Proptech Pulse: Jeff Kennedy on Vetting Software & Building Trust

In this episode, you will learn how to navigate the crowded property technology market with absolute confidence. Jeff Kennedy, Founder and CEO of Maverix, shares his strategic blueprint for vetting tech vendors to protect your hard-earned credibility. Success comes from aligning your software investments with real user needs to drive consistent agent adoption. 

Our conversation explores a powerful four-part vetting framework that uncovers the essential pillars of stable vendor partnerships. We also dive into creative ways to spark high software adoption rates and look at why traditional advice-only consulting models often fall short. What makes this approach work is a strict focus on practical user outcomes that shield your business from sudden market disruptions. 

As a recognized RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker, Jeff brings decades of unmatched industry leadership to help you cut through modern tech noise. With the rapid rise of trending AI solutions, mastering these evaluation metrics matters more than ever to secure your brokerage growth. Subscribe to PropTech Pulse today and visit our website to access more actionable blueprints for your business. 

https://www.lwolf.com/podcast

Transcript

Kyle Hunter: Welcome to the Proptech Pulse podcast. Your inside look at the world of real estate technology. I'm your host, Kyle Hunter, here to guide you through the latest trends, expert insights, and game changing tech shaping the real estate world. This is your go to source for staying ahead of the ever evolving industry. Let's dive in. 

Hey, Jeff, thanks for joining Proptech pulse today. How are you today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Good, good. We're coming live from 1000 watt signal. And a lot of cool things going on in the industry right now, but I'd love to start out. I know we've known each other for 15, 20 years, a long time in the industry. 

Jeff Kennedy: It's actually my longest healthy relationship. Yeah. 

Kyle Hunter: I've enjoyed it as well. So but you know, being at Leading RE a long time and then transitioning to Maverix, tell me a little bit about that and maybe talk a little bit about your history. 

Jeff Kennedy: Yeah it's great. So I was at leading real estate companies of the world known as Leading RE independent network of brokerages, 135,000 agents. And over the years, I ended up becoming the VP of sales and partnerships. So my job was to know all of the vendors and all of our members and know what their strengths were and what their needs were, and then make connections where where it was appropriate. And I did really a really good job. Loved the loved it. Build a network, build a name for myself. When I left two years ago, I had the realization that the world is much bigger than Leading RE literary is a great organization, but it's still an island. There is. I mean, it's 135,000 agents out of 1.5 million agents. So there's a lot of white space. And I already know all the vendors. So I took what I did with them and just applied it in a bigger space. 

Kyle Hunter: Yeah. No. And that's where we had the opportunity to to work with each other. You know, Lone Wolf obviously has a huge base within Leading RE around the rest of the market. And so we had the opportunity to really partnership partner with a lot of different brands and, you know, local independents. How did you transition a matrix or Maverix I should say. And what's the genesis behind Maverix?    

Jeff Kennedy: Yeah. So you mean to be honest, when I left Leading RE, I had so many opportunities presented to me from friends, people that I had known for years saying, hey, come work for me, hey, can work for me. But I didn't want to get divorced on Friday and married on a Monday, and they commit to another company in three days. So I want to take a minute and rather than tell them all no, I told them all yes, but only 10% of my time. And that was kind of the beginning, and I wasn't sure how long was going to go. I wasn't sure if I was going to be good at it. I wasn't sure if there was going to be a market for it, and it was really overwhelming the amount of support. Sometimes I think first person, I'm not sure if people like me because I help them make money or if they like me because we have an actual relationship. And that got tested because when I was no longer at Leading RE, it would have been very easy for me to not have those relationships. But people showed up and, you know, it's been really, really great.    

Kyle Hunter: I think it really goes back to, you know, one of the things that you always convey when you're out in the market is a relationship first approach, and real estate is a belly to belly industry. It's very important to have that relationship. But how do you thread that within Matrix or Maverix and how does that work?    

