, authentic way thatpeople are going to see right
through it and we'll be thefirst to admit it's like you
(11:58):
know, innovating around theworld of flexible rent payments
is well, it's very simple toexplain.
Right, it's like we allowresidents to split rent up into
two smaller, more manageablepayments, while helping the
operators get paid upfront infull at the beginning of the
month.
Like that's not hard toarticulate.
But putting that together hasbeen wildly complex.
(12:19):
You know, we started out, Ithink, when I joined in
September.
We were somewhere between 25and 30 employees, I think, if
we're not already on track to benorth of 300 here very soon.
I mean the growth has beenphenomenal, you know, in over 8
million units across the country, 2,000 management company
partners across the country.
So the intricacies that areextremely complex and I think
(12:43):
it's just a matter of learning,growing, testing, evolving,
iterating and, like I said, justbeing authentic along the way.
Like you're not going to get itright every time, and you know
what.
That's okay.
Some of our best innovationshave come because products have
or partners rather, have comeback and said this doesn't work
for us, this doesn't work forour industry.
Here's how you can do it better.
Perfect example.
So one of the things that weoffer that you know we get to
(13:07):
talk about in these productdemos and sales pitches to these
management companies is that weoffer an employee benefit, so
anyone that works at amanagement company gets to
utilize the service, you know,at no cost.
And what's really cool aboutthat is, you know, inflation,
the cost of living you know justthe realities of today's world
(13:27):
Like they're not immune justbecause you have a job Right.
It's like everybody feels thepressure of it and so it was a
really cool way Again was, Ibelieve the story goes like it
was brought to us from one ofour partners saying, hey, have
you ever considered offeringthis as a, as a benefit?
Like that's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Like why didn't we think of that?
Right yeah, build with them,right, like.
So that's where the innovationgoes and it's never done.
You guys are constantly workingto make it better with the
customer, not just here.
We made this use it.
You know that type of thing.
What are you hearing insidethese conversations, both in
marketing or even in sales,where they're trying to
understand, because you kind ofserve both customers right, so
(14:10):
it's a huge benefit to theproperty owner they're getting
their rent payment up frontright and obviously a huge value
add for the resident.
How do you manage the messagingwith both of those audiences?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, I mean.
So we have dedicated teams thatmarket specifically, you know,
to partners and operators, andthen those that market more to
the consumer or the end user,which, of course, is the
resident.
And you know, this B2B2C model,which, you know, in and of
itself isn't by naturerevolutionary, right, many
companies have found successdoing it.
I think it was a reallyinteresting approach from our
(14:44):
perspective because, again, notnot coming from this industry,
right, not even knowing what Ididn't know coming in here, it
became very apparent to me earlyon, though, that that
relationships in this industryreally matter, and I think that
if it's something that, ifyou're just coming in from a
tech standpoint, because you'reawesome and you know, can
blindside you and probably oneof the harshest ways possible
(15:07):
because people in this industry,more than others that I've
either worked in or beeninvolved in, they simply do
business with people that theyknow, people that they like,
people that they trust, and soyou know if you can combine that
with a great product that alsoprovides value, addresses pain
(15:27):
you know remedies and managing aplus luxury um housing in
downtown Manhattan where rentsare five, six, $7,000, or it's
(15:49):
it's a rural part of Kansas, youknow subsidized housing, like,
whatever the case may be.
Um, financial flexibility issomething that that everybody
wants, needs or prefers eitherin some way or at some point in
their life and, like I said,sometimes it's not simply
because someone's bad with moneyor because they're living
paycheck to paycheck or you knowsomething on that end of the
(16:11):
spectrum.
Sometimes it's just becauseit's convenient, it's preferable
, and so, like that's been.
The thing that's been awesomeabout working in it for me is
just being able to, like yousaid, learn from these partners,
understanding how we fit inthis complex puzzle of
technology in this industry andbeing able to continually
innovate and provide value tothose that need it and want it.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah.
What do you think is the mostmisunderstood thing about this
whole process?
Are there people that evenhesitate?
Are they pushing back, or whatwould you want others to know
that maybe they don't alreadyknow?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, I love that question.
So we especially initially, ourvery first public trade show
presence was NAA Chicago 2021,which was, again, my first trade
show in this industry, and andat that time, it was less about
telling people how it worked,but having to even educate the
(17:10):
market in terms of like, whythis was a thing.
It's like, well're notrevolutionary, we're
evolutionary, and if you lookback, it's like we've evolved
from cash payments to check toACH, debit and credit, and now
(17:37):
we're not discounting any ofthose other payment options,
we're simply expanding them,offering the flexible payment or
the split pay, the alt pay Imean, there's a million names
for them out there right?
