Disrupting Real Estate with AI: Rick Rudman’s Vision to Revolutionize Home Improvement | S2 E. 65

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Rick Rudman who is the CEO of Curbio. Now, Rick has a very interesting background. I can't wait to dive in with you on your background and why you transitioned into the company now. And Rick, you've raised hundreds of millions of dollars in your past. You've done huge M &As, worked with publicly traded companies. You've done a lot of things, and now you're focusing on real estate. So tell me, what in your background and your life experiences, the problems that you were trying to solve made you say that we want to disrupt and make real estate better?

0:43Yeah, it's a great question. Look, I'm ultimately, I'm an entrepreneur. So I didn't know anything about PR when we started that business, but we saw an opportunity to, you know, what a lot of people say, you know, disrupt an industry or make it a lot better, make it more exciting and prove it. So yes, I mean, I could have chosen anything. That business, we grew to close to 2 ,000 employees around the world. So really, it was about problem solving. It was a great opportunity to take an industry that's really a combination of real estate and home selling combined with home improvement or getting homes ready to sell and just make it a lot better, make it work better for everybody.

1:44So that was the challenge that we set out to take on. Yeah, thank you for that. It's always amazing how entrepreneurs can dive into industries they're not really experts in per se and still be super successful once you figure out how to make it better. So I'm curious on what is the appeal for real estate agents and why would they want to be involved with Curbio? Sure. Another, yeah, very interesting question, right? I think we all know, right, for the homeowners, it seems kind of obvious if you're selling your home and everybody knows when you go to sell your home, the realtor is going to give you a list of things that you should work on or improve to make sure your home looks its best, right, before it goes on the market.

2:32And doing all that and paying when the home sells for it isn't obvious for the homeowner, right? So again, you know, the real question, which you just asked, is like, well, what's in it for the real estate agents? And the answer is as much or more is in it for the real estate agents. Here's the thing. Real estate agents, they already know that the home needs to look its best to appeal to the most buyers and to get the most successful outcome, right? So real estate agents, since the dawn of real estate agents, when they go in to sell a home, we'll always do that walk through and we'll always say, hey, like we should paint that purple wall.

3:20We should maybe redo some of your floors, whatever it may be from sometimes just simple repairs and decluttering and depersonalization and staging, right? All the way up to if the realtor thinks it's worth it, may be freshening up bathrooms and kitchens, whatever it may be. Agents have always done that. Okay. But there's a bunch of roadblocks that have historically gotten in their way. One is having the client get the money together to go do that. Even if they have the money, people don't want to take it out of their savings to go do this. So having the money is a big deal and a benefit for agents.

4:04Also, guess who gets to be the project manager, right? The homeowner's like, okay, yes, I'll do all that. Who's gonna, do you know anybody that can do it? Are you gonna manage it? And so real estate agents don't wanna be a general contractor project manager, right? So the benefit to them of Curbio is, one, they get to offer this, okay, let's fix it up. You can pay a closing benefit, right? It's a great way for agents to compete and win on getting clients and getting the home done. They don't have to be the project manager. And the third thing, which we could talk about further, is the home improvement process.

4:49That's been a barrier because everyone knows, right, if you've done any type of home improvement or just talk to people that have, it's kind of a bad process. Like there's a lot of confusion. You know, nobody knows what's happening. People don't show up. It's kind of a mess. And we've set out to remove that roadblock as well. So those are really the reasons why agents love it. So Rick, this whole process of home improvement the last few years has been very challenging. I think anyone that I know that's done it has run into those issues. Hard to get people to show up. Hard to get them to come back.

5:29hard to get supplies, hard to do a lot of things. I've had my own personal issues. So let's, can you elaborate more onto how you are helping with this problem? Yes. And that's probably at the heart of what we do. And the big reason why agents are working with us, right? Plenty of companies can, can kind of front the money so that people don't have to pay at closing. And in fact, there's a bunch of people that do that. You know, that's like a third of the problem, okay? Being the project manager is another big chunk of it, but the real issue here is how do you improve home improvement so that it's reliable, you know, it adheres to timelines, right?

