Full transcript: Aonghus Stevens — Asseti: treating commercial property portfolios like living, breathing organisms

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Aonghus Stevens: Thank you for having me, Kylie. Very fun.

Kylie Davis: Um, and so congratulations on your wins at the, at the PropTech Awards recently. It was great to see. Hope your team had a good night.

Aonghus Stevens: Oh, they, uh, they did, and we had quite a few customers there as well with us across the two tables, so they, uh, they were having an absolute rager together.

Kylie Davis: It's always good to... It's great to... It was great to see so many customers in the room, actually.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: So look, so give us... The first question is always the hardest with the podcast. What is the Asseti elevator pitch?

Aonghus Stevens: So Asseti is an intelligent asset operations platform that lets people predict, plan, and operate their property assets.

Kylie Davis: Awesome. Beautifully done. Well done. So let's dive into what that means specifically. What does it do? How long have you been in market? Like, tell us the, tell us the backstory.

Aonghus Stevens: So we've been in market about four years now. Um, and we started off in condition, so focused on condition of the asset itself, uh, using drones to build a, a 3D model of an asset, but that's really sort of, um, you know, not, not what a customer would use in the product. And then taking that out of it to build an asset hierarchy, uh, and a defect register. So what a customer sees is, uh, a list of defects in their portfolio plus a component hierarchy. The component hierarchy falls into CapEx, the issues fall into OpEx, and that's how someone predicts, you know, and, and sort of pr- uh, plans what to do in their property portfolio. So they have a schedule of things to do over the next six, 12, 18, 24 months in terms of defects that need rectification. Uh, and then they have a long-term capital planning component that they would put into their CMMS or, or other system around, um, you know, how they, how they actually do the work and planning of renewals and things.

Kylie Davis: Cool. Okay. So is it... Is... Does it work for just a particular part of the market? Is it commercial buildings mainly? Is it commercial, industrial? Is it... How do... Does it play in the residential space? Give us an overview on that.

Aonghus Stevens: We don't do too much in residential here in Australia, um, but we, we do do in the US. But it's, it's more focused on commercial real estate in the sense of, uh, uh, non-residential. Um, but we- we're more skewed towards large format, so industrial, uh, big box retail, shopping centers, um, and, and government. Um, in the US, build to rent is, uh, a bit of a different format to here. Usually it's sort of-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Aonghus Stevens: ... it's towers here, whereas in the US there's a lot more, um, sort of townhouses and single dwelling, um, uh, estates. Um, and so we would, um... We sell more into that in the US definitely than, than, say, here with multifamily. But, um, yeah, across the sort of any, any large distributed asset portfolio is typically our, our customer. Um, and, you know, they might have 10 assets through to 5,000 or 10,000 assets. Um, and so it's quite a broad cross-section, but they need some distribution in their asset portfolio for Asseti to be really beneficial for them.

Kylie Davis: Got it. Okay. So, so how, how big is the market for, for, for p- platforms like Asseti? Like, how, how big a s- a market are you playing in?

Aonghus Stevens: It is mind-boggling how big it is. In terms of non-residential real estate globally, there's about 720 billion square feet of it. So, you know, the-

Kylie Davis: Well, it's in metric.

Aonghus Stevens: Uh, so, oh, there we go. I've been, I've been doing too much America. So, uh, 72 billion square meters.

Kylie Davis: Right.

Aonghus Stevens: So that, that's a lot of floor space. Um- The, the, um, you know, the industrial market here in Australia, it's about 130 million square meters, for example, of, of warehousing here. Uh, you know, in, uh, in the US there are sort of five to six customers who would represent that entire set in their portfolio themselves. And so, you know, the depth of the market, um, is, is definitely very different between the two. But also there's a very different, um... There are a lot of differences between the market, a lot of similarities as well.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Okay. So, so the, the, obviously commercial property's been around for a long time, and people have been managing their assets for a really long time. Um, how is Assetty different to how we've done it traditionally? Or even how... I mean, you guys are only four years old, so how, how are you guys doing it differently to even other tech that's been in the sector for a while?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. It's really interesting. So I think the construction and real estate are two of the s- the sort of sectors that have done it like they did 100 years ago. And, you know, you still have people building buildings, and you still have people looking at assets to decide what to do with them. And it's amazing that the world's largest asset class is still basically manually run. Um, and so that's a, that's a really fascinating dynamic. Um, and so, you know, the existing way of doing things at a, a customer, take it even just in an inspection sense, which is how some of this source data would, would typically be generated. They'd send someone with a clipboard who says, "Okay, well, this parking lot needs to be renewed," or, "We need to look at this roof to do something." And they would then, you know, plan $5 or $10 million for that, and, and sort of just have it sitting as a budget line. Um, and almost universally, every single customer we go into, uh, they have a very poor asset hierarchy, you know, asset register. They don't have this data sitting there. And so what we build for them as, um, which is, which is probably our most unique, uh, sort of IP up front for them, is we build them a very detailed asset hierarchy across their entire portfolio. And so we could tell them down to the number of trees they've got, you know, number of meters of hedging, you know, how much, you know, square meterage of pavement there is, what the condition of it is. And so all of a sudden they've gone from basically PDF checklist to having, um, y- you know, an exhaustive sort of hierarchy across their asset. Uh, and there's still the visual map-based element that is in Assetty, and a customer, you know, uses it as, as part of some of it. But definitely the, the usage of this data, uh, you know, planning where they're gonna build maintenance sheds across their portfolio based on how they're buying assets to maintain grass, these sort of things, like there's a, there's some really fascinating use cases for it. Um, and so, you know, the way we, we build it, we would, um, we're, we're sort of selling into a, um, a customer that would have engineers or, you know, roofing contractors or someone come and, and do something, invariably they're told that everything needs replacing. Um, you know, or the-... and we do. You know, and that's that sort of skew. Like, you have a contractor come who is, i- is sort of incentivized to have it renewed. And they're not necessarily being, you know, nefarious in that process, but it's, it's just inherently they're skewed towards that advice. And so that, um, yeah, that sort of usage then of that in a, in a forward planning sense, often customers have been super active, like get a call from a tenant who's squealing because their roof's leaking and, you know, the 10,000 pallets are ruined. And so, uh, that's the, that's the sort of, um, space that these FMs and, and asset operations staff play in.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. And, and I guess it's probab- if, if... I mean, the way that we've typically done this in the past, like you were saying before, is manual. It's been not perfect. It hasn't really been, it's been clipboard and tick, you know, and, and, and, um, and tick box based. If that's your approach, and you're only... then you're only gonna do a... And it takes months to a- assemble all of that data to make it a meaningful report or, you know, weeks and weeks to assemble it into a meaningful report, and costs a lot of manpower, you're probably only gonna do it every, what, five, 10, 10 years. I know in my strata building at, one of the strata buildings at the moment, we're trying to get them to, to do a, you know, an assessment of everything, and the idea is the, that it's gonna take a long time, it's gonna be really expensive, it's gonna, you know, it's probably not gonna tell us that much, which is wrong. But anyway, um-

