Dan Fortin was one of my favorite people I met working at Lone Wolf. He came over from the Instanet acquisition and has had a front-row seat to see big changes in the industry. From Lone Wolf acquiring 8 companies, 5 of them in less than 9 months, to the challenges of being a forms company during COVID when everyone wanted a specific form, and they wanted it NOW! Sounds familiar, eh?
We discuss Dan’s background, the lessons he’s learned over the 10 years, and how taking a data-driven approach to making decisions has helped him during his career.
We also get to talk about Lone Wolf’s recent announcement on its newest platform, Foundation, and the tremendous amount of work that took. We also delve into product, design, and what the future holds for Lone Wolf.
For more about Lone Wolf Foundation please visit here.
To connect with Dan check out his LinkedIn profile.
My thanks to Lone Wolf for sponsoring this month’s Vendor Alley. Lone Wolf is rolling out its new platform, dubbed Foundation.
Lone Wolf Foundation is an all-in-one platform that gives real estate professionals a modular approach to their software. Users can choose the Lone Wolf software they need and integrate third-party solutions as well to personalize their tech stacks. Its continuous data flow and connected experience means real estate professionals have the shared data, applications, and security they need to cover every step of what they do. One platform, one login, one experience, one set of contacts from lead to close.
Having worked at Lone Wolf I know what an incredible effort it has been to get Foundation to the market. Great to see that they have really focused on the design of the product. Super clean.
“This is the end result of that extensive research; a platform that goes beyond integrations, beyond connections, beyond a rebrand to create a real solution. From a single login to a modular design that allows real estate professionals to pick and choose the solutions they need, with shared data workflows that keep information consistent from lead to close and the latest in digital security, there’s nothing like this in the industry today—and it will transform the way real estate professionals work, now and into the future.”
Sean Wheeler, CTO of Lone Wolf Technologies
This has been a huge project and I’m loving what Lone Wolf has pulled off. Having acquired some of the most popular and widely adopted software in the real estate space, they have taken a fresh approach on how to create an end-to-end platform. Am I biased? Of course! It’s all because I know the team there is made up some of the most creative and talented people in the industry, people from HomeSpotter, Instanet, zipForm, Terradatum and W+R Studios.
I hear some of you say, “But, Greg, I thought you didn’t like all-in-one solutions?” I think that Lone Wolf’s CEO Jimmy Kelly said it best, “Real Estate Doesn’t Need More Software“. In a nutshell what he is saying real estate has a lot of point solutions; it needs what it already has to pull more weight. The industry wants its existing software to work together, and be more automated. What Lone Wolf is doing is creating a foundation (see what I did there) for their software (and also giving the flexibility to add other solutions) to let brokers and agents create the experience they want. Experience I believe is the key word here.
Got my hands on an Apple Vision Pro and made a quick video to see how Cloud CMA worked on the new headset. And guess what? It works! Check out the video below.
“In partnership with Lone Wolf Technologies (“Lone Wolf”), Realcomp is announcing expanded MLS subscriber benefits as the new year approaches. Beginning in December 2023, Realcomp will once again provide the agent edition of Lone Wolf Transactions (TransactionDesk Edition) (“Transactions”) and many connected digital tools, including digital forms, document storage, mobile access, single sign-on, and one-click access to MLS subscribers as a complimentary benefit, building on their existing access to Lone Wolf Authentisign. Through this partnership, Realcomp continues to demonstrate a dedication to providing MLS subscribers with access to industry-leading solutions, designed to support real estate professionals in meeting the demands of any market.”
“More than 30 technology companies are already integrated with Transactions, offering services including rental screening, earnest money deposit, commission advances, disclosures, home warranty, home insurance and moving services through the Lone Wolf Marketplace.
Better will be the first mortgage lender to have the same opportunity, with Loan Wolf planning to onboard additional mortgage partners over the next several months.
“Adding this integration to Transactions will bring our customers even more value in their trusted transaction management solution,” Lone Wolf CEO Jimmy Kelly said, in a statement. “When agents and brokers have everything they need for their client experience in one place, they can quickly capitalize on opportunities, cross every T, and dot every I along the way.”
Matt Carter, Inman News
Great to see all the pieces falling in to place. Lone Wolf is way ahead with their marketplace and has the product adoption to show their partners real value.
And Damien Huze believes that the next evolution of real estate software will apply this concept, offering fewer high-quality apps that work together in a fluid system.
Damien is Senior Design Manager and Principal Designer at Lone Wolf Technologies, a software company working to build an end-to-end solution for real estate.
Damien served as Chief Design Officer at W+R studios before the Lone Wolf acquisition, and he is responsible for the design of Cloud CMA, one of the most popular apps in real estate.
On this episode of Listing Bits, Damien explains how making design a priority benefits companies building web-based apps and why he defines design as a skill aimed at problem-solving.
Damien describes how Lone Wolf is working to combine the tools of proptech into a single streamlined experience and shares his team’s user-centric approach to the problem of simplifying real estate.
Listen in for insight on the power of relentless focus and learn about Damien’s vision for designing real estate software that delivers more with less.
What’s Discussed:
What Damien learned from growing up with creative parents who immigrated to the US
How making design a priority benefits companies building web-based apps (and why so few do it)
How Damien thinks about design as a skill aimed at problem-solving
What Lone Wolf is doing to bring several real estate apps together in a single end-to-end solution
Why Damien believes the next evolution in real estate software is ‘less but better’
Lone Wolf’s upcoming announcement at the T3 Technology Summit
What it means for good software to have an opinion vs. being too flexible or customizable
How Damien’s team brings a user-centric, design thinking approach to simplifying real estate
Greg and Damien’s take on the advantage of simple tools that get the job done
The well-designed product that’s had the biggest impact on Damien’s life
Why relentless focus boosts productivity and how Damien applies that tenet to design
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.
Sean Wheeler, CTO Lone Wolf
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.
Jimmy Kelly, CEO Lone Wolf
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.
Damien Huze, Principal Designer Lone Wolf
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.
“Listing Toolkit is a resource for agents to attract more seller clients and uncover buyers seeking their homes, among other benefits. It’s for those with Realtor.com Pro accounts and has a full integration with Lone Wolf’s Cloud CMA to quickly build dynamic presentations that can be juxtaposed with a wide range of buyer traffic data to demonstrate demand across the entire Realtor.com coverage area. It enables quick property advertising campaigns and allows for self-promotion and branding using Realtor.com’s UpNest product suite, which allows for paid increases in reach. Overall, the experience is supported by a modern, consumer-facing UI and should pose little challenge to learn. It could be a nice value-add to the tech stack of agents with reasonable marketing budgets, and a good use of time for small, tech-forward brokerages and teams with marketing staff.
Craig Rowe for Inman News
Good write up from Craig. As I’ve written about before I think the realtor.com team did a great job with Lone Wolf with the integration.
It’s a bit late but I did want to give a shout out to my former colleagues at Lone Wolf for making the 2023 HW Insiders list. Aaron and Kyle are both great people and I enjoyed working with them side by side and happy they received this attention.