The?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
point is like this is working.
We're collecting our rent.
But I love the idea when we'retalking about Adobe and these
other brands that have donereally creative things and
interesting things in the world.
You know I follow a lot ofbrands like that and I can pick
on a couple here.
But if you picked on Tesla andyou looked at vehicles, if you
ask the smartest people,industry insiders in the
(18:09):
automotive industry, you knowthey're thinking like how do I
make the customer pay more?
Right?
Like, how do I get financingterms and sell more?
And sell more cars?
They're units, like multifamilyunits, and you have Elon Musk
who's like hey, we have acustomer relationship here.
How do I increase the value ofthe vehicle?
Not just the relationship withdoing things?
(18:32):
I mean, this thing is drivingitself now.
So I like the idea of a realestate owner and manager
disrupting dominant logics,which means habits that they've
formed over success.
So there are patterns of how itworked and why do you want to
mess that up, right?
And two, something asinnovative as like, yeah, we
(18:55):
have a way to collect rent nowand it's working, but wait a
minute, let's increase the valueof the resident.
Like, make renting morevaluable.
That's what you guys are doing.
You're making it more valuablebecause you're giving them more
options, more flexibility, more.
Maybe they can do other thingswith that money and that time.
I don't know, I'm not going tomake those assumptions, but I
(19:15):
love that people are making thatshift in conversations with you
, where they're like this isworking, why would we do it any
differently?
Oh wait, a minute.
Now we're increasing the valueof the renting experience, not
just taking away purchasingpower.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Let me give a great example.
People are willing to pay morefor great experiences.
So anyone who's talked to mefor 10 minutes knows that I will
only fly Delta Airlines.
Like I'm an unabashed travelsnob, it is that the is second
to none, at least, at leastdomestically, when I fly Um and
I think that that's somethingthat people often underestimate
it's, it's, it's less about howdo I, how do I try to like,
(19:58):
force or or or extract moremoney from someone as opposed to
like?
How do I just make sure thatthe things that I'm offering are
actually meeting their needs?
And a great example of this iswe released a report with Jay
Turner Research a few months agoand the whole report was around
this premise of is there adisconnect or a misalignment
that exists between whatoperators think residents want
(20:23):
and what residents actuallyvalue and prioritize?
And one of the takeaways fromthat, among other things, was
that they want flexibility andoptionality.
And we're down here inbeautiful Scottsdale.
I'll quote one of my all-timefavorite industry folks, linda
Coburn, vp of Asset Managementat Next Metro here,
arizona-based.
That said it's about so muchmore than just offering a box to
(20:46):
live in.
It's got to be an experience.
Are you providing flexibility,optionality the basic things
that, frankly, we've come toexpect in every other aspect of
our lives.
I mean, I remember 20, I thinkit was 2020, 2021, when I had
first started.
A colleague of mine shared akind of a funny anecdote.
She was online shopping forlike a face cream.
(21:10):
It was like $200.
Why we're shopping for $200face creams, that's another
discussion for another podcast.
But the thing that wasinteresting is she said, check
this out, and she sent me thisscreenshot.
There were 12 different ways topay for that face cream and I
just had this light bulb moment.
It's like we live in a countrywhere you have, you know, four
(21:33):
to six times more ways to payfor a luxury item than to to
meet your basic monthlyobligation of paying for rent,
and you know that, among otherthings, we're just like man,
like, like we need to get thisout there.
People need more flexibility,more options and, like I said,
even the research is provingthat is of great value to people
.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, and the consumers being trained by even
like an Amazon or even like aPayPal, even the checkout,
commerce, e-commerce stuff.
They're giving them differentmodels for that, like you
mentioned, in terms of gettingwhat they want, want when they
want it and how they want it.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Well, and to use Amazon as a perfect example of
that, I think it was two yearsago or something around that
time they offered a firm as kindof their flexible payment
option of record or whatever thecorrect term is there, but
meaning like if anything overaround like 50 bucks, I think,
is what it is you had theability to split it up into
smaller interest-free paymentsand and the example I love to
use all the time for people thatthat maybe hear about flex and
(22:33):
this option like well, I don't,I don't like have a collection
issue, or like I don't even knowif people are going to use this
.
It's like well, two things toconsider.
Number one there's a highlikelihood that that people that
are renting at your communitiesare probably utilizing some
form of flexible payments inother aspects of their life to
to travel, to pay for everydayessentials, to to pay for
(22:53):
electronics.
I mean, even certain charges onyour credit card can now be
paid over time in a moreflexible manner, right, and then
when you consider kind of at aat a bigger level, uh, that that
again this, this researchreport kind of talks about that
it's Gen Z and millennials thatare leading this global demand
(23:13):
for flexible payments.
