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Tommy Sowers, who worked for McKinsey & Company and was the youngest senate confirmed assistant secretary in the Obama administration. On top of this, he is the founder of GoldenKey.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Getting Things Done
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Yvon Chouinard

• Favorite online tool? \u2014 Evernote
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\u2014 I try to
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cThere is no risk and don\u2019t wait for it to be easy\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:40 \u2013 Nathan introduces Tommy to the show
• 02:01 \u2013 GoldenKey is a no-commission real estate network
• 02:30 \u2013 Tommy didn\u2019t want to commission a real estate agent 2 years ago
• 02:50 \u2013 \u201cPeople hack real estate agents in a lot of different ways\u201d
• 03:49 \u2013 GoldenKey\u2019s revenue model is a marketplace
• • 03:55 \u2013 Consumers pay on the services that they need
  • 04:22 \u2013 \u201cWhen you buy or sell your home, the commission rebate will go to you\u201d
• 04:44 \u2013 In GoldenKey\u2019s platform, the supply are agents
• • 04:50 \u2013 Agents offer unbundled services
  • 04:56 \u2013 From zero, GoldenKey managed to have 1798 agents in 47 states, much higher than Red Fin
• 05:25 \u2013 The consumers are the home buyers or sellers
• • 05:30 \u2013 GoldenKey currently has 1/3 buyers and 2/3 sellers
  • 05:39 \u2013 Average of 1900 buyers and sellers
  • 05:44 \u2013 GoldenKey has currently executed over 900 service transactions
  • 06:11 \u2013 GoldenKey has saved consumers over $100,000 of commission
• 06:25 \u2013 GoldenKey doesn\u2019t share the number of monthly transactions publicly
• 07:30 \u2013 They get different fees for different types of services
• • 07:45 \u2013 \u201cThis is not a do-it-yourself real estate and you actually have an agent with you\u201d
• 08:25 \u2013 If I buy a property for $500,000, how much would go to GoldenKey?
• • 08:30 \u2013 For search services, it is $50 which goes to the agent
  • 08:50 \u2013 On average the consumers pay $2000 to have agents represent them through the transactions
  • 09:07 \u2013 \u201cThe entire agent commission will be rebated back to you, which is usually 3% of the total transaction\u201d

• 09:30 \u2013 Agents choose GoldenKey because they get something rather than nothing at all

• • 09:40 \u2013 Agents can still do the traditional real estate commissioning
• 09:58 \u2013 \u201cThere are a lot of consumers in the USA who don\u2019t want to pay commission but need an agent\u2019s help\u201d
• 10:31 \u2013 There are millions of real estate agents but they won\u2019t always have a client
• 11:51 \u2013 GoldenKey was founded in April 2015
• 11:58 \u2013 18 full-time employees
• 12:00 \u2013 GoldenKey raised $3.4 million in venture capital
• 13:13 \u2013 GoldenKey is not a brokerage and CAC is zero
• 13:59 \u2013 GoldenKey is not a big technology company so they need money for the appropriate platform
• 14:33 \u2013 The product design team is based in San Francisco
• • 14:54 \u2013 Others are distributed to other states
• 15:13 \u2013 \u201cRule of thumb is when you don\u2019t need to ask for money when you need money\u201d
• 15:35 \u2013 GoldenKey spends around $100,000 a month
• 16:14 \u2013 GoldenKey joined NFX guild which is for companies building network and network effects
• 17:01 \u2013 Connect with Tommy on Twitter and his website
• 19:25 \u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• Rule of thumb is you don\u2019t need to ask for money when you need money.
• A LOT of consumers in the USA want an agent\u2019s help, but DO NOT want to pay commision.
• There is NO risk. Don\u2019t wait for it to be easy\u2014just jump right in!

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Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal\xa0\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal\xa0 for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn\u2019t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal\xa0 developers.
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages\xa0 \u2013 The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Assistant.to \u2013 The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
• Acuity Scheduling \u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip \u2013 Nathan uses Drip\u2019s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
• @Sowers \u2013 Tommy\u2019s Twitter handle
• GoldenKey.com \u2013 Tommy\u2019s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives