Less software?

Next week Lone Wolf Technologies will reveal its new platform at the T3 Technology Summit, and I’m super excited about it. Why? Let me tell you a story.

At W+R Studios we were bootstrapped, so we needed to grow organically. Our product strategy centered around making core features of an MLS system better.

CMAs on MLS systems suck? Let’s make a better one. Enter Cloud CMA.

MLS system’s client portals and listing alert emails are ugly. Let’s make them pretty (and easier to use). Voilà , Cloud Streams.

Searching on MLS systems too complicated? Let’s make something simple. Boom, Cloud MLX!

The problem was two fold. In order to grow we needed to add new products (more software) and at the end of the day is that we had 3 different software apps, each of them great in their own right, but they didn’t really work together. Also if you wanted all three you had to buy each one separately, and have 3 separate logins, and 3 separate onboarding scenarios, 3 different times you entered a credit card number, and 3 separate…you get the point.

We solved most of this by creating the “Cloud Agent Suite“, but really only scratched the surface of what was possible, then we were acquired in December 2020.

So this problem of “simplifying real estate” has been on the minds of our (W+R) design team for a very long time. How do we bring all of this together to create an end to end solution that makes sense, and still grow? Can “less software” be the answer?

Turns that the problem was about to get bigger. Starting in 2020 Lone Wolf acquired 5 companies in 9 months (including W+R); HomeSpotter, LionDesk, Terradatum and Propertybase. Now you had 9 (at least) separate logins, 9 separate… you get the point.

When I left Lone Wolf I was starting to see the green shoots of this work. Most of it on the backend led by Sean Wheeler, Lone Wolf’s CTO. One login, one credit card, one database of contacts for all products, etc. Jimmy Kelly, Lone Wolf’s CEO, talked about their effort and the concept of “less software” on a post on Inman News titled “Real Estate Doesn’t Need More Software“. I was also privy to see some of the earlier mock ups from the design group, which were super impressive.

But, like any good meal it all comes down to ingredients. Lone Wolf from my estimation has the best ingredients in the market. The products they acquired (and the teams behind them) are not only best of class but have high adoption rates and great partnerships. Now it comes down to presentation and taste. And I have full confidence in the design chops of the team behind this. I had a chance to interview, Damien Huze, who was W+R’s Chief Design Officer and now a principal designer at Lone Wolf on my Listing Bits podcast which should drop this week.

Am I biased? Absolutely. Am I still a fan of simple focused software applications? You betcha. But I’m a bigger fan of people. So I look forward to seeing how this particular group of talented people proves less software is better.