Aonghus Stevens: And it's, it is incredibly laborious to do this. And so, you know, the, the, the need, our customers have a need every day for this data.

Kylie Davis: Yeah, yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: And they need it to be current every day.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: And so, you know, sometime, most frequently would be annually that a customer would have done their sort of clipboard-based stuff, but usually, as you say, like multi-year, um, in there. And so this, this move to proactive, I think, I think previously proactive asset management was seen as like this really difficult thing. And in, say, you know-

Kylie Davis: Or luxury.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. And there's a difference in like oil and gas doing proactive asset management, which is like preempting a catastrophic failure.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: And then there's proactive asset management in the sense of actually just doing things at the point you need to do them-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Aonghus Stevens: ... rather than doing them 12 months after you were meant to do them. And so that's where, y- you know, the, um, probably, we probably initially saw like this, this, uh, apprehension of people to move towards proactive asset management because they saw it as like this costly, enormous thing. But realistically it's not. It's just like preempting the decision and understanding the decision needed to be made at a point in time. And we have, you know, customers that facility managers spending $5,000 or $10,000 every day to, to do a variety of things, and sometimes they didn't need to spend that money, or they should have spent $20,000. And so it's that impact of the dollar today actually being worth millions of dollars later down the track. And pretty much everyone is a financial investor, you know, so they're buying, they're buying an asset to deliver some form of return over the life of that asset. And by making these poor asset management decisions along the way, they're degrading the rate of return they get Which is ostensibly what it boils down to. And so it's, okay, how, like for us as a platform, how do we understand the asset intimately for the customer to deliver the best rate of return for them across the life of that asset? You know? And, and that's really, like, that's really the core part to it. And, like, i- you know, we... So we think of the asset as a, as a stakeholder in our process. Because, like, if I put you outside for 50 years, you'd feel a bit weathered. You know, I'd feel weathered.

Kylie Davis: Oh. Oh, darling, yes.

Aonghus Stevens: And an asset's the same thing, you know? An asset lives and breathes in the environment it operates in, and that's a... You put these human processes over and someone buys and sells it, you know, acquires, sort of divests it, operate it, et cetera, but they're all just human processes over this living organism, and the way that living organism responds is super critical to the outcome for the asset owner. And that, for us, is like, how do we make sure the CEO, the CFO, everyone in the business can make the right decision around this organism? They're basically putting money into this living and breathing beast.

Kylie Davis: Mm.

Aonghus Stevens: Like, how can we, how can we make sure that the money they get out at the end is maximized?

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: Is sort of, is sort of the easiest way to think about it.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. I love, I lo- I love it, actually. Because basically what you're capturing is net present value and identifying what the degradation is going to be if you don't... You know, like w- w- hel- helping basically make sure that y- you're investing in it now. A, a, a, an ex... A, a personal example, you know, like, we had a property once that had... We didn't realize it was a really old place, and a, a next door's downpipe was going un- wasn't actually connected to the sewer. It was going under our front room, and we couldn't work out why we had rising damp and slugs. Um, and then basically the floor fell in. It w- You know, the floor fell apart, and that was when we realized the issue. But... And when we go back to that example you were talking about before, that, um, well, the roofing contractor comes on and says, "Oh, you have to replace the whole thing," well, if you're only gonna do an assessment every 10 years, probably you do have to replace the whole thing because, uh, it... The, the, the state of it then is on- isn't, isn't gonna last the 10 years. So those guys might be kind of... You know, that, that's kind of the cost of it, of, of the t- of slowness, of understanding the actual problems as they evolve, as opposed to waiting till, until they're catastrophic to address.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, and that's where, like, you know, take, take a warehouse. Like in the US, the average age of warehousing over there is, like, 42 years. And so you've got a lot of dynamics over there at the moment around, um, you know, macroeconomic conditions, and, and COVID as well, having put a lot of different pressure on supply chains, and, you know, the, the sort of demand at the moment over there for sovereign industrial assets that, um, uh, are meaning these assets that were sort of planned for end of life, uh, are all of a sudden being, being brought back online. But in the same hand, you've got membrane roofing that only lasts half of that anyway.

Kylie Davis: Mm.