Jeff Kennedy: Yeah, it it is a relationship business. And people say it's who do you know. And I would say it's not really who you know. It's who who knows you. And more than that, who trusts you. And so the trust is the real commodity. And I'm very, very careful not to abuse that. I'm not going to introduce or sell somebody something they don't need. Because if I do that, I burn that trust capital with that brokerage. But if the brokerage says I've, you know, have a headache and I have a company that I work with that sells Tylenol, why wouldn't I offer them that? Because it makes sense. So my job is to know what the needs are and make sure that I'm bringing the appropriate solutions at the appropriate time and not be attached to an outcome. You don't have to buy it to make me happy. You don't have to buy it for me, only buy if it makes sense for you. Sometimes I'll go find 3 or 4 different things. I'll let them go to the broker and say, look, here's why I chose these. These two, 3 or 4. Go ahead and vet them yourself independently. Let me know what your feedback is. And then let's figure out what the right solution is. Because if I make the decision for and push them into one product and then it doesn't work, then that's going to blow back on me. And honestly, it's not my money and I'm not responsible for the outcome. It's their company. My job is to augment what they want to do, not make those decisions.    

Kyle Hunter: Yeah, I know, certainly keeping that relationship is important in our industry and really keeping above the fray. And I think it really rolls into the kind of a powerhouse team that you've brought together. I mean, one of the first obviously, Kevin and he's a rock star in the industry, been around for a long time, really leading that brand all the way through acquisition. York, who is obviously part of Lone Wolf now, Pam O'Connor, tell me a little bit about what goes into you deciding who helps support Maverix.    

Jeff Kennedy: So they're different. The one buck is going to be consultants that are on the team, and one bucket is going to be supporting advisory board. And so the bucket on the team, like Kevin and I have known each other as long as you and I have known each other and I've always admired him and we've had a good relationship. I've told him a couple of things, and I've seen him on stage of panels, and I just casually said, hey, if you're ever interested, I'd love to, you know, build Maverix with you. And then when the compass acquisition happened of at Properties and Christie's, he had a choice of either doubling down and going through that for the next X amount of years or going a different route. And he believed in the, you know, the future and the story that I told about Maverix and where I wanted this to go. And he has been an absolute blessing to Maverix. Like he just brings 17 or 18 years of experience in the brokerage space and franchises and recruiting and retention, operational efficiency, all that stuff. And he's a really good human being. And that could have been enough. Then a guy named Jeff Corbett came available. He has mortgage experience. I hired my son, who's 30 years old, who's a bit on the early side of his career, but he's got the capacity and I know what I can get out of him, and I want this to be a family thing anyways. And so what I'm looking to do is create a tapestry of people that all have additive qualities, but there isn't really any overlap, maybe a little bit, but like everyone brings something to the table that nobody else has, and I feel like that's the way forward for Maverix and the way for success, which is a different conversation than the advisory board. Pam O'Connor, who was the CEO at Leading RE, hired me. It's an awesome, full circle moment. She retired. She's doing her own thing, but she knows a lot of brokerages and she knows how they think. And she's also been the business for 40, 50 years, brilliant and a really good human being. I jumped at the opportunity to ask her and she gratefully accepted. York Bauer, well known who else to be bring on. Matthew Ferrara, who's a keynote speaker all over the world, well known Tyler Thompson, who runs Tyler Ventures. Like, you know, Jim Black, who's in the mortgage space. Like, again, I'm collecting people both on the team and on the advisory board that have skill sets and experiences that I don't have, because there's only two ways you can learn. One way is by doing it and making mistakes, which is very expensive. It takes a long time to learn all the things you need to learn. The other way is to have people around you. They can say, hey, I wouldn't do that. Here's why. Here's my experience. I prefer to learn that way.    

