Propfolio x Decent Labs
By: Emily Loughran
Tags: Startup, Real Estate, Investing, Venture

Until recently, real estate management was stuck in the Stone Age. Physical copies of investment reports, antiquated spreadsheets, and long chains of command made obtaining and compiling property data endlessly time consuming. When Propfolio came onto the scene in 2017, their founders saw beyond the industry’s status quo. As three former commercial real estate professionals, Peter Bird, Tom Cartlidge and Angus Abbott knew the intimate details of their trade, and exactly what they needed to create to improve it. They saw the future of real estate: property data at your fingertips, personalized portfolio analysis at the push of a button and transparency at every turn. They imagined a virtual space that encompassed all of these features, as well as the ability to recognize key risks, while streamlining and strengthening day-to-day management processes. In short, they wanted real estate management to be intelligent, accessible, and simple. Since their founding, Propfolio has generated considerable enthusiasm, receiving their first investment from Pi Labs in 2018, and being selected just last year to join ten other startups in The Arcadis City of 2030 Accelerator powered by Techstars. Propfolio’s dynamic drive and exceptional product has made our work with them at Decent Labs a natural partnership. Since February of this year, our joint efforts have been engaged in retaining the original spirit of Propfolio while working to push boundaries within a rapid design and development process.

Aiming to embody the same holistic approach the London-based start-up was first founded on, the designers at Decent Labs have transitioned from designing a simple prototype to constructing the live, go-to-market version of Propfolio! With the vision of a thoughtful, clean user interface and the intentions of a comprehensive experience for real estate professionals, Peter, Tom and Angus’s ideas have begun to take shape. “Decent Labs understood our problem, they saw beyond a demo model and helped us create a truly original product that our clients will be able to put to immediate use,” Peter explained, “From the initial branding to prototyping and development, what they helped us build will grow with our company and will be able to scale even more effectively than we first hoped.”

Propfolio was just warming up when Decent Labs was brought on board. “Through the support of Decent Labs’s designers, we were able to watch our sketches turn into wireframes, and saw the core of our brand being consistently represented with each step.” From the prototype Propfolio was able present to investors on Techstars’s 2020 Demo Day, to the upcoming MVP launch, “Decent Labs has consistently impressed and excited us with how easy they’ve made building out our product.” The next step in this collaboration? Onboarding and introducing clients to the app itself. Peter emphasized, “As members of the industry ourselves, we know our clients, and we knew that our product had to be approachable and uncomplicated, and that’s exactly what we’ve created.” Both the Propfolio team and Decent Labs have concentrated on building a UX that feels comfortable, while at the same time able to support complex asset information and smarter performance reporting. “It’s the core of our product, the ability to have all your data at the push of a button, when you need it, wherever you are.”

Propfolio and Decent Labs have worked tirelessly to bring real estate management to the 21st century, and with the arrival of the Propfolio app right around the corner, there is no doubt that these ambitions will become a reality.