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Pinned · the post that put Mel on the map · Jul 17, 2024

Building Journal #1: This content probably won't be read by anyone but me, but I figured I'd post it anyway - lol. I'm starting this journal for myself as I build, I figured I'd open source it to the public and to my investors. Like any start up founder, my goal is to build one of the next great American companies, an outlier. I first wanted to build a 'thesis' as to why it makes sense approaching the market with this particular business model. I've spent the last 3 years obsessing over the housing crisis and ways to alleviate it. I've recently realized that I've been approaching it from the wrong angle. That exploration led me to the following thesis, which can be thought of as 'Phase 1' to fix the housing crisis Ironically, its a product for landlords to make more $. Fate loves irony. The @Vizia_AI Thesis Current market dynamics We’re sitting at one of the most interesting moments in human history. Potentially what is the most radical change in society humanity has ever witnessed. We are at the beginning of a new type of society, led by artificial intelligence & peer to peer finance. Every invention prior to these 2 catalysts only augmented humans and improved on the existing design of humans. Although there have been dozens of huge catalysts, lets start with fairly recent history (within 100 years). The car - The car improved human mobility and from the invention of the car, other 2nd order effects began popping up. Since it was easier to travel, the fast food industry boomed 2 decades after the first Model T. Large retailers like Walmart started booming because shipping became more economical & they could reach remote cities. Not just them, but mechanics, logistics companies, military, everything boomed because of these catalysts. Whats interesting is that all of these inventions were only possible because of the catalyst of electricity. Each piece fitting in like a lego block, continuously expanding. Humans developing or expanding on an idea and fitting on top of each other like lego blocks. Collectively creating a more efficient society, it’s incredibly fascinating. From there, the internet started coming to fruition in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The internet created peer to peer communication. The internet was interesting because you can reach an infinite amount of people for a far lower cost. It became the hub through which humanity began to operate through. Companies like Apply & Amazon took all of the catalysts above and combined them into a phenomenal product & those became mainstream. This time, things are different. Now we’re sitting at the next 2 catalysts, which are AI and Web3. A direct replacement to financial middlemen and intellectual middlemen. This is the first time that humans are going to be replaced, rather than augmented. At first, this will begin as an augmentation, however capitalism will always push to the most efficient extreme possible. Capital always flows to where the most efficiency exists. If someone is offering the exact same service for 20% less, you will always rotate to the better cost. This is the fundamental thesis behind capitalism itself. At first it will be 1 engineer doing the work of 5-10. Then it will be 50-100, and so on. Eventually that 1 engineer won’t even be needed. This won’t happen this year, however there are millions/billions of dollars hunting to create this efficiency over the next 1-2 decades. Any function in society that is purely ‘intelligence’ that can be done from a keyboard, can and will be replaced if you believe in efficient capitalism. This logic applies to finance as well. The banking industry was protected by red tape, and now an entire industry is being replaced by code & we’re witnessing the expected regulatory thrashing. This leads the Vizia Thesis. The Vizia Thesis Lets start by reiterating the fundamentals of my thesis: AI is replacing middle men who only provide ‘intelligence’ Web3 is replacing financial middle men. Money always flows to the same service, at the best value. What industry primarily depends on ‘intelligence’ and financial instruments as its fundamental back bone? Real Estate. First, what is real estate? Real estate consists of the following components: 1. The physical raw material (the bricks, flooring, plumbing, roofing, etc) 2. The human labor to put together this material. 3. The human coordination (The intelligence coordinating the humans to build or maintain the real estate) 4. The financial instrument to have capital to construct/buy/service the physical building (debt/equity) What can AI/Web3 augment in this stack? 1. Physical/Raw material will always remain constant, unless there is a material science break through. 2. Human labor will likely trend towards robots over the course of the next 20-30 years, this transition process will be slow. 3. Human coordination (scheduling, hiring, interviewing, auditing work) This can be heavily augmented by AI today. 4. Financial Instrument (Debt/Equity) Although this will likely transition to be on chain, the existing cost of services is already minimal. This will shift to Web3, without much value being created. (.5-1%) Out of this stack, #2 and #3 are the largest opportunities. Human labor won’t be disrupted for a long time, it's something to keep an eye on - But it's not something to look into at this moment. This leaves human coordination as the only link. What is human coordination? Property management. A property manager is someone who looks after your rental or vacation home. The manager takes 8-20% and does the following service: Scheduling repairs Scheduling cleaners Interviewing & Hiring Training cleaners Marketing the property Issuing agreements with the tenant Scheduling property showings Giving reports to the landlord Accounting This is a business model that can be completely automated with AI over time. What is the total size of the market? Roughly 45 million homes in America are renter occupied, with that number expected to rise to 53 million by 2035. There are 5.3 million hotel units in America, with that number expected to rise to 6.5 million hotel units. Globally there are 2.4 Billion rental units and 17.5 million hotel units. The Vizia Business model The primary goal behind Vizia is to create the Defacto operating system for rental properties to run with excellent property management at the lowest cost possible. Create the lowest cost property management company possible. Type of real estate managed: Vacation properties in Southern California Fee: 10-15% The current fee from competitors: Short term property management: 15-30% + Labor mark ups AirBNB Costs: 10-15% Other platforms: 10-20%+ What makes our offer 10x better than all other property management companies? 100% of the management fees goes into a private maintenance pool where all of our clients share the pool. Note: There will need to be details worked out over time on this. How long they need to work with us to tap into this, requirements, etc. This offer presents an interesting spread for landlords, where they can gain a 10-30%+ efficiency. This strategy follows the initial capitalism thesis. So how does the company make money to bootstrap growth? 1. Trading fees 2. Existing $THEO holdings 3. Subsidized via Venture Capital 4. Charging landlords 1% to sell their property The goal is to remove human capital/labor via AI/Automation over time. Mel/Alexa have enough resources to get the first 40-50+ doors in place, from there we can gauge and re-evaluate pricing structures or strategy. Landlord Bootstrapping strategy Providing an offer they would feel stupid saying no to. This is the management fee covering management + future repairs. Another route to incentivize word of mouth growth would be to only unlock the maintenance fee coverage if they refer 1 friend. These initial landlords will be identified via: Cold calling / Direct Text Meet ups DMs on Twitter / LinkedIn Challenges Funding enough capital to sustain operations to get to a point where its automatedSolutions to this would be to provide less towards maintenance fund and more towards operations. A secondary solution would be to fund via VC Third is to sell some art/etc and fund via community for initial bootstrapping. Reorganizing the team will need to happen to ensure we can get an AI/ML co-founder on the team.This will require reorging the existing teams share of Vizia. Ideally this developer is in person with me. I can provide them a place to stay while we build everything out. Legal is key here. Ensuring that Theopetra can pass the Hinman test after the first dozen or so landlords onboard will be crucial. Optimizing for full legal compliance.

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