Kyle Hunter: Yeah, no, I love that answer. You know, Kevin is moderating 1000 watt signal, but he was also at one of our panels. He was on one of our panels and really brought a breath of fresh air to the planning and what goes behind, what goes in to creating strategy and execution and keeping people accountable. So he and a few other of our customers with York, you know, had a just a broad conversation about how that there was so much great feedback on what he brings to just organization as a whole, so.    

Jeff Kennedy: Well, sadly, he is very similar to my wife. And so I have her tell me no at home. He tells me no in business and they're kind of keeping my rudder. I have these crazy ideas and they let me do some of them, but some of them are like, I don't do that. So I really need him. And that that ability to look at complex things and see through it all and make it simple and then make it like, palatable, like the way he delivers information is just so good.    

Kyle Hunter: Enjoying the Proptech Pulse podcast. Don't miss a beat. Hit the subscribe button and stay in the loop with all of our latest episodes. And hey, if you're loving the content, leave us a review! It really helps us grow and reach more real estate pros like you. Also, don't forget to follow us on our social channels. We're sharing tips, trends, and behind the scenes content you won't want to miss. Find us on all the social platforms at Get Off! So you have a lot of customers. Lone Wolf being one of. My. Only your only customer, you know. But you have some others. Perlin close. But a lot of those are just great names, names that are showing up in the industry. They're kind of leading the charge. How do you choose a great partner that would work with Maverix, and do you have to turn some down sometimes?    

Jeff Kennedy: Yeah, that's a great question. When I first started Maverix again, I was worried I wasn't going to have enough business. We were now at capacity with a waiting list, which is amazing problem to have because if I scale up too fast, people wise, that can create some issues with brand continuity and stuff. We look at it as a Venn diagram. Do we first circle? Do we like the founding team? The executive team people are going to work with all the time. If the answer is yes, then we move on to the second circle. Second circle is do they have a good product? Is there something there that's interesting enough or different enough that it might be able to sell itself? If the answer is yes and I like them, then we're most of the way there. And then the third one is can they, can we actually do what they need us to do? I can almost sell anybody on you can lie to somebody to get them to sign a document, but then you have to actually produce and execute what they need within a short period of time. They're going to realize that you can't do what they need to do, and then it's a mess for everybody. If what they need is and what we do, we have zero problems referring them to other people. You want to penetrate the MLS market? Great. I have three options for you. You want to recruit, I have headhunters I can send you to. Whatever. The thing is, we think we can do a lot. But if it's not a fit, it's not a fit. So do we like them? Do they have a good product? Can we do what they need us to do and then circle that that Venn diagram is in. Is are they well funded? I don't want to chase chase invoices. So if they've got money, you know, if they don't have the money and it's an idea in a garage, there's other routes they can go. It might not be Maverix, but if there are an actual company and they want to scale from, you know, 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 or whatever is on their dial, then we can play a role in that.    

Kyle Hunter: Yeah. And I think that's what differentiates Maverix with other folks in the industry that maybe do a lot of things. But you having a very centrist focus on helping that customer, helping what they're looking to achieve and knowing what your diagram is, what what you can and can't do, what your skill sets are is important because you could say, yeah, we can do everything for you. But at the end of the day, if you're not able to deliver that same level of customer satisfaction, then you know you don't want to burn them as a client. Back to your earlier point.    

Jeff Kennedy: Yeah. Well, think of it this way. I talk in analogies and metaphors, and Kevin makes fun of me all the time. But let's say that I'm out of shape and I want to be only get in shape. And I pay you, and you give me a diet on a piece of paper and then a workout regimen for me to follow. You go, boom, here you go. That's better than what I had. But the odds of me following through on that a regular basis and getting to whatever the end goal is I'm trying to achieve is, is lower than if I show up at your house every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and work out with you in the gym. And you know, I'm coming no matter what. And you have to, like, call me to tell me you're going to cancel. Like it changes things. So rather than just give people a template or a framework to follow, we get in the weeds with them and help them actually execute. And I can't speak to what other firms do, but I believe that's one of our differentiators and that we at the end of the day, you're not paying me for my advice. You pay me for results. You're also not paying me for my time, paying me for results. So I keep that front and center.    

Kyle Hunter: So last year I think this was an interesting concept that that Maverix launched. I think it was a bit of a parody, but it actually picked up a lot of groundwork. And that was 80 for 80.    

Jeff Kennedy: 80.    

Kyle Hunter: 80, 80 under 80. Yes. And also, thank you. I think I was in the sixth cohort, something like that. But we talked to the credit score. Oh yeah. I hope that was a little higher than that. But so tell me a little bit about how that came to fruition and what went into just such a unique offering.    

Jeff Kennedy: So it was 1,000% satire. First off, there are all kinds of lists. Got a 500. They got a mega 5000. There's a media thing. There's a housing wire thing. There's other Inman has their thing. Everyone's got these lists and often there's a number of with it. And I made fun of them because I've never been on any of them. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna create my own list. I'm going to do. I was going to do a 50 over 50 because everyone talks about how like 30 under 30, Forbes or whatever. What if we celebrate people that are over 50? Great idea. Funny, right? And Kevin, my brother, who says no, he's like, what if somebody like 52 and doesn't want people to know they're over 50? You got to ask them how it gets a little bit weird. I'm like, nah, it's a good point. But if we did 80 under 80, that's actually funnier. He's like, oh, I love that. So we did it as satire. Really. The first year all that you needed to do was be like connected to Maverix and be under the age of 80. And even that, we were probably a maybe we had one person that was already I don't remember, and it was totally just going to be a fun thing. And it absolutely blew up. We had, I don't know, 3 or 400,000 impressions on LinkedIn. And people I had people emailing me saying, my boss wants to get on your list next year. What is it cost? I'm like, are they under 80? Do I know them? Like, it's not that hard. It's become its own thing. So, you know, maybe we'll we're going to continue it, but it'll be interesting to see if it stays satirical or if we make it like a real thing, I don't know.    

Kyle Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. I think also Jake Hamilton, who is head of our strategy and product, was also one of the lists on the list. So that was great. I put them on there because I don't want him to get mad that you were on there. So you guys both on their. Oh good deal. So if you're, you know, pivoting a little bit more, if you're placing a bet on a prop tech, there's a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of AI and startup companies you are involved with reach. I know that you are helped them out in different ways. Help with the selection process. There just so many. How do you fight through the noise of what actually matters from a tech company? And what is something that's kind of a nice to have, but maybe not something that's structural to a company or we're not going to make it, you know, in our industry.    

Jeff Kennedy: That's tough, right? So Second Century Ventures, which runs reach, which is the arm of Nar there by box, is very different than what I would care about as a Maverix CEO. They care about are you helping and assisting real estate agents, realtors to do more business and to have, you know, a better career? And they're looking at it as, is this going to exit and is this going to return to the fund so they can invest in more companies? And that's a very different template than what I look for. What I see is a please stop leading that. Your AI driven I don't know, a company is not AI driven this well because everyone's doing it. No one has to say like we use pencils, we use computers. At some point it's ubiquitous. Let's just not talk about it anymore. I also think that people sell many founders, like many like I'm generalizing, but like 90% are technical founders and are absolutely brilliant. I sometimes lock myself out of my computer because I forget my password. I'm not, I'm not I'm not coding anything. Right. Great. I have a role. They have a role. The problem is that they focus on how beautiful the architecture is and all of the the product features and all the integrations, and that's great. If they're talking to another CTO, they can nerd it out about that stuff. The challenge is that all the end user cares about is what are the results? Is it easier? Is it faster? Is it cheaper? Is it more accurate? And that's what they should be focusing on their marketing. So a lot of what I do is sit down with people to figure out, okay, you've got a product, is it a real product or is it a feature that needs to be absorbed by somebody else? If it is a real product where you're going with this? What can I do for you right now in the next 60 days that will actually make a difference? Maybe. And they want introductions. Introduce me to, you know, Home Service of America or Howard Hanna. I'm like, but you're not ready. Your product is not ready. Your infrastructure is not ready. Your messaging isn't ready. Your pricing is not ready. Like you're going to get one shot. Some of these meetings, you have to be at 100%. So we'll go through and do a deep dive. I've got nine calls, listen to their people pitch and recorded it and gone back with them and trying to fine tune things, get the deck right, go through some different pricing models, like really doing some forensic work on the inside so that when the business development part comes, the ready to go. I don't know if that answered your question directly, but if the AI company or the company, the startup company can go through all of that and come out the other side, then they have a good chance at it.    

