Product and code.
Decisions, systems, and the arguments behind how software gets built.
In this lens
Healthy Tension: The Relationship Between Product and Engineering
The oft given advice in product circles is that the best performing teams emerge from a healthy tension – great outcomes are forged under pressure. The idea is that in order to maximize the results...
Composable Data Platforms are the Future
Anyone who's worked with me over the last year or so knows I'm generally not a fan of the microservices pattern. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's a necessary pattern, still doesn't mean I have to...
Get the Joy Back
We've all been there. Stuck in the doldrums of going through the motions and just not in it anymore. Where you used to have fun building cool things, now you're just stuck in a rut and just don't c...
Calculating the odds of a change in Fed Funds
Here's a question for you – as of late June 2024, how many rate cuts, if any, do you expect the FOMC to make by the end of this year? Outside of the talking heads on CNBC and the Fed dots in the qu...
A New Chapter
I know it's been a while since I've actually published anything. There's been a lot going on in my personal life, which meant that consistent writing has just fallen by the wayside a bit.
AI Will Make More Developers, Not Less: The Economic Argument
I think the growing consensus among the tech world right now is that AI is going to eventually take over most white collar jobs. I've written before about how AI is going to take over (half) your j...
(The Lack Of) Data Standardization in CRE
I want you to imagine a scenario with me for a moment. You've been an intelligent real estate investor for a while, and have an excess of cash that you want to diversify into some alternative inves...
What The Fed?
Last week, during the fallout of SVB, Signature Bank, and Silvergate, the FOMC decided during it's March 22 meeting to hike Fed Funds by 25 bps. This decision came pretty much in line with futures...
Strategic Planning Is An Oxymoron
In tech, we LOVE planning. We plan meetings to describe functions, which are the frameworks we use to plan user stories, which is a different framework we use to plan developer tasks and the accept...
FDIC Takeover: An SVB Primer
By now we've all heard about the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. If you haven't, then this is a really odd place to be hearing about it for the first time.
Strategy Debt Is More Expensive Than Tech Debt
One of the coolest things I get to do in a director level role at a software company is meet a lot of different people outside my organization. I get to converse some of the most experienced, intel...
You Will Always Have More Problems Than You Can Solve
I’m going to get philosophical.
The Whole Is Something Besides Its Parts
About a year ago I found out I was going to be taking on a brand new role inside of my company. I would be leading a department of three (me, myself, and I) on a quest to help our still young compa...
The Fundamentals of CRE Debt Management
I think one of the most difficult aspects of building debt management software is defining exactly what that means. It’s also one of the more interesting thought exercises to walk through. It’s som...
Creating Value in CRE Technology
Building software isn’t easy, neither in concept nor in execution. It’s difficult. In fact, developing software is often referred to as Theory Building (Programming as Theory Building, Peter Naur,...
Three Ways AI Will Make PropTech and CRE Better in 2023
Over the summer we ran a little thought experiment with some of our technology leadership. We asked them whether they thought artificial intelligence was overrated or underrated in PropTech. Some o...
AI is a Power Tool, Not a Robot
I’m not sure there’s been a technology as misunderstood as Artificial Intelligence, especially for the users of PropTech. To be clear, I’m not here to get into the differences between AI, Machine L...
A Better Approach to Debt Management
In our last post we covered why debt policies are needed and why conventional approaches tend to fail. An astute reader will note that most of these problems stem from the fact that bad debt manage...
Challenges You Will Face Implementing Debt Management Strategies
Anytime a company does something new and exciting, there’s usually two types of people that speak into the implementation. There are the Visionaries — those that look for the new things that can tr...
Creating Portfolio Debt Standards
So far we’ve covered why we need to change the way we approach debt management and quickly outlined a plan for fixing these issues. This next post will discuss specifics on how to implement these p...
Debt Standard Checklists for Individual Loans
So far we’ve established broad risk management policies for our entire portfolio. The top level policies are designed to help us defend against broad market risk — true debt management type risks....
Setting and Enforcing Debt Management Controls
If you’ve ever worked in a software company, especially one that gets anywhere close to the FinTech space, you’ll have at least heard the tales of someone who has been through a SOC II audit. For t...
Why Your Middle-Market Real Estate Fund Needs a Debt Policy
At some point or another, you or your board of directors have all probably wrestled with the question of debt — how much to take on, how to structure the debt, when to refinance, etc. It’s often a...
Study: Debt Management is the Secondary Driver to CRE Profitability
It’s official — there’s scientific evidence suggesting the Debt Management is a driver to CRE profitability. Not the driver, of course, that honor falls with asset management, but it’s a secondary...
Infographic: Negative Leverage in 2022
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about what Negative Leverage is, and some strategies for managing it in the current market environment. Since then, I’ve heard more chatter on the topic and decided to...
Infographic: Why Swaps Make Sense For Great Debt Management
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How To Plan For Peak Rates Like a Debt Management Pro
If you’re in the real estate business and haven’t been living under a rock the last several weeks, you’ve probably seen infographics that look something like this:
Finance Concepts: Fixed Rate Prepayments
As all CRE borrowers know, if you get a fixed rate loan, you’re more than likely going to be saddled with some sort of prepayment premium. There’s several common calculation methods, all going by d...
Negative Leverage and How to Manage It
Can we all agree that the next person that says, “inflation has peaked” just isn’t allowed to speak for like 3 months? This afternoon, the FOMC is expected to raise rates again by at least 75 bps,...
Big Data Is Out, Small Data Is In
The tech sector that serves real estate owners and operators, PropTech/CRETech or whatever your favorite term is, is a relatively young industry. The CRE industry has been served by software vendor...
3 Ways Debt Management Makes CRE More Profitable
When I left traditional consulting and moved into tech, one of the bigger culture shocks that I encountered was in recruiting. It wasn’t hard to recruit for our consulting business — after all we h...
How Bad Debt & Disposition Habits Kill Real Estate Returns
It might surprise some readers how often debt comes as an afterthought in CRE. After all, it’s the asset management that’s the real value driver in this business. The debt is just the means to an e...