6:18Because that's what real estate agents really want. How do we elevate the customer experience, right? As many others have done in many other industries, but somehow has eluded the home improvement space, right? And there we do it predominantly with technology. And by that, what I mean is, how do you make it better? You know, one, we've already selected the entire catalog of materials, for example, that will be used on many of the homes we do. And it's got a lot of options in it. But the point is, we've selected that catalog specifically for realtors and home sellers, right? So we've got the stuff that we know agents want to put in the homes.

7:06It's a good value. It looks good. And most important, it's available. So we've eliminated right out of the gate this problem where people are looking for materials and all of a sudden it's going to take three months for the cabinets to come in. And it's all available in an online platform. So we're bringing this ease of buying to agents and homeowners through a digital platform. People can pick it out. We have AI now that can recommend what people should choose, what it'll look like. That whole process is very smooth. We have an online collaboration system. Can you imagine doing a home improvement project and actually just being able to use your phone to see what the schedule is?

7:56Some people would say, gee, imagine having a schedule that's actually updated so everybody knows who's coming when, what they did afterwards, see pictures of the work, video of the work. All of a sudden, agents don't have to run around and visit the property, play phone tag with all the people involved, right? So everything online, digital, ability to pick out things, see how things go. And by the way, this isn't just for the agents and the homeowners, right? Because we've tied in our project manager, they work for Curbio and like all contractors, we use subcontractors and they're involved too.

8:41And our app knows if they showed up, when they showed up, what they did that day. So again, we're really, we're really elevating home improvement to be, you know, to be as good as what we see at other companies. We admire companies like Amazon and Apple that have really tried to create a beautiful customer experience that's efficient, right? That's efficient and gets people to closing. And that's what we're really using technology for. Yeah, I love that. I think there's so many industries that are ripe for disruption when it comes to just adding in technology and creating that better experience.

9:23We had another guest on, Ryan Serhant, he was talking about how technology has transformed his brokerage. I love how you're using technology with agents to transform the home improvement space. Are there any sort of new innovations? I know you're using AI, which I'm sure in the next few years is just going to be even more incredible, but any upcoming innovations that you're excited that you can talk about? Sure. I mean, we're doing a lot of things, again, that just are not being done by typical general contractors. No knock on them, but keep in mind, right, 95 % of home improvement work today is done by mom and pop contractors.

10:08Literally, there's a million contractors out there. So they're not going to make these investments in technology. Also, if you're managing one or two projects, you may not need it. So for us to really do this at scale for real estate agents that want to do this over and over again, we have to do it. So, yeah, we have some really cool stuff coming up. One is I mentioned the use of AI. So we're extending that now so that real estate agents or home sellers can just upload pictures of their existing home. And our software will automatically recommend what that will look like if they do some improvements to the home.

10:54and that just very quickly gets people to a point where they can just go from old and maybe a little outdated to here's what it should look like it could be beautiful and you know translate that into then a scope of work that we can do we also do a lot of things behind the scenes with technology that we don't really we don't get into a lot with agents and homeowners because they don't they they don't really care about technology we all care about how it helps them what the benefit is so for example we use technology once we figure out the scope of work together and we use humans a lot for that because it's still important to have that conversation right our software will actually build the schedule for the project it will know using data from around the country if a building permit is required and what the order of construction should be and build that schedule that we can then show to the agent and the homeowner so everybody kind of knows what's happening.

12:04Things like that. Other things that I've already mentioned that we are continuing to expand also related to following our work on site. So in other words, we have an app now, but we're expanding it to make sure that we know when our contractors are actually checking into the home, checking out of the home, who is there on site specifically, and what work they're doing. And we're also using technology now to look at the quality of the work. So I know, again, I know when we talk about AI, I think we all sometimes kind of shake our heads and say like, wow, this is moving fast. This is unbelievable.