Kyle Hunter: no, it did. And I think that there's a lot of things that go into building a product. There's a lot of things go into scaling a product. There's things that founders are really great at creating, but sometimes the business aspects of running the business and understanding what, what it needs to really cater to a wide breadth of audiences. When you're looking at different brokerages, they have different operating models, geographies, cultures, you know, all of those things are different. And to create something that kind of scales to fit a wide array of all of those variables can be difficult, difficult, and especially if you're trying to write it for one segment of the population. But then you try to grow that well, you didn't really necessarily pick up on the things that other brokerages care about.    

Jeff Kennedy: So it's a fractional space. There is so many different nuances. And if people maybe build a product, exited and are coming back, that second bite of the apple, they get it a bit more. But for people that are new to the space or come from outside this space, they see the numbers are like 1.5 million agents, this Tam, if only 20% of the agents. But my product would be $1 trillion. It's not going to happen, right? Like to your point, franchises and even inside franchises, there's a hundred different differences. You have these low cost models, you've got legacy kind of independence. You've got small teams like everyone's doing their own thing. And then even if you sold the brokerage, that doesn't mean the agents are going to use it. So now you have an adoption challenge, and then you have to go through the integrations and you have the data issues. And oh, by the way, everybody's vibe coding now. So is you're probably even going to be relevant in six. Like there's so many things coming. That doesn't mean that there aren't companies out there that are doing a good job. Lone Wolf, which you guys are doing right now with your kind of renaissance of this new kind of push is really exciting. And I think that's the direction most of the smart companies are going to be going, the ones that have been around long enough to have the data and to have the wherewithal to do that, that's the right play.    

Kyle Hunter: Yeah. No, I think to your point, you know, having having the data is important to be able to understand your and build your own AI, incorporating those things into it and control and know what the world is happening in real estate. Last question. Where's going from here?    

Jeff Kennedy: We are doing so much better than I expected us to do even six months ago. I don't want to grow just to grow because again, that gets messy. But I am open to measured growth from strength. So the one a for us, our North star is keep our current clients happy. We have a very, very low churn rate. That's one A, one B is be opportunistic that if someone showed up or an opportunity came up that made sense. You know, we don't have coverage in certain areas. We don't want to move into MLS. We're not going to move into mortgage. We're not going to do events. We're not going to do recruiting. We're not doing white papers. There's some things we just don't have any interest in doing. But there are other things inside of that. The M&A space with helping companies get acquired or acquire other companies is really interesting and fairly active right now. So I think the rest of this year for the next 12 months is going to be stabilization, get the top spinning and then, you know, something happens to show up. Have that conversation.    

Kyle Hunter: Yeah. Very good. Jeff, thanks so much for being on today.    

Jeff Kennedy: I appreciate you.    

Kyle Hunter: Thanks for tuning in to the Prop Tech Pulse podcast. Looking to take your real estate game to the next level? Check out our cutting edge tools. Visit Al wolf.com to learn more and see how we can help you succeed. I'm your host, Kyle Hunter, and I'll catch you next time as we continue exploring the future of real estate together. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and stay connected. Until then, keep innovating and thriving in the world of real estate.