How Connected Investors Got Connected

Connected Investors is one of tekMountain’s first member companies, and has undergone its own shape-shifting while the Mountain was being carved. CEO Ross Hamilton and team perfected their platform after a volatile series of peaks and slumps familiar to all startups. I was privileged to sit down with Ross to produce the first installment of the Connected Investors tier.

Connected Investors 3.0 is an online community of real estate professionals involved in buying, selling, and flipping properties. The open source platform is a geographically-based marketplace of off-market investment properties. Users can follow locations and friend people, while customizing their experience through the “Ci App Market,” and can develop applications for the platform themselves using the available API. Thus, users are exposed to a rich array of services created by and for them, and are spared the overwhelming bombardment of “convoluting” features. The platform has four levels exclusive to variously accredited users, so “high net-worth people are assured to connect with others of the same caliber.” Ross says this system eliminates “tire-kickers and city-slickers” to ensure a legitimate business arena.

Ci is supported by the “perfect generational mix” of “old school IBM” technology pros and “simplistic Apple” innovators, all with experience in real estate. However, the company was not always so fortunate. Ross explained how they had to “either fold completely or double down” when the housing market crashed in 2007. He sought advice from top technology executives and all agreed: Connected Investors was at “the crosshairs of the two biggest industries in the world: real estate and social media,” but needed a stronger team to persist.

With the help of funding from existing members and other sources, Ross built the team he needed. He called his old friend and mentor, Bill Brinkley, who became the hire that saved Connected Investors. Bill initiated a huge turnaround, and encouraged Ross to part with his tech team. Justin Arlett was hired next and specialized in leveraging digital marketing in his previous real estate ventures. As his team assembled, Ross accepted that although he had been “every ‘O’,” as CEO his job was to “build the organization, not the business; the organization builds the business.”

After gaining traction to conquer the market slump, Ross’ “worst fears were confirmed”: his new tech team quickly realized the old code would not be able to handle the growth, and the entire site had to be rebuilt for the ground up" without their 180,000 dependent members noticing. Marty Coyne was brought on as CTO to oversee the development during the tumultuous reconstruction; this time built from mobile phones, using well-documented innovations, and with ten years of data on what people wanted.

Ci, in effect, “went all in” Wednesday October 22nd, 2014 with the launch of Ci 3.0. Not only did those 180,000 users not stir during the renovation, but they loved what they got,“it was everything they had always wanted.” Through conversing with Ross, I learned the inspiring, ground-up history of Connected Investors, and of promise of its future. This is merely its introduction.

By: Alex May, tekMountain Team Member