Real estate aerial maps

alex

— 3 min read

Last week an idea came across my feed that I rather like, so this'll be kind of a stream-of-consciousness musing as I decide if / how to pursue it.

idea

The idea: software that generates an aerial map of a given area and automatically layers on logos of well-known businesses at their respective locations.

The use case: ~Every big real estate deal or development has a slide deck for prospective investors or buyers. ~Every one of these slide decks has an aerial map that basically says "Look at what a great area this is, all these established brands are here and it's right next to (major roads / transport), it's a great investment." It tends to look something like this:

Currently these seem to be mostly made by hand. A quick google search reveals a swarm of people on fiverr, upwork, etc offering exactly this service: example 1, example 2. The prices range $40-$100, depending on the offering, and map quality depends on the provider. Most of them are at least one day turnaround for the obvious reasons. For software solutions, there is general mapping software such as ArcGIS. If I had to guess, the service providers are probably using this to manually assemble the end product.

I think there's room for a specialized solution that automates the entire map production and does it for faster + cheaper. Instant self-service map with the requisite logos that's > 80% good-enough for, say, $30 instead of $50. Specialized cases + manual review can be offered as $XXX upsells.

how would it work?

  • Satellite data can probably come from google maps, open street maps, azure, whoever.
  • Two categories of business data will be needed:
    • POI data for "there is a McDonald's <right there>"
    • Maybe bizographic data to supplement e.g. logos + industry
  • The "frontend" bits that:
    • allow selection of area + either specific logos or broad industry / criteria
    • pulls in the map + business data per above
    • delivers an image that is nice enough to present to customers' prospects

what I like

  • This is a niche use case with a limited number of players. Outside of the labor marketplaces, the names I saw off a quick google were mostly agency types.
  • While current markets are chilly because of the rate environment, commercial + multifamily real estate is a huge market and will always be A Thing.
  • There are juuuust enough moving parts to deter instant copycats: gathering business + POI data, combining it with satellite image data, and putting it all together into a slick map generation backend. The tech isn't bleeding edge, but definitely fancier than just CRUD app + QuickBooks integration.
  • Adjacent opportunities. Horizontally, I can think of one or two other places that "image generation with smartly clustered business logos" could be useful. Vertically, "fully integrated deal software" seems interesting. Think journey.io for traditional industries like real estate – but that's a tangent for another day.

what I like less

  • I could be getting the "job to be done" wrong. e.g. maybe upwork / fiverr are actually preferable because having a human on the other end provides a sense of security, and that is more valuable than speed or price for the map.
  • The solution could be too specialized to even warrant the friction of signup to a new app. It's more convenient for the customer to stick with upwork / fiverr / (their agency), because that's where 70% of their work lives already anyway.
  • Maybe automating this even to 80% fidelity is horribly difficult for reasons I haven't seen yet.

next?

MVP can be a script that spits out an image based on some manual input: address + list of relevant business data. The biggest uncertainty to prove out is the ability to take that list of business data + mostly-kinda-sorta automatically generate a map that is "good enough." For the first version, the business (+ maybe even satellite) data can be completely manual, though with any luck one of the map providers will have a $cheap/free tier.

I lean MVP before the usual landing page + adwords validation because Google results indicate this is a problem that people already pay to solve. Then again, there is the uncertainty around the friction of using a new app, so I may change my mind on that. In any case, I think the MVP can be done cheaply enough + seems kinda fun to build, so.

Once the script is ready, first validation customer "sales" can literally be emails. "Hey what's the address on a deal you're working on, we'll do you a map." If the map proves to be valuable, the rest of the build can follow.

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