Apartment Market Surveys & Product Feedback: Real-World Notes from a 2x PropTech Entrepreneur

Apartment Market Surveys and Product Feedback: Real-World Notes

Sometimes it’s really difficult to get meaningful product feedback.

Over the past month, we finished a few pilots where the primary feedback was that our product was “too detailed” for on-site management teams. VP-level users loved it, client services users loved it, but leadership felt the on-site teams would be overwhelmed by the volume of data in our system.

Setting aside the fact that we’ve rolled out nationally with 3 of the nation’s Top 10 property managers in as many months, the feedback makes sense… we initially designed HelloData more for owners and acquisitions teams than property managers. That's my background in real estate - I worked in multifamily investment, development and brokerage before becoming a PropTech entrepreneur. That's what I know and what our team knows. Never worked in property management or operations though.

The problem was, no one actually explained why the platform was too complex. What made people think on-site teams would have trouble using it? What were we missing?

All we were hearing was generic things like "we decided to go in a different direction" or "we thought another platform was a better fit for our on-site teams".

This was a problem we needed to solve quickly. Losing deals is not fun, especially when you don't know why.

Getting in the Weeds with Product Feedback

We analyzed our Mixpanel and Logrocket data and produced some theories. We talked with our current clients, asked more questions on our pilot feedback calls, and then eventually, someone just came out and said it:

They wanted to see an “east-west” view of our rent comps table, more like what they were used to, instead of the “north-south” view we showed HelloData.

Oh. Got it!

I mean, that also makes perfect sense… people want to see data presented in a way they’re used to. Side-by-side is how brokers, appraisers and property managers have traditionally viewed data. We tried to be different, but maybe it was too different.

Once we understood what we were missing, I put together some quick mockups, and Tim built the new comps grid in just 7 days:

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Now HelloData users can view and sort comps horizontally, customize the metrics displayed, and click into any figure to view and download the underlying data. Here's a video showing the new comps grid in action:

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If we had heard the feedback earlier in these 30-day pilots, we would have just built it before they ended. I think we have one of the fastest development teams in PropTech, and we can knock out complex features in days, not months.

But that’s on us. We should have pressed for more detailed feedback earlier on.

As a 2x PropTech entrepreneur and the former Chief Product Officer at Walker & Dunlop, I actually know how to do this pretty well. Even wrote some blog posts on how to gather feedback and craft scope effectively in a large organization.

But with 90 new pilots started in September 2024 alone, we got buried and negletected to dig in. Lesson learned.

At any rate, we just launched the new comps grid on the “Overview” tab in HelloData. Check it out on your next deal and let us know what you think!