12:50But we're now using AI or getting ready to, as you said, innovations coming up to actually take the pictures of the work that was done and quality control it with AI. So AI can now get in there. If you upload a picture of the painting you did that day, AI can actually now look at that and tell you if it was good or not. So again, a lot of really exciting things that, again, for the sake of technology, no, but to make the customer experience faster, better, more transparent, more cost effective. That's what's coming. And it's really exciting. So Rick, I mean, I love all those things. Like I am super big proponent on technology, leveraging AI.

13:39I mean, we use AI in so many things on an everyday basis. So, you know, I'm huge on that. You've had incredible success, exited companies, raised hundreds of millions, took a company public, really transformed industries like in PR. I mean, we could have a whole show dedicated to that because I've used your company for many years in the past. So I'm very familiar with what you had done before. But if somebody comes to you and says, Rick, you know, I'm just starting out or maybe I have a startup. I want to reach the level of success that you've had. What is some advice you would give them? Yes.

14:16Always, you know, by this stage of my career, I should have some snappy answers for that. But that's always a tough question. And by the way, I've done, I actually taught an entrepreneurship class at University of Maryland for a couple semesters. So I'm involved in that world. and you know the more I do this the more I think it's tough to boil this down to like here are the three things you have to do to be successful but I guess just you know look off the top of my head um one you know I I think half of it's luck so I really do coming up with ideas um it takes a lot of courage, right? It takes a belief and a vision for something.

15:07It doesn't always work. So I think half of it is luck. I mean, it takes an enormous amount of hard work and grinding, right? So I guess I would say for anybody that's trying to do something innovative and new or run their own business of any kind, like it just takes a lot of hard work, a lot of hours, a lot of grinding, we're all attracted to this idea. It does happen occasionally where you see somebody start something and it just blows up and then two years later, they sell it for like a billion dollars. I mean, that's probably rarer than lightning striking and it's not good to use as a model for what a new entrepreneur should expect.

15:56So yeah, I think it's a combination of luck on having the right idea, working super hard. And then, you know, there's a lot of, if it's a tech company, which is really where I tend to focus, software and technology, you know, there's a lot of day-to-day stuff. You know, you got a number one, two, and three is you have to have the right people along for the journey, 100%. I've learned that over and over. You just have to have, you got to find the right partners or senior leadership that's going to be a part of it. And a lot of it's going to be about the people. You have to be a learning culture.

16:40You have to be open to stepping back, knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know and constantly learning, thinking about what can be done differently, what can be improved upon. So, I mean, I think those are some of the things. Um, but yeah, I mean, and I still meet with entrepreneurs, um, that I just happened to get connected with and it's a fun part of what I do. And I'm always amazed at some of the just brilliant ideas that people come up with. Um, but nonetheless, you know, you got to do the hard work behind it as well. Well, Rick, thank you. I think there's a common thread between the people that we've interviewed with huge success like yourself.

17:23they say luck or maybe timing like luck dash timing but then having the hard work having skill sets doing all these things to capitalize on that timing seems to have gotten them because as we know other people may have tried to do the same thing but didn't succeed or just never even took the leap to do it or didn't work maybe hard enough or you know who knows what happened their situation. But I really appreciate that. That was an amazing answer. Thank you for that. I know it's hard to boil it into one thing because I'm sure there's so many things, but I love what you do at Curbio. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more information about the company, how can they do so?

18:03Sure. You know, the easiest thing to do is just to go up to curbio.com. It's all up there and additional information on how to get in touch with us. So, uh, and of course, any real estate agent that just wants to get a, wants to get an estimate, no obligation. Maybe they're trying to win a listing. Maybe they got a home they want to do. You just go up there, key in your info. Uh, we get in touch with you that day. Really easy to do. Well, thank you, Rick. This has been amazing. Curbio. I love it. Love your story. I can't wait. You got to come back. I want to hear the whole story of your past. even before Curbio, because I have so many questions for you, because I've been following your journey for quite some time.

18:49But thank you so much for joining us today on Founder's Story. Yeah, thanks for having me. And I'd love to come back and talk some more.