Aonghus Stevens: And so, you know, in the... A- and here in Australia, sort of every warehouse has got colorbond, so it's, uh... or, or, you know, at least, um, corrugated roofing, so it lasts a lot longer, whereas in the US, this sort of membrane roofing that they have is just, it's just always being attacked by the environment. And so it's like, okay, well, how, how do you actually plan over the life of the asset, where it's, you know, these assets are end of life effectively, the, you know, a lot of them, and all of a sudden now they need to live for another 10 years, um, because that's a great thing for the investor? And how do you actually then make sure the right decisions are made? But it's not even around, like, condition necessarily. You know, it could be that, um, that they're having a plumber go to site every month to do something, and the plumber's billing them, and they've got sign-in logs as well. And so they've got no way at the moment of correlating those two. They don't correlate their work order system and their sign-in logs. And so it's like, okay, well, either the contractor, you know, they... If there's no sign-in log, either they went to site and didn't follow your process properly or they didn't go to site. But either way, you should actually be having that conversation with them and maybe not paying them. But this sort of leakage in, in asset operations that happens is enormous. And so it's like, how, how do we build a data model with a customer to help them better operate their assets, essentially? Um, and it's a really fascinating and sort of expansive space because the condition is a big part of it, but it's also a whole bunch of other asset operational sort of considerations in there that really build into the data model and how they... You know, someone takes 12 months to fix a defect that should take six months, we would furnish it earlier than, you know, than, than another one who might fix it within 30 days. And so that's sort of like learning how a customer operates their network becomes a really critical aspect of the system.

Kylie Davis: So are you able to tell... I mean, I guess one of the terrifying things about what you're able to tell a customer is if they have very bad internal decision-making, you're able to tell them how much that's costing them in delays, in, in, in ac- in responding to some of the data that they're seeing.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, it d- And it depends how you look at it. Like, it could be, you know... It could be that a customer is just terrible at making decisions, but it could also be that their asset management strategy is that they're only spending, you know, X amount a year on an asset, and they just don't have the capacity, and they've made a decision early on not to fix it.

Kylie Davis: Mm.

Aonghus Stevens: But they've just left that defect open for a very long time. And so they're, uh... And even in those scenarios, they're two very different things. Like, I'd say an as- a customer that's deciding not to do stuff on their asset but is quite proactive about that decision, you know, is, is, is, um, is very different to a customer that is blind to, to the stuff-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Aonghus Stevens: ... that's happening there. So these are really, like, every organization is so different. Um, and so that's where, you know, we started solving the, the problem, um, around sort of asset condition, um, and, and data, and that's definitely, you know, globally, we provide, I would say, the best data set for that on, on building sort of envelope and surrounds. But then as we started to do that, customers were like, "This is great, but, like, now I actually want to do something with this data." And then as we started to do something with the data for a customer, we saw all these other things that the customer has in their asset operations that they want to also do the same workflows on. And so that's, like, we have a feature, Asset OS, in the system, which is an operating system for asset owners. And so that's really- That's quite new in the market, but it's really about building this workflow engine for a customer to, to become like their, their, uh, assistant effectively in the process. So it builds the information layers for them, looks for the irregularities that are happening, but it also helps them start to systemize the IP that a lot of these, a lot of these customers have. Um, and you know, you've been in real estate a while, like you, you, if you look at a commercial real estate operator, some of the big REITs, often a lot of that knowledge and IP sits within a very small customer or a very small user set in the org, but it needs to then be sort of differentia- or distributed back out. And so this like hourglass motion that often happens is like, okay, how can we widen the hourglass by documenting the IP and, and systemizing the IP that a customer has around their asset operations? Um, and so yeah, it's a super exciting space, and a lot of customers are, um, you know, are trusting us and, and giving us the, uh, I guess the, the luxury and authority to work with them on their massive portfolios.

Kylie Davis: Awesome. So how, so how did you get into it, Angus? Like, what's your background?

Aonghus Stevens: Uh, well, I'm a university trained biologist, so, um, aside from that, uh, which, which I've, uh, I've never used, but, um, no, sort of-

Kylie Davis: Now, I don't know, you just described buildings as a, um, you know, as a living, breathing organism.

Aonghus Stevens: There you go.

Kylie Davis: I kind of feel like there's a synergy there.

Aonghus Stevens: There you go. Um, so I, I've been in what would probably broadly be described as the drone space for quite a while now. Um, not that that's really what it is today in the business, but, uh, in the late, late, you know, 2008, 2009, I think it was, was, uh, got into selling drones, um, big drones. Like, they were really, really different back then. Uh, massive, sort of... They looked like a two-seater aircraft. And then, uh, got into drones as a service, uh, maybe 2015. That was probably may- maybe a bit earlier than that even. Um, when people were wanting to buy drones, but really, like, we were never selling the drone, we're selling an outcome anyway as part of that. So that's where drones as a service became a thing. And then, um, uh, and we have a business called Measure Australia, which still, um, sort of sits in our company group and is one of the largest, um, sort of operators here. And then, um, uh, early sort of 2020 it would've been, we, um, uh, we started to design a platform, um, based on the experiences we had in, in Measure with customers paying us to do inspections on their assets. Um, and that's really where AssetOS started, and then it took on a life of its own after that. You know, we, we... Trying to launch an enterprise product during COVID is incredibly difficult. Um, and so we, uh, we signed Murdoc back very early on.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: There, there, uh, you know, that, that was, uh, that was amazing for us. And then, um, uh, it was a long time between drinks before the next one. But that's, um, you know, that, that was sort of starting us on that journey. And then as we, as we worked more and more with these customers, um, yeah, this sort of... I guess what the product is in market today is, is largely like what we would describe as capture, so capturing the asset data and, and originating this data for the customer. And then we're moving into the orchestration stage with the customer now, so orchestrating the outcome for them on their, on their asset. Um, and, um, and I think, you know, the, the sort of move in the last 18 months with generative AI has been fascinating for our customer set. So their, their understanding of how, uh, how AI and solutions in their business, you know, what they want, have sort of accelerated their understanding of data, and it has, their, their ERP hasn't really kept up. And so the chasm between our enterprise customers and their ERP is m- is significant. You know, it's, it's almost probably like a decade of development, um, that, that these ERPs need to do to actually get to where these, this customer set wants them to be now. And so, um-

Kylie Davis: So just, so, um, three-letter acronym alert, what d- what does ERP stand for?

Aonghus Stevens: Uh, ERP, like their, their, like, uh, enterprise resource planning. It's like their core system-

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm

Aonghus Stevens: ... on which they operate. So like s- you know-

Kylie Davis: Yep

Aonghus Stevens: ... um, uh, without naming too many names, like SAP or something like that, you know, someone who's on like SAP or... And they're us- you know, sub- supercritical systems for what they do. Yardi's obviously a big one in, in, in real estate. Um, but I think that sort of, that movement between what have been quite l- quite closed systems, um, you know, to a, to a more open environment to actually ensure these ERPs, uh, can, can continue to operate for the business, um, that's been a really interesting transition. Um, and so that's something that we are, um... I mean, we see a lot of opportunity with for our customers to, um, to sort of sit across that and help them in that, in that piece, and that's definitely what the, the goal of AssetOS is and, you know, it's resonating incredibly well at the moment.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. So, so look, so because, like, even in four years, like the role of AI has sort of, you know, im- improved, changed and, like ridiculously rapidly, what... How are you guys... How is that AI functioning in your business?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, so I think there's two, there's sort of two buckets which we, we would put AI. Um, one is the bucket which helps us, and the other is the bucket which helps our customer. And so the bu- the bucket that helps us is what I describe as margin-increasing AI. So, you know, it makes us do something quicker, helps us, you know, effectively keep our headcount in check while accelerating, you know, the, the product. So, um, we use AI to generate our component hierarchies in our defect registers. Um, and we have human in the loop, which checks everything before it goes out to a, a customer. But that AI, um, largely just generates the, the information that, um, that our, the sort of data that our customer, you know, would, would see. And that's been a really critical, um, I guess, critical piece of IP for us to build. And, and we process hundreds of millions of images now that, um, that have all that data in them and, and sort of across sites, uh, Austra- across Australia and the US. And so that, um- That's super beneficial for us as a business. But I would say, like describing that as, like moderately beneficial for the customer is probably a little gratuitous. Like it helps them get their data a bit better, but it largely just helps us. And so, um, the bit where we are much more excited but definitely have like a lot more, um, I guess focus and, and, um, and where I think it's important to go, what could be a lot more considered is the customer-facing AI. So w- the AI that is actually productized for the customer. And so, you know, we, um, I think we see this, we've seen this shift in the last 18 months where people just throw AI in a product, and we- we're in a space where enterprise... Like our, our product is quite complex, you know, and, and that's just the reality of, of the extensive features that it has. And so if we throw AI in that, that does or that doesn't refine the understanding of the product, I think it confuses the customer. And that's what we've seen quite a bit of, is people just throw AI in like, "Oh, it'll just deliver answers." And it's like, okay, but like how does AI-

Kylie Davis: That's the question. Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. How does it help the customer-

Kylie Davis: Yep

Aonghus Stevens: ... get a better outcome from the product? And I think that's the piece, is like no customer of ours buys AI. You know, no one's buying... And, and that could be different in the future, like if we're, if we train a model and people are actually buying our AI models to do their own stuff, totally different thing. But at the moment, customers are using Asseti as an asset operations platform. And so for us in AI and, you know, agentic and all these other sort of, um, somewhat confusing concepts for customers is like, how does AI deliver a sharper and better and quicker outcome for the customer in the product they are using today? And until we can do that, you know, I think, um... And that's we've got stuff in, you know, in, in with customers. Like we have a, we have an AI agent in the system that, um, people can ask anything, you know, to and, and it'll give them a, a very sort of focused, um, answer, uh, in relation to the data they have in their system. And, and when we started to build that, um, we were, it, we were returning inferences that shouldn't have been made. So we weren't making stuff up, but it was like, okay, you know, you need to clean your gutters, you know. And then it was saying, "So, okay, well, you know, it's, you know, clean gutters are an important asset management strategy for X, Y, Z." And it's like, okay, that's not what a cu- like a customer's not using Asseti to build their maintenance policies. They're building it to understand. So it's like, okay, rather than that, it's like, well, you have 600 instances of, you know, corrosion in your guttering, and it's been getting worse over the last 18 months in New South Wales. Ah, that's like, that's a super refined, very specific inference that a customer can get a benefit from. You know, and, and, and that's where as a, as a product team and as a business, we've been like really focused of like just what I would call like cutting the fat. It's like if you get an answer back in AI and it's got too much fat in it, like I think it confuses it. You know, a customer uses us to get components and defects basically at the moment, um, and understand that impact on their, their organization. And so how does the agent deliver that for them? And if it doesn't sort of deliver a better version of that, then we don't roll it out to them right now.

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Aonghus Stevens: In terms of headcount, we're having a rager of a time. We're having a really good time. Uh, we, um, uh, across... So we've got staff in, uh, Australia, US, and, and a couple of other regions. Um, so we're probably getting close to 50 headcount at the moment. Um-

Kylie Davis: 50

Aonghus Stevens: ... yeah, having, uh... Yeah, we're, we're having a, we're having a great time. I think the last 18 months particularly have been a lot of fun for us and, and, um, and that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. So yeah, we've got an amazing team, what is probably described as quite a lean team. Uh, it's, you know, sort of-

Kylie Davis: Yeah, 50 doesn't feel like a lot for multiple regions. Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: And it's accelerated a lot in the last 18 months probably. Um, you know, it's, um, we've done, we've done a lot with quite a, quite a small team. Uh, and I think that that, that's something we, we, we've been focused on trying to get customers into as well. So, you know, we had our company offsite, uh, in July, and we, we had it at a customer's, uh, venue. So one of our customers, you know, owned that hotel, and so we were, uh, we were, you know, there with them. And, um, they're actually on our website, it's called Brothers Hospitality. So they, they own Lillianfels up in the Blue Mountains and, um, you know, the, the asset owners, uh, or the fund owners, uh, timed their, uh, quarterly visit for when we were there, so we were very lucky. And, um, you know, we had a, we had another customer who joined us and stayed the night with us and came to our team dinner. And, um, you know, we, we're super lucky to have the engaged customer set we are, and, and that's for our cu- you know, for our, for our staff too. Like we, we obviously have a very small, um, dynamic, uh, business in a sense in, in the, in the sort of, um, how much we can do as a team. We try and get customers into that as well, and, and I think people really love that. They, they buy into, um, into what we're trying to do for them with Ascedi, you know, and, and it is genuinely like a partnership with our customers. And they sign multi-year agreements as part of this, and, you know, they, they... Mirvac, who were basically our first customer, they're still, you know, still on the platform today and, and loving it and seeing value. And I think that long-term, like our data needs to be used for 5, 10, 15, 20 years in these assets, and so that's sort of like the lifetime of our customer is effectively in perpetuity. And so for us, we need to be delivering value in perpetuity for our customer, and, and that's something we, we honestly like hold quite firmly to. And, and, um, you know, we're, we're very lucky to have such an incredibly supportive customer set.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. That's awesome. That's, um... And I guess, too, um, when you've got such a long period in time that you're in market with, it's great to see that you got such engagement early on as well as, as well as sort of longer term. Because, like you're delivering value right now, and then I guess it, it just grows as it, as it goes on, right?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, and that's, that's a, um... You know, timing. Timing, I think was good, has been good for us in terms of the market and, and some progression, but we, we have naturally gone on this progression with a lot of our customers as well. So they, you know, they come in at a certain stage in their business and, um, some of them are quite advanced and others are, are very early in their, um, asset management maturity. Um, and so... And that's not even necessarily dependent on the size of the business. Like, you know, we've got one customer who probably has like... I, I think it's like 8 or $10 billion of forward spend over the next 10 years on their asset network, and they still do stuff using paper and spreadsheets. And so-

Kylie Davis: Oh

Aonghus Stevens: ... you know, that's compared to another customer who might have 10 industrial buildings and has a completely like automated CMMS or like maintenance system. So, you know, the, the, um... I think that's what's exciting for us, is there's a very broad sort of cross-section of these customers, um, and they all inherently get value from the platform in quite a similar way, but obviously through very different lenses. Um, but delivering a, what is, what is largely a similar outcome for them.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Fantastic. So, so who's the competitor set? 'Cause we're seeing quite a lot of tech start to emerge in this sector. Like, uh, well, like, I mean, well, quite a lot. It feels like it's a growing, it's, it's a growing sector. How do you see the, um, the competitive set?

Aonghus Stevens: So we don't actually really see ourselves as having a competitor per se. Like, I, I'd say our... Like, the reason we lose work, for example, is existing way of working or do nothing. Like a customer's indecision in that process. We would not lose to a, like a, a, a brand, for example. And so that's where, um, you know, we, we might come up against an engineering firm or something in doing an asset assessment, but we're not an inspection tool or anything like that. You know, we are, we're a long-term asset operations solution for a customer. And where there may be some, you know, competitive tension historically with a set of companies, we're trying to actually work with bringing those into a partner ecosystem to deliver us the data so we can actually then operate, use this data to better understand a customer network. And so, um, you know, I think that's, uh, um, that's probably like a, a, an interesting way to look at the market, is, uh, you know, certainly there's competitive tension that exists there, but that drops away more and more. Um, and we're big on trying to drive the, the ecosystem in the market so we can, you know, w- effectively control for the customer what happens in their, in their portfolio, and so the more data points we can get there, the better.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. And, uh, so, so comp- so inside that ecosystem would be what companies like Trendspek and I guess Yardi or, or who?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, so they'd see it different. So Yardi, you know, is like an ERP, for example, and you've got MRI and SAP and Oracle and IBM in, in there as well. They, um... We would sit as what we call like the ledger. So that's like, that's like the underlying ledger that that business operates on. And so, um, they definitely sit on one part of the marketplace or the, you know, the market itself, and I think that they, um- I think they have so much value to provide that is not being provided, and so that's probably an exciting opportunity to watch how they transition over the, over the next period.

Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, I think companies like, you know, talk about like, you know, Trendspek and, and others like that, I think that they, um, you know, they, they have a place in the market for, say, like the engineering firms and very detailed, um, like single site solutions, and that's not where we play at all. Like, we're, we're very much a portfolio asset operations tool.

Kylie Davis: Right.

