#76: Real Estate Investor Built Her Own CRM Solution and Created a Market Leader – Stephanie Betters
Dec 29, 2023
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In this podcast, Stephanie Betters, CEO and founder of LeftMain REI, shares her remarkable journey from being a Nurse Practitioner in heart surgery to creating a successful CRM tailored for real estate investors. She discusses the frustrations that led her to build the software herself, teaching herself to code in just three months. Stephanie also highlights the rapid growth of her company, achieving nearly $3 million in annual recurring revenue while remaining bootstrapped. Her inspiring story emphasizes innovation, resilience, and dreaming big in the entrepreneurial space.
Stephanie Betters developed LeftMain REI, a CRM tailored for real estate investors, after identifying a market need and frustration with existing tools.
The software significantly enhances visibility into sales pipelines, leading clients to increase their business conversions by 30% shortly after implementation.
Stephanie's transition from healthcare to tech entrepreneurship emphasizes the importance of leadership, adaptability, and aligning her team's goals with long-term vision.
Deep dives
Founding LeftMain REI and Its Growth Journey
Stephanie Betters founded LeftMain REI, a customer relationship management (CRM) solution tailored for real estate investors, after experiencing frustration with existing software tools while managing her own real estate business. Initially, the company targeted real estate investors, but its success led to an expansion that now includes brokers and property managers. With a staff of 20 and nearly 3 million in annual recurring revenue, the business showcases rapid growth, bringing on around 100 new customers annually. This success story highlights the importance of addressing a specific market need, as LeftMain REI provides essential systems and solutions for real estate professionals.
Challenges in Product Development and Market Fit
Stephanie faced numerous obstacles while developing the software, particularly due to a lack of reliable CRM solutions that met the specific needs of real estate investors. After a frustrating encounter with Salesforce's high-priced offerings, she took the initiative to learn Salesforce herself and built a functional CRM from the ground up in just three months. This hands-on approach allowed her to create a product that reflected actual industry practices while solving her own operational challenges. By focusing on what real estate professionals truly needed, Stephanie was able to develop a product that has since proven transformative for her clients.
Harnessing Visibility for Business Efficiency
One of the standout features of LeftMain REI is its visibility into the sales pipeline, which empowers users to manage leads more effectively. The software enables real estate professionals to track their interactions with potential clients and differentiate between actual lead generation issues versus inefficiencies in follow-up processes. This focus on visibility often reveals that businesses have leads they fail to convert due to lack of follow-ups or proper engagement, allowing clients to identify and rectify these weaknesses. As a result, customers frequently see a 30% growth in their businesses shortly after implementing the CRM system.
Striving for Excellence Through Continuous Improvement
Stephanie emphasizes the significance of continuous improvement and iteration based on customer feedback, allowing the software to evolve alongside the needs of the market. As LeftMain REI gains more clients, particularly from the commercial real estate sector, refining product features to improve user experience has become a primary objective. This approach not only supports customer retention but also positions the software competitively within a growing market. By focusing on targeted enhancements, the company aims to ensure all users experience robust and relevant functionalities tailored to their business goals.
Embracing the Role of a Purpose-Driven Leader
Transitioning from a medical career to software entrepreneurship has shifted Stephanie's perspective on leadership and goal-setting. As CEO of LeftMain REI, she now embraces the challenge of leading a growing team while simultaneously fostering a company culture centered on purpose and shared vision. Recognizing the potential for her company to be acquired by Salesforce, she aligns her team's objectives with this long-term goal, leveraging the tech environment to encourage collaboration and effective problem-solving. Stephanie’s journey highlights the importance of resilience and creativity in navigating obstacles while building a business that genuinely serves its community.
Stephanie Betters was a practicing Nurse Practitioner in heart surgery and an active real estate investor when her frustration with disparate real estate CRM and marketing solutions hit a boiling point. Salesforce and a development partner proposed a project so expensive that Stephanie hung up and decided to build the solution herself. She learned to code and build a useful real estate CRM on Salesforce in three months.
Her business thrived with her comprehensive software. Other real estate investors heard about her software and encouraged her to launch the company in 2019 and start selling the software, now called Left Main REI. Word spread in the industry and hundreds of real estate investors signed up in the first year, transforming their businesses.
In just over three years, Left Main REI now has hundreds of customers, 20 employees, and nearly $3 million in annual recurring revenue. The company has been bootstrapped and profitable from the first day. Stephanie has a big vision for the company and loves her founder/CEO role; she will no longer be practicing as a Nurse Practitioner as of 2022.