2466 - Transforming Community Living Through AI Virtual Concierges and Digital Innovation with Unitify's Ilia Sotonin

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0:46Visit podverified.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it.

0:56With us right now, it's Ilya Sotanin. Ilya, you are the founder and CEO of Unidify. You were found on the web at unitify.com. We've got the spelling for that and the link directly in our show notes. Well, Ilya, it's great to have you. Nice to see you, Josh. Yes, yes. Well, you're here in Slovenia, and I'm really excited to learn a little bit more about the work that you're doing with Unify, who you serve. Before I do, always love hearing what leaders are doing outside of work for fun. I understand that you're taking flying lessons. That's got to be a trip. Yeah, yeah. You know, we live in a house, and I see during the night Venice slides from it, because Venice is just 80 kilometers from us.

1:43And I see a marina where is my boat standing, and I see an aerodrome where I take flying lessons. So I hope one day I can fly to Venice. It's just 20 minutes. Are you? Yeah. So tell me, so where are you? Have you? So you've already been in the cockpit, hands on the controls. You're in the driver's seat. You've already done that. What was the first? Do you recall the first time you did that, what that felt like? I can't imagine, like, the first time, you know, it's like, and I don't know if you were kind of side by side with a trainer. And, you know, it's like they've got their hands on the control.

2:17And now you're in control. and you can like, oh my gosh, I'm flying. Like, what was that feeling? You know, first time it's, you know, difficult to speak about that because, you know, you are really flying somewhere, one kilometer, two kilometers, somewhere in sky. Yeah. And if you do something wrong, it will fall. But then you understand that planes are made not for falling, but for flying. Yeah. And so that's making everything easier. and you just fly and you know i kind of feel all the techniques i ride a motorbike i feel the sailing boat so and i also feel the plane so it's it's nice for me wow wow so how far are you into the training and like is there um there's a certain point then where you get a pilot's license yeah for sure you need to fly at least 55 hours now i think i have 25 oh my goodness Well, congratulations to that.

3:19At what point can you take a kid with you? You can't take them while you're taking lessons, right? Yeah, yeah. But after, I think I will get my pilot license. Then I will have other 50 hours alone. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Oh, my gosh. I got to tell you, that's good because I know you got some kids. And I mean, how cool would that be, you know, to be a kid? And you're like, oh, my gosh, you know, instead of dad driving me to school, here's dad flying me in a plane to Italy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, when you ride with them on Harley, it's really a good experience for them. So when you will be flying with them, it will be even better.

4:09Yeah. Well, tell me, Ilya, about Unidify. Who do you serve? It's property management. I like it. It's property management without the paperwork. I like the sound of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, many years ago, my parents, they like created an HAA, House Owner Association, in the building they lived in. And I was like a student sitting around and listening about all these community meetings and all this stuff. And I realized that there is no service at all on this market. And we can create the service. So that's how my first company started. I owned a property management company that managed buildings with 20 ,000 residents living in these buildings.

4:54And then we created an IT platform for our own efficiency to earn more money. You know how it works. And we created first resident app in 2013. It was on iPhone number 5. So I think it may be first resident app in the world. Yeah. And then things went faster. I sold my property management company. And then I've created SaaS product with, I don't know, over 5 million apartments in it. And it was the largest platform for property management in the country I lived in. Yeah. So then I sold it again. It was my second exit. And now I'm kind of going global to new markets. and we created UnityFive brand, and we have our first customers all over the world.

5:49And maybe we will come to the U.S. this year, but to the U.S. we will come not with SaaS product, but with a roll-up strategy. So now we are searching for HA condo management companies to acquire. And this week I had three calls, one with HA management company from Georgia, second one from Virginia, and third one from New York, from Brooklyn. So I hope we will buy one of them. Yeah. So the platform is for property managers, community associations, developers, residence associations. Tell me, like, without a solution like yours, how bad is it? You know, our main competitor is, you know, paper sheets and Excel.

6:40So it's the most conservative market in the world, I think. Because people who created this HA condo management companies, they're like boomers. They are now in their 70s. And they're ready to buy a boat and to stop building business. And, you know, property management business, it's not very sexy. And their children don't want to take over. So that's when we come and we tell them, You can sell to us and your business will be in good hands. So walk me through the, you know, why there is the need in, you know, among, again, community associations, property managers. What are the big things that overwhelm those people that are just kind of trying to run everything and keep everything running smoothly, particularly if they're using old school systems?

7:41Yeah, you know, as I look at it, main asset of every property management or community management company, it's relationship with residents. When you have good relationship, it's cheaper to work with them because they don't comply, they are ready to pay, they go to community meetings and vote for everything you tell them. So if residents like you, it's easier to work with them. And we like creating a community resident experience layer. So people who live in the buildings, they want a good place to live. And I think that many property management companies, they don't think about this business like about hospitality business.