Aonghus Stevens: And so if a customer has, you know, a, a, a really critical issue on one site and they're really interested in getting the most detail on that, like we're not, we're not the solution for that. We're not a drone modeling platform. Um, and there's a great, you know, like Drone Deploy is a platform that has done a great amount of work in, in dr- you know, drone and 3D over the years, and I'd say that's more largely where those companies sort of compete is in that 3D modeling or reality space, um, reality modeling space. But I think, you know, there's, there's a lot of value that sits in those data sets that customers are not using, and so it's like how can, how can that data actually be unpacked and, and used to operate these assets? And so, um, yeah, I think that's a, that's an interesting, interesting sort of, uh, view of the market is, is, um, we've obviously come out of being in the drone space, you know, and this sort of thing, but we're definitely not a drone solution. And so that, um, that's been a transition. You know, like for people in the business as well, it's been a challenge of like trying to almost lose our identity, but not quite. Like, you know, you, you, you need to think really differently for the customer and, and the, the product design and everything around how, how the asset operations team uses it. And drone is one part of it. You know, cameras are another part. There's sensor data. There's a whole ton of data sets that tell something at a point in time about an asset, and not a single one of those tells the complete picture. And so it's how many of those can you get, you know, correlating. And I think, which for us then it was the look at the, the ecosystem is how can we build out these data points? You know, how can we connect data in? How can we use enrichments? How can we transform it? Where do we send it? Like, they're the sort of ways we think about, um... We see the ecosystem through our eyes, and people will tell us that's wrong, and that's fine, you know? And I think that's the, that's the journey we're going on, um, as a, as a sort of industry in, in... Like, we, we consider ourselves sort of defining this intelligent asset operations category. Um, and yeah, a lot of exciting times ahead for us, I think.

Kylie Davis: And it... Is the, is the work that you're doing in capturing the, the data and, and creating the hierarchy of the buil- of the data's, you know, of the building's data set and all of that sort of stuff, is that playing a role, do you see, in creating digital twins for, for the properties that you're, that are part of the portfolios?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, so we, um, we've always steered clear of that term, but ostensibly it is a, it is a digital twin that's generated for, um, you know, for, for an asset set. But I think, like, the, the challenge with a digital twin is there's a very small subset of users in a customer that actually see value in a digital twin.

Kylie Davis: Mm.

Aonghus Stevens: The value that comes from a digital twin is the stuff that comes off it. So like in a, in a digital twin sense, like we, we have a 3D model that we then have the digitized component hierarchy, which is in it. So like even if you were just to look at a table, it is a digital twin of what exists on site, you know? And so this is the piece of like, okay, how do... What is the outcome? And I think when digital twins started to become a thing, and there's some really big names in the market who got into digital twins very early on but have sort of really quite struggled these days. And it's like, okay, digital twins are a solution looking for a problem, whereas, you know, they, they sit as a midpoint in an outcome.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: But I don't think they've quite found the outcome. And that's-

Kylie Davis: Right

Aonghus Stevens: ... I think that's like a, um... I think that's gonna be on my point earlier around, like GenAI. I think that's what the customer better understands is like they're able to more refine what their outcome is, and so they can sort of work back from that destination, whereas customers used to sort of flail in the middle 'cause they didn't quite know where their anchor was.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. Got it. Got it. So, so Angus, are you, uh, uh, what's your, um, company, um, core structure like? So are you... You're a founder. Have you got, um, co-founders? Do you want to give us a shout-out to...

Aonghus Stevens: So I have no co-found-

Kylie Davis: No co-founders. Oh

Aonghus Stevens: ... but I have extraordinarily, um, I have an extraordinarily good, uh, sort of team in the business. And like I, you know, if, if you speak to anyone in our business, I'm fairly grounded. Like I, I, I, um, I don't take the view of, you know, it's, I was a founder or something. Like I, I think we, what we have built is a business together, you know, and, and that's where we're all on that journey together. Um, so in our group we've got Assetti, so the Assetti brand. Um, in that is, like Assetti itself, as well as Measure Australia, the drone services business. Um, and Me- Assetti operates in, you know, US and, and APAC basically as sort of the two key regions. Um, uh, and so I run all that. Um, you know, got an incredible, uh, CTO in, in, uh, Jason, who's our, um, uh, uh, who lives in South Africa. So he sort of came on. He was the first person we hired in Assetti and, um, uh, as we were building that out, and he and I have worked every day for, you know, the last five years together basically, and he's been, um, he's been amazing. Uh, we have an incredibly good engineering team in South Africa. Um, you know, they're, um... So I think like everyone is very, you know, very great at sort of owning that. Um, we call it internally, like own the outcome. We're big on it. That's like one of our core values is like own the outcome. Um, and so as a small team, that's a re- really great thing is like everyone's got the latitude to do what they want. Own the outcome. And so yeah, I think like that's, that's, you know, being a solo founder is an interesting journey to go on. We've got a very supportive investor set. Um, you know, my chairman I've worked with for close to 10 years now. Um, and he and I come from very different backgrounds, and never once have we a- arrived at a different conclusion, but, uh, you know, he, he, he and I will both tell you that we often, uh, have very different ways of getting there. So I think that's been, you know, that's a really enjoyable thing of what we have in, in the business. Uh, and along the way, more people join in, you know, like we have a, an institutional investor, uh, you know, or a number now. And so That, yeah, that expansion of more people on this journey. And, and, you know, we're building a living, breathing thing in ESETI that is, uh, you know, I'm certainly incredibly passionate about, but there's an equal number of, you know, of, of passionate people. And, um, yeah, I think that's... Yeah, we're, we're, you know, we're very lucky. Like, we have a, a chap in the business called Paran who, uh, Paran joined us as a data analyst and, and now runs our whole processing function, and he sort of... Yeah, he'll, he'll... In terms of our core value of owning the outcome, you won't find anyone who owns it more than he does. Like And, yeah, he's, he's just amazing.

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: He's... And so I think, like, yeah, they're the fun things that we, we have in this team, is, like, just everyone, um... There's no place to hide, which I think can be a bit-

Kylie Davis: Yeah

Aonghus Stevens: ... of a challenge for, for some people, but generally that, um, that sort of looks after itself. And, uh, yeah, I think, yeah, we, we just have a really great time.

Kylie Davis: Yeah. So, so what is the biggest challenge, especially as a, as a solo founder? What's the biggest challenge and lesson that you've learned from the business?