And when you boil it down tothe rental housing industry, I
mean that's a demographic that'sprojected to be the largest
demographic of renters maybe inhistory, and so if they're
leading this outside of theindustry, it just stands to
reason that they're going towant, and at some point start to
expect, that level offlexibility with their rent
(23:36):
payment.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I love the way you tell that story because it's so
important, because we're makingparallels to other things that
people already experience inlife.
And for example, alana, ifyou're building a car today and
you make a car company, you'reprobably in a car every day,
usually in some aspect, or you'dsee one.
I mean, go a day without seeinga car right, and so it's pretty
(23:59):
easy to get to the product,knowledge and the fit and how
you'd make it different.
But if some of these owner andoperators have been so
successful with the purposes tocreate wealth right and then
protect it, and if they're theones making the decisions and
yet they're not living in theapartment, they may be a little
disconnected from this flexiblepayment kind of need, because
maybe they themselves don't needit right and so they're not
(24:21):
prioritizing that, they're notasking that question in the
meetings and it just kind offlows through, and so I love the
way that you're, but you can.
But most people are buyingthings around the world and
they're getting stuff to theirhome and and these types of
things, and so that gives that'sa great trend to follow, and it
stands to say that multifamilyis a wealth creating engine, but
(24:44):
also it has a lot of paymentsflowing right through that
business.
I mean I can't believe it'sbeen this long.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Well, and again, I think that's what makes Flex a
really interesting company.
It's kind of like it's paymentsmeets real estate, meets
consumer finance, right, and sowe have a really interesting
perspective on a few differentareas that not everybody does.
(25:13):
And I like to say, you know,just to put it in my own words,
like the best brands in theworld, make it as easy as
possible for you to give themtheir money, yes, or for, yeah,
you give them their money, and Ithink that that is something
that we don't always consider.
Some of my least pleasantshopping experiences have been
going to a store or paying for agood or a service with the
(25:36):
expectation of I'm going to usethis payment option because
that's what I want, or I getthis benefit from it, only to
find out I have to use the otherone, and it's frustrating.
I mean, I'm a guy that loves mypoints, I love to travel and I
try to maximize them in my ownway, but when I don't get to pay
with my Delta American express,I get frustrated, right, and I
(25:56):
think that's something that wecan all learn, regardless of
industry.
Uh, is that like?
At the end of the day?
Again, people want options, they, they want choice, they want to
be able to dictate what worksbest for them and want options.
They want choice, they want tobe able to dictate what works
best for them.
And going back to your questionabout misconception, I think
again, oftentimes we'll comeinto this conversation where
it's like well, again, I don'thave a delinquency issue, my
(26:17):
renters have no trouble makingrent payment.
If they did, I probablywouldn't want them in this unit
anyway.
And they don't step back andconsider well, maybe people want
more control over their cashflow, or what happens if they
are part of that 60%, 70% thatcouldn't come up with $1,000 in
the case of an emergency, orhave no emergency savings at all
(26:38):
.
And life happens, because, ifthe last five years has taught
us anything, life happens and ithappens to all of us.
Life happens and it happens toall of us.
That's just one of a millionreasons why at least considering
or having the conversationaround an expansion of payment
options is a really, really, notjust good and sound strategy
but, frankly, an easy way toenhance the experience which, as
(27:01):
you so eloquently put it, willultimately lead to return value
in the long run.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, who do you want to spend time with?
Is it the CFO, is it themarketing or operations?
Because I mean you kind of hitall of them really.
What's the ideal conversationyou want to have with somebody?
Who's that in the organization?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I mean, look, you're talking to someone that sits on
customer calls and salesconversations, right, or
partnership conversations as wewould kind of put it with our
model.
But you know, I mean the shortanswer is, of course you want to
be in the room with a decisionmaker, someone that can, you
know, make this work.
But I think that the correctanswer is you want to make sure
that you have the buy-in fromanyone that could influence that
(27:47):
decision, anyone who wasaffected by that.
And what's interesting,specifically about rent payments
.
I mean it's the lifeblood ofthe industry.
Like you shut rent off or youaffect rent, like everything
goes with it, right.
But think about some of theindirect consequences of you
know, if rent doesn't getcollected, all of the time and
(28:11):
energy that's spent, you know,serving late notices, following
up, having uncomfortableconversations.
I mean again, even more indirectthings that we don't often
consider just the strain and thestress that comes on the
landlord-resident relationshipand just the toll that that can
take and play into the residentexperience.
(28:31):
So it's a combination ofexecutives, it's a combination,
obviously, of technical folks.
