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PropHero – Pablo Gil Brusola Ep 189.

July 19, 2024 · Hosted by Dexter Cousins

In episode 189 of Fintech Chatter Dexter Cousins is joined by Pablo Gil Brusola, CEO of PropHero. 

About PropHero

PropHero, founded in July 2021, is Australia’s leading PropTech platform redefining property investment through cutting-edge data & AI technologies. The platform empowers over 1000 clients worldwide to craft high-return, low-risk property portfolios.

PropHero simplifies the entire investment journey by connecting clients with trusted partners and handling everything from market research to property management. As we fast forward to today, the PropHero team has grown to over 100 dedicated members and expanded to property markets in Sydney, Spain, Bali, and Ireland.

Prophero has sought minimal investment from Jelix and Afterwork ventures as it continues its global expansion.

About This Episode

Pablo dials in from Barcelona to share his secrets on building a global Fintech/Proptech.

Dexter goes in depth with Pablo to understand how he, and his co-founder Mikael Roger, have built a global business with over 100 people across Australia, Spain, Bali and Ireland.

Dexter digs deeper to understand Pablo’s values, principles and motivations that drive him towards success.

Tune in as we discuss:

  • How to expand an Aussie Fintech globally
  • Seeking the right investors and the right amount of capital
  • Why a Bootstrap mindset is essential for success 
  • The secrets to hiring executive talent
  • Understanding the different stages of growth and the people required for each stage
  • How to commercialise an idea and find paying customers
  • Recognising your strengths and what to look for in a co-founder

About Pablo Gil Brusola 

As a native Spaniard Pablo moved to Australia to study in 2009. He instantly fell in love with the country and decided he had to come back. Starting his career in a Big 4 consulting firm, he quickly realised he was an entrepreneur and started his first company Growpro. After a successful exit, Pablo teamed up with a friend and fellow co-founder Mikael Roger to launch PropHero.

Find out more www.prophero.com.au

Links from this episode.

More on property and global expansion on Fintech Chatter.

Full transcript.

Lightly edited for readability — filler words removed, wording otherwise unchanged.

Dexter Cousins
Fintech Chatter podcast brought to you by Tier One People, the leaders in executive search for fintech ventures.

Welcome to Fintech Chatter, the show where fintech leaders join me for a chat. I’m your host Dexter Cousins, and today’s guest is Pablo Gilabert Soler from PropHero. Founded in July 2021, PropHero is Australia’s leading proptech platform, redefining property investment through cutting-edge data and AI technologies. The platform empowers over 1,000 clients worldwide to craft high-return, low-risk property portfolios through a simplified process.

Pablo joins me from Barcelona, where he’s leading PropHero’s international expansion. I chat to Pablo about the PropHero journey and get his tips on how Aussie founders can take their offering to a global audience. Pablo, welcome to your Fintech Chatter debut.

Pablo Gil Brusola
Thanks so much, Dexter, for inviting me. It’s a real pleasure, man.

Dexter Cousins
It’s fantastic to have you. Barcelona, what a city, what a place. It was actually the last place I went to before we visited before COVID hit. My wife and I went there for a 5-day trip. What an amazing, amazing city.

Pablo Gil Brusola
I mean, and you can’t imagine now with the energy, summer coming, great weather, Europe at its maximum, at its peak, man. Yeah, it’s so nice. I mean, I’ve always said there’s two great countries in the world. They are Australia and Spain. So, I’m lucky to be living in both of them.

Dexter Cousins
Fantastic.

Pablo Gil Brusola
I’m very happy, man.

Dexter Cousins
We’re going to be talking about the PropHero journey. And look, I guess, obviously, you’re not an Aussie. So, first up, do you want to tell us a little bit about PropHero and what it does, the big problem that you solve?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah. So, the problem we’re solving is that property wealth creation, investing in real estate, it’s a very difficult process, it’s non-transparent, it’s very localised, and not professionalised at all. So, PropHero is that one-stop shop platform that allows our clients to create, to optimise, and to grow their property wealth, and to do it globally.

Okay, so we, first of all, use data to find the best areas to invest. Secondly, we have a tech platform where the idea is to process everything from your app. So, you’ll be able, similar to ETFs or where you will just manage everything passively through the app. And then we do it on a global scale. So, same as ETFs where you will invest anywhere in the world, we believe the same way with property.

Dexter Cousins
Oh, wow. So, I guess, first off, who’s it aimed at? Who are your clients and your customers?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, initially, when we started, we always thought it would be white collars, expats, good jobs, having extra money, and not knowing how to get into the property ladder. And then the realisation was, man, there’s a much wider audience, which is, okay, those immigrants who are starting there, it’s a way to increase your social status, to have more of a financial freedom through that passive income generated by property. So, it’s professionals, young people who start having their savings.