8:28But you need to create a good feeling of home. When people come back from the office in the evening, they need to feel that they are coming home. And you can create this feeling for them. And I think that's the main thing that we must create. and communications. That's what we are trying to automize. And now with all this AI stuff and everything, it's even easier because for good communication, you need to know everything about your client, about the resident. And when you have all this data gathered in one place, in one platform, it's easier to understand. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We remember about your ticket.

9:12Yeah. And the plumber will come today at 3 o 'clock. So, please wait for him. And if he doesn't come, please tell us and we will help. So, that's how the communication works. Yeah. Well, the pricing is pretty competitive. I'm surprised. I mean, it starts at free. And then even at the pro level, it's$3 per apartment per month. And so how is the ROI for your clients who adapt this platform? You know, we understand that the collections of payments it raises. So you collect payments faster. And during the first month, we help to raise these payments from 80 % to 95%. That's the real case from one of our customers.

10:09So that's what we're helping about. And also we help to reduce costs of your contact center. So as we were speaking, all this business is about communications. And communications is people to people. And now you can reduce it because you can add AI agents who can be like a concierge for your residents. And they will talk to your customers and help them to deal with all the problems they meet while living in the buildings you manage. Aside from, you know, kind of your platform, I suspect you work with a lot of great property managers, owners, developers, neighborhood association groups. I'm curious if you are seeing AI help out in this world.

10:58And what are you excited about? Or what process, asked another way, you know, what processes have you seen improved by, you know, an application of AI in a way that's really improved life for the homeowners, the residents, you know, that sort of thing? Josh, it's nice that you mentioned developers who create buildings, who build new buildings, yeah? Because we know that experience of living in the newly built building, it starts when the developer is not even there. Because when the building is completed, all the development guys, they are going out and there is a property management company. And the experience of using the product of the developer, property developer, it starts when there is only property management company.

11:46So it depends on the quality of property management, how expensive will be square feet in your future projects and how fast you will sell it. So that's why developers are now thinking about property management as a part of their marketing strategy. And that's very nice because now every developer can create their own property management company. It's now very easy because five years ago to find some profit in this business, you don't need, I don't know, 2 million square feet. All right. So now with AI, you can reduce costs and reduce your spendings on salary. And now you can find business starting, I don't know, starting from 300 ,000 feet in your management.

12:44So 10 times. Less than five years ago. I like this. All right. So as the founder and CEO here, what's the future of Unidify? Where do you see the platform going? oh you know i think that in 20 years when elon will give us uh optimus robots yeah so all we will we will find the better costs of all our services not only in back office in in ai for back office but also in a physical ai so you will have all the data in one system yeah about what was going on in this building five years ago, which elevator is here, which pump is here. And this system will create tasks for robots using AI. So in 30 years, I think this will be in the business.

13:45But if we are talking about, I don't know, one, two years, I hope that we will come to real markets. So we will acquire some property management, HIA management companies in the US And we will use our platform, our IT product, to increase EBITDA in the businesses we acquire. So I think now EBITDA for these businesses from 10 % to 15 % a year. Yeah. And with the help of digitalization and now experience, we can raise it to 30%, I think, at least. Wow. Okay. Your website, unitify.com. and um ilio uh for our friend that's been listening to our conversation what do you recommend they do from here yeah i think that good question i've got some ideas they should go to unitify.com book a live demo how's that let me help you land the plane in terms of sales yeah yeah because it's great because you also you can just go in here to get to a friend that's listening and um not only can you do a demo there's a video demo you can watch the whole thing so if you don't want to jump on a call with someone and then um it's free i mean it's you got a freemium um level so my goodness uh just get in create a create a free account here how's that Yeah, yeah.

15:13I'll come work for you. Yeah. And if you have someone who is selling HA or condo management company, please send them to me. Yeah. I have money to buy. Yeah. All right. Yes. Okay. To our friend listening, contact your HOA. I've got a big old HOA here and the platform they use is old school, man. And these guys should be pretty sophisticated and savvy. They're not. I mean, they're okay. But your platform is gorgeous. And again, it's got AI built into it just to improve the quality of life for both developers, property managers, and the residents and homeowners and stuff. So this is great. Unitify.com.

15:56Ilya Sotanin, you're the founder and CEO. Congratulations on your growth. Congratulations on your success and impact out there. Really, really exciting. Beautiful platform. Ilya, thank you so much. Anything else before we finish up here? I hope we'll meet for a glass of coffee or wine when I come to New York and acquire some property management companies. So be there. Yeah, get your pilot's license. Go ahead and fly from Europe to Orlando and we'll make it happen. Yeah, for sure. Sounds great. Ilya, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Ciao, ciao.

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