On the implementation side.
You know it's not a large liftto get Flex implemented but it
does require a little bit ofwork that you know takes us all
of a day or two to get set upand running in the background.
But you know you want to makesure your accountants are happy
and making sure that theintegration is reconciling in a
(28:54):
way that doesn't add burden tothem.
So again, kind of a biggeranswer, but all that to say is
you know, we want to make surethat everybody's on the same
page and understands how youknow offering a tool or a
solution that ultimately, youknow serves the residents need
of wanting flexibility,complements everything that
(29:14):
they're already doing today anddoesn't add additional strain,
additional workflow and in somecases even create some great
efficiencies, which I think isprobably the buzzword of the
decade in this industry thateverybody's looking for.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Right, right.
So you have that executive.
You're in that meeting.
Maybe they're walking into yourtrade show booth, maybe you're
just walking into theirboardroom, whatever that may
look like.
What do you want them to know?
What's the high level?
Just short pitch product offer?
What do you want them to knowif you have that time?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, I mean I always start these discussions with
like, look, this is a simpleproduct, it's pretty
straightforward.
We allow residents to splittheir rent into two smaller
payments, while doing it in away that's operationally
efficient for you.
Once we get that out of the way, you know we've got 29 to 59
(30:03):
more minutes left in thatconversation.
Well, what are we going to fillit with?
I think goes back to what wetalked about earlier.
It's it's painting the story asas to why, because if you don't
know why, it's like you'd havethe coolest best thing in the
whole world.
No one's going to care about it.
So it's like what's therelevance?
To me and I talk to my teamsabout this every every day it
seems like it's like we, we buyand we make choices based on
(30:28):
things that don't just like lookgood on paper but actually
solve a need, provide value, andso, again, it's an education
opportunity to help themunderstand what are your
residents actually dealing with.
Even if everything's greatthey've got stable jobs, they've
got good savings the realitystill exists that there is a
(30:50):
fundamental misalignment betweenwhen rent is due and when the
other 15 to 20 expenses are due,or when cash flow comes in, and
how that all aligns, and andour financial situations are
unique and they're constantlychanging, and you know I mean
you, you could be a high earner,uh that that suddenly gets
(31:10):
affected by tech layoffs, ormaybe you're you're at the mercy
of a commission check and it'sfeast or famine anyone that's
ever worked in the world ofsales right.
So I think that's where I enjoyspending the majority of my time
is just informing and educatingpeople across the country of
the many, many differentsituations.
And I know it's a long answer,but I wanted to say one more
(31:31):
thing real quick.
I think the best multifamilyexecutives that I've had the
pleasure of networking with,learning from and speaking to
are those that started outleasing apartments, which seems
like a very common way to breakinto the industry.
Yeah, you know, I mean thestory goes.
It's like, well, I was 19 and Icouldn't afford rent, so, like
(31:52):
I just started leasing them andslowly, over decades, they
gained experience, they rose inthe ranks and, like you said,
they have become not justexperts of their domain that
understand this industry fromall levels, but they are
empathetic, like they understandwhat it's like to be on the
front lines, both as a communitymanager who is having an
(32:15):
uncomfortable conversation withsomeone who's struggling and,
frankly, having been thatresident that was struggling
themselves.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, you're asked to do so many things in the role
and and you know, I don't knowthat that's changing at all
anytime quickly, but the skillsrequired to be on site are
really fundamentally impressiveto be able to, on one end, do
sales and and other now you'recollecting and then you got to
deal with, you know, issues onsite and things like that, and
(32:42):
so, uh, yeah, having access tothe experience your customers
actually go through is reallyinteresting and I like how you
have this sort of you mentionedthe bdc part this sort of
consumer behavior stuff that youcan bring into these
conversations that maybe youknow we're so heads down in the
industry that we may be missingsome of those insights, you know
, and so that's.
That's a nice value.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So a friend of mine just relocated back to Salt Lake
city, um, where, where he'sfrom, he was.
He's out in Boston for a coupleof years and, uh, I was out in
San Diego a couple of weeks agoand I shared this story cause I
thought it was kind of funny butalso really insightful.
The first couple of weeks thathe had moved home, every time I
would talk to him I'd say so howwas it to be back?
I was expecting to be like oh,I love seeing the mountains, I
(33:25):
love being close to family.
But the first thing out of hismouth for, I kid you not,
probably four of the five timesI spoke with him on the phone
was man, my management companyis frustrating and I was like
that it was so interesting to meand here's why because it it,
it, it was something that waswas just so directly affecting
(33:45):
his life.
