I've been enjoying reading everyone's takeaways from #optech2023
Everyone sees through a slightly different lens - but the underlying themes are somewhat clear. The lens that we look through at #Revyse is a fun one. It's agnostic of operator or vendor. It has a skew towards B2B software sales, B2B marketing, category trends and technology stacks.
Before my takeaways - huge shout out to Rick Haughey, Sarah Yaussi, Sharon Wilson Geno - and the team at NMHC. This event was fantastic.
Here are my top takeaways:
1️⃣ - In person events are just awesome. The people you bump into, the friendships you make, the high fives. We already can't wait for Social Media Summit in Napa.
2️⃣ - It's NOISY out there. The expo hall was packed full of vendors - and I understand that there were close to 100 MORE vendors on the waitlist. Sentiment was largely that if meetings weren't pre-set it was very hard to capture attention on the show floor. But we all knew that, right?! In our #Revyse buyer survey - only 12% of buyers said that they start their search for new vendors at a trade show. Buyers are doing their homework online.
3️⃣ - The sessions were some of the best of any show that I have attended. The panelists were thoughtfully selected, operator skewed, covered a broad range of pressing topics, and were well moderated.
Shout outs to:
Hope Dunleavy - for leading a PACKED room for the NMHC / Real Foundations CX survey.
Marcella Eppsteiner and Joya Pavesi for sharing their thoughtful CX tech survey insights.
Julianne Goodfellow for leading an awesome session on a topic that is widely under-discussed (but will get much, much louder) - Cybersecurity and Data Privacy.
Melody Reid and Dustin Lacey - for sharing their actionable insights on data visualization.
Bobbi Steward for co-hosting the Women in Multifamily Tech Meetup.
4️⃣ - 2024 is going to be HARD. Operators are now heavily budget strapped. Almost all new software spend is going to need to be offset by a tangible cost saving. Business cases and economic justification are going to need to be lock-tight. Appetite for risk will be low. Focus from both operators and vendors will need to be on renewals as competition increases in nearly every category. Broken promises on fancy features to come will likely result in category shopping. Hefty price increases will be heavily scrutinized and likely result in category shopping. In almost all of our conversations - operators are going back to basics - and looking for opportunities for simplification.
5️⃣ - Change fatigue is real. Covid forced multifamily to adopt a ton of new software. Quickly. Operators are now taking stock of the number of dashboards users need to log into and just how much software is being used to run a multifamily operation. Hint; It's a ton.
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