Aonghus Stevens: Oh, I think the... There's, there's so many things, but, uh, I think the biggest one is just, like, the pace and the, the frenetic, um, the frenetic pa-... So like, you know, we, we early on would sort of, you know, pretend ESETI was this massive behemoth and, and sort of, you know, think to selling to enterprise, like, you know, it had to be super polished and people, people... You know, that's what they wanted. And it just was such bullshit. Like, they didn't want that. Now, you know, now we sort of get out there with the customer around, like, you know, this is where we're at. This is, you know, bringing them really on that journey, and I probably would've started that process earlier of bringing people on the journey because, you know, we, we're undoubtedly building a globally transformative solution for real estate, you know, for real estate, uh, asset owners. And so everyone can see that, and that's the validation that lets people go, okay, like ESETI's worth trusting, and, and that trust, you know, we, you know, to the, to the offsite or whatever, like bringing customers in. And we'll call customers, and we'll be like, you know, we're pitching so-and-so. Like, you know, we, we stuff something up here, and they'll give us some advice, or they'll just go, "Oh, you know, I, I, you know, I had a beer with that guy the other day. I'll give him a buzz and, you know, sort it out." And I think just being really transparent. We, we're super transparent internally, but we're, we're doing that more and more now as well with customers as well. Like, across the whole business is just like, you know, these are our skeletons. Help us fix them as quickly as possible. Because that's, that at the end of the day is the best outcome for the customer. Um, and, you know, not being scared of... Everyone's got skeletons. That's fine. You know, not being scared of sort of solving them, uh, and, and getting our customer to help us with that, um, has been a really big part of it.

Kylie Davis: Authentic versus perfect, right?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. And, like, we're very big on just, like, get it out. Like, just, you know, in terms of, like, say engineering, just ship it. Like, we would... It's never gonna be right anyway, so get it out. Let us learn. You know, we, we, um, like take the chatbot example. Uh, when we, uh... Or the agent, you know, was basically like a chatbot. It, um, uh... We, from first code being written on that to it being in production for our staff was three hours.

Kylie Davis: Okay.

Aonghus Stevens: And, you know, I, I got showed a version of it by one of our, you know, one of our super talented engineers. I just messaged our CEO-

Kylie Davis: Did AI write the code?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. I was like, I was like, "CTO." Like, I was like, "Jason, mate, get this in. Like, just get it to staff. We don't need it in for customers, but just put it live for staff." You know? And, and because feedback is so critical there. And then, you know, we had dashboards, and we were gamifying it of, like, who can get the most things, and we're giving, like, Uber Eats vouchers so people could, you know, work through it. And, um, but I think, like, that learning curve is just so important, and so, like, how can we just get stuff out super quickly? And, you know, you come into our office here, we've got, like, 10 televisions. We've got dashboards everywhere, and it tells, you know, how far past or under a goal we are. And, you know, we're having a raging year, so our, our revenue goal, you know, is, is looking great at the moment. And customers come in, and they love that. You know, a customer will see, you know, we're x% ahead of goal, and they like the, you know, that energy. And so that's been really big for us is, is, um, is just trying to share a lot of that. You know, share that energy, get customers, staff, everyone as part of the, you know, the, the culture.

Kylie Davis: Awesome. Awesome. So where do you see the sector going over the next five years, Angus?

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, like, you know, this, this... The customer is so educated. You know, the customer, the customer doesn't know how to solve their problem, but they're super educated about what their problems are now, and I think that that's a really great, uh, great place to be. I think we'll naturally see, you know, a, a, a massive growth in the use of AI, and then we'll see it churn out, you know, and, and it's sort of that, like, ado- classic adoption and then, like, delusionment cycle with it, and that's okay. And that's, like, the stuff that's not valuable will drop out, and I think we'll just keep seeing this. So I think five years from now we'll see the operationalization of AI in these, you know, in, um, uh, in the portfolios, you know, and sort of the customer set we work with. And I think we'll have seen some of the more gimmicky AI drop away. You know, does-

Kylie Davis: Please, God.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. Like, does it, you know, does it need to... You don't need AI to do everything. Um, and-

Kylie Davis: No

Aonghus Stevens: ... so yeah, I think that, that's probably the, the piece we'll see is, like, from... And that's from our lens, but the operationalization of that AI where it, it... You know, say a facility manager is, is doing their day-to-day. 20 or 30% of their work could be done better by AI and actually let them do the valuable stuff. They don't need to be sitting there calling vendors, you know, to-

Kylie Davis: Mm

Aonghus Stevens: ... see whether that, you know, that vendor got to site or did something, and so let's free people up to do that. And I think that's the, that's the natural progression we'll see. Um, and, you know, undoubtedly as part of that, I think we'll move to an almost live view of an asset at a, at an affordable cost point. You know, whether that's a visual view of it or whether that's, like, a derived data view, I don't think it matters. But I think we'll move to that almost live view of an asset.

Kylie Davis: Fantastic. And so what's the future hold for Asseti?

Aonghus Stevens: Oh, well, apart from having a, a rager of a good time, um, we, uh

Kylie Davis: More hotel clients, 'cause we want better offsite later. More locations for offsite.

Aonghus Stevens: It, um... I did say to a customer they should buy a European portfolio, preferably on Lake Como, but, um-

Kylie Davis: Yeah.