Now I've become very defensiveand protective of management
companies, having like workingwith them Right, and, and what I
tried to explain to him is likethey have so much on their
plate, they're going through somuch and you use the site staff
as a perfect example.
They are often the face of theindustry to the general
(34:08):
population, and so we want tomake sure we're equipping our
teams with things that areefficient, that are streamlining
, that are making their liveseasier and more manageable, so
that they can ultimately providethe service that.
I think that's what my friendwas trying to communicate.
He's like I just want to beheard, I want to be seen, I want
my needs to be addressedbecause I chose to live here,
because I was clean, but youknow, they just want to feel
(34:33):
valued.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, that's a true story, no-transcript how stuff
(35:10):
works, what it costs, what thecustomer has to go through, what
the resident has to go through,the employee, the investor
everybody has a differentperspective.
You know one person's lookingat their yield and their cash on
cash and one's looking at youknow, is this property going to
sell and where will I be nextweek?
And then you got a resident.
You got all these differentdynamics going on and it goes
back to that vibe feeling thatyou know it sounds, if I can
(35:34):
feel it I've just met you withinthe organization that you guys
have a can feel it.
I've just met you within theorganization that you guys have
a nice energy about coming inmaking life better for people,
right, and then ultimatelywinning is helpful financially
because then you have theresources to do what you need to
do to take care of yourcustomers.
So I appreciate all that impact.
I know it's a lot of work.
(35:54):
Eight million units, a lot ofcustomers there's a lot more to
go.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, that's, that's the beauty of it.
I mean, our, our internalmantra is, you know the old, uh,
the old, late Kobe Bryant quoteuh, jobs, not finished.
It's like.
You know, our mission is is toempower every renter across the
country with, with the option offinancial flexibility, and so,
yeah, it's, it's something thatthat we're going to continue to
iterate, to evolve, to innovatearound.
(36:21):
And you know, if I could leave,if I could leave anything, um,
it would be with this message isthat, like again, we, we get
better by collaborating together.
And you know we're we're goingto continue to do our best, but
we're going to, we're going tolisten and we're going to listen
to our customers, we're goingto listen to our partners, we're
going to try to make sure thatwe are providing the best
possible flexible rent paymentsolution out there, and we can
(36:44):
only do that by innovatingtogether, by learning and
understanding from each other,and I think that, as a general
rule, is what makes thisindustry so awesome.
Like I say, it's arelationship-driven industry.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
People care about each other and I think, if we
can continue to foster that likewe'll, we'll all be better for
it.
Yeah, so those that want to getin touch with you, how do they
go about doing that?
What's the best process there?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, absolutely so.
In terms of reaching out toflex specifically, I mean, so
it's get, flexcom is the website, and you know that that's a
should to tell you at a highlevel pretty much everything
you'd need to know around who weare and and what we're about.
Um, obviously, ways to to, toreach out via the website, um,
you know, as far as mespecifically, I'm I'm always
open to to if there's notsomething I can answer
(37:32):
specifically making sure you getput in the right hands.
Linkedin, um, but, yeah, checkus out.
Uh, if there are any questionsaround, you know, is, is this
something that I should bethinking about, or why should I
be thinking about it?
Or, you know, I mean, I mean,challenge me a little bit, come
out and say, hey, like, well,actually I offer this type of
housing, you know, in in in thisarea, um, because chances are,
(37:53):
we we probably have partnersthat operate in in kind of a
similar space and learn fromtheir experience and what
they've seen and, you know,ultimately take that experience
and value back to your residents.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, so before we wrap here, I always ask you know
what's the question?
I should be asking that I'm notasking.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I think, as it relates specific to what we do
in the realm of multifamily andrental housing, it's consider
this Ask yourself this questionDo you fully understand the
reality of what your residentsare dealing with in their
financial lives specifically, doyou truly understand their
needs, their wants and theirpreferences around how, when and
(38:48):
where they spend their money?
And I think that starts to openup a conversation even beyond
just a flexible rent paymentoption.
But it causes you to questionwell, how do they think about
this aspect?
You know, another, anothertakeaway from that report was
around.
You know, package lockers camein.
Second is like a reallyimportant thing to residents and
(39:09):
it's like people are orderingstuff all the time, of course,
and you start to take thatframework and apply it to
different areas and all of asudden you've got this, this
experience centric way ofviewing your business, that that
again provides a betterexperience and ultimately comes
back to you and in in continueto help educate the industry on
some of the things that peopleare working on to create not
(39:31):
only more financial stabilityfor the properties, but also a
greater experience for ourcustomers.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
So I appreciate what you're working on and glad to
have you as a partner and, yeah,we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yeah, thank you so much, Great experience.
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
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