Aonghus Stevens: ... they're, they're, uh, they're big on the Australian retreats at the moment, so that might be a, that might be a tall ask. But, um, yeah, I think, you know, for us there's, there's a lot of growth ahead in, in, um, uh, in the US particularly as a business. You know, we, um, we see that. We see a lot of opportunity in the Australian market still. Um, we're, we're super refined there. I'm moving to the US in 10 weeks, you know, setting-

Kylie Davis: Oh, wow

Aonghus Stevens: ... beginning to, to set the team up over there. And there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of, um, lot of similarities between the market which make it, make it great, you know, for us. But yeah, I think the, the... W- we've got a list of 50 customers in both markets that we'd love to work with and, and we're, you know, we're, we're partially penetrated on each of those and we'd love to, we'd love to work with the, you know, the top 50 asset owners in each market. Particularly, you know, in the, in Australia you've got in industrial, you know, Goodman. We don't work with them, um, you know, to, to the level that we want. And, you know, we, um... They're an example of, like, just an amazing Australian business that is a global behemoth in industrial. And so they've got, like, one of the top five port- you know, maybe top 10 portfolios globally in, in industrial footprint. And so, like, I think that, that for us is just focused more and more on, on winning and delivering value with these key accounts and, and learning from them too. You know, we sit down with every customer, and they've operated these assets for, you know, dozens or dozens and dozens of years, and they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars sometimes in terms of the value of this asset portfolio. And so for us, we have a tremendous amount to learn from these customers. And, you know, I think that's the, that's the super amazing thing ahead of us is, like, how can we take these customers, you know, the, the context from them, how can we learn from them, and how can we take that learning and put our unique global lens over it so that together with our customers we can build a truly transformative global product, you know? I mean, we're, we're 2% of the way on that journey, and that's... th- there's a, there's a massive amount of, um, of interesting work ahead of us in that process.

Kylie Davis: It sounds awesome. Um, well, look, I'm mindful of the time, but, um, thank you so much, Angus Stephens, um, from Asseti. It's been absolutely awesome to have you on the PropTech Podcast. And good luck moving to the States.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah. Thank you, Kylie. It's certainly a, uh, certainly a really exciting one for, you know, for, for me and the team. And thank you, you know, for having me on, and, and as always, the support of the PropTech Association of both us and, uh, you know, the broader, the broader community here.

Kylie Davis: If you're heading over in 10 weeks time, it means you're gonna miss the forum down in Melbourne on, um, November 14.

Aonghus Stevens: Well, maybe that's, uh, that's, uh... Well, I, I fly out on the 23rd actually, so maybe, um-

Kylie Davis: Oh, okay. We can still get you in

Aonghus Stevens: ... there you go. There you go. I saw the 14th and I thought, "I must keep that free."

Kylie Davis: Yeah, please do. Please. It'd be great to have you there.

Aonghus Stevens: Yeah.

Kylie Davis: Cool. Well, look, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon.

Aonghus Stevens: Amazing, Kylie. Thank you. Thanks. So that was Asseti, and I think it's one of my favorite PropTechs that I've seen emerge in the commercial PropTech space in recent years. Now, I'm gonna confess, I am a sucker for a great big brain, and I love Angus's thinking about property being a living, breathing organism, while the data geek in me was totally there for the whole conversation around asset hierarchies. Yeah, baby, bring on the asset hierarchies. The way Asseti are viewing AI being in two buckets is also a really powerful framework, and I think it truly is a helpful lens for all PropTechs to see AI through. How is AI helping our client? How is AI helping us? Like, let's start to really differentiate. But what I love most about Asseti is the EQ of the organization. This is a PropTech that truly understands the value of personal relationships with its clients, and it's using its technology to solve those human pain points and problems in the spirit of thoughtful and mindful collaboration. It's not just about embracing buzzwords. So look, great work, Asseti. Um, great to see your wins at the PropTech Awards this year, and best of luck with the expansion into the US. Now, just before we go, are you a fast-growing PropTech looking to take a new product to market, position yourself strongly through unique thought leadership and research, or are you struggling to wrangle all the strategic and tactical pieces of marketing so that they convert into real sales? Then I, Kylie Davis, and the PropTech Guru team would love to help. PropTech Guru, which is the consulting business I run with my husband, former Gartner director and media executive Mark Hollins, specializes in a service called Scalable CMO. Most PropTechs have a marketing team in place, and many of them are just one or two young marketers struggling to do all the things. But with Scalable CMO, you get the perfect mix of top-level executive thinking, plus affordable and tactical executions to support, scale, and enhance your current team. To kick off, we audit your existing marketing with an overlay of where you need to get to, and we'll identify what's working and fit for purpose and what you need to do to hit your number. And then we create a strategic plan and the cost of delivery of the work required from digital marketing, CRM and automation management, content, media, social media, sales structure, KPIs, and all the accountabilities. Work is executed by our team in the Philippines to ensure it's affordable, and it's overseen by Mark and I here in Australia to deliver accuracy, reliability, and domain expertise. So our goal is to get you up and running in market and firing on all cylinders and make ourselves ideally redundant in around 18 months, because we get it. No one wants to work forever with a consultant. You want marketing and positioning to get results, and we wanna show you how. So if this sounds like something that could work for your PropTech, reach out. Email me at kylie@proptechguru.com.au or connect up on LinkedIn. Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the PropTech Podcast, I would love you to tell all your friends or drop me a line either via email or LinkedIn or on our Facebook page. And you can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor, and Apple iTunes, and anywhere good podcasts are heard. I would like to thank my podcast producer, the fabulous Charlie Hollins, podcast website editors, Jill Escudero and Shira Sexsen, and our sponsors, HID, digital identification solutions for your building; Direct Connect, making moving easy; Dynamic Methods, the name behind Forms Live, REI Forms Live, and Realworks; ezipay, making collecting payments easy for PropTechs; and the PropTech Association Australia, Australia's industry body which is supporting the flourishing PropTech community. Now, if you're an Australian or New Zealand PropTech who would like to be on the show, please drop me a line via LinkedIn or email kylie@proptechassociation.com.au. Thanks so much, everyone. Until next time, keep on PropTeching.