Dexter Cousins
Awesome. Now, you obviously you’ve spent a lot of time in Australia. You would know the challenges here of getting onto the property ladder, making that first investment. We’ve seen some interesting approaches over the last decade or so, fractional investing, which is great concept, but didn’t kind of quite work in practice, and particularly here in Australia.

You don’t go to a barbecue and you boast about owning a brick in a property, right? You’re boasting about the portfolio and the holiday home up on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. How did you kind of get that breakthrough of being able to target the right customer with the right idea?

Pablo Gil Brusola
I think you, Dexter, you’re spot-on on, first of all, that emotional component that comes with, okay, my property portfolio, not my portfolio of shares. Yeah. I mean, nobody talks about their number of Amazon shares, but they do speak about, okay, man, I’ve got this property here. There’s an emotional component that makes it very, very powerful, and it’s not only Australia. You realise real estate is across the globe, everywhere. Here in Spain, people are mad about property, Ireland, US, anywhere, it’s quite wide, the idea of property ownership.

So, that’s one, the emotional component, and then the second that we realise is that there’s a global phenomenon called rentvesting. So, our generation are not able to buy the property there where they live, in the area they like. Let’s say, I mean, when I was an expat, I used to live in Bondi. Obviously, the expat community, beautiful place. But man, I lived in a small apartment paying a massive rent. I could not afford buying the property I was living in. But I wanted to keep investing in real estate cuz I believed in it as a good asset to create in the long-term property wealth.

So, that phenomenon called rentvesting, it’s happening all across. My parents have lived in the same house for 40 years. That doesn’t happen in our generation. I’ve lived in six different houses within Australia and now in Europe, in the last 10, 12 years. So, the global economy, jobs moving from one place to the other, it doesn’t make sense to own a place where you’re going to live and spend that much money, which financially wise doesn’t make sense, the yield you’re going to get.

So, I mean, we’ve kind of benefited from this trend, and it’s global. It’s across the globe. So, people have been priced out from the areas they want to live. So, they end up renting cuz they rent their stay living in that area, but invest in areas that make more sense financially. And that’s where our data models play a big role. I mean, we select the best areas to invest through our data, which tells us, okay, which areas are going to gentrify, which areas have more potential.

Think about the risk of having a bad neighbour. I heard horror stories of friends of mine owning amazing properties in the Gold Coast and having a crazy neighbour who, man, it’s literally bullying them all day long, and you’re sitting in a three, four million dollar property and having a shitty neighbour. So, think about the risk of being stuck into that property cuz obviously you’ve invested a lot of money, paid a lot of stamp duty, have a high mortgage. It’s not something that you can, okay, now I’m going to sell, go to the next one, man. It’s a big commitment.

And that’s something you most of times don’t realise until you’re sitting down there. And in Europe, where we live in buildings, it’s even scarier cuz you don’t know the neighbours you’re going to have. So, I always say, buying a house to live in, it’s so risky. So, man, I might as well have my investments where, man, at the end of the day, it’s just providing me passive income, and living by renting, and if I have any issues, man, I’ll just move. Gives me the flexibility and freedom to do that. So, then it’s true that it has an emotional component again, the property where you live in. But man, you put it in a balance, at the end of the day, okay, you need to be in a very good position in order to make that step.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah, I think you make a really valid point though, about your parents living in the same place 40 years. I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere more than eight years, and that’s only because we had kids, and we wanted them to be settled. But I look prior to that, and I was moving every 2 years, right? And like yourself, I was northern beaches, so renting a place that I couldn’t afford to buy, but right on the beach at Manly, and you can have an amazing lifestyle and live your dreams, and you don’t necessarily have to own the property, right, to have the experience.

Pablo Gil Brusola
Man, I’m a firm believer of that, and again, if for any reason I end up having quite a lot of money or I’m wealthy enough, and I can afford that house to live in in that area that I really like, man, then it’s a different story. But getting into a massive mortgage, I mean, it’s not an asset, it’s a liability, the place you live in. Man, I might as well make sure I have a mantra which is I want to go to sleep every day with a quiet mind, relaxed. Cuz I already have four kids that don’t allow me to sleep, I rather not have the business also or my mortgages or my finances keep me awake at night, which is something that happens quite often. When you’re stressed with finance.

Dexter Cousins
I’ve got exactly the same philosophy and it’s why we moved out of Sydney. It was like, I want to have the dream house, but I want to be able to sleep at night as well.

Pablo Gil Brusola
Man, for me the biggest thing, sleep at night gives you so much peace of mind everywhere. You become happier, healthier, everything. And I’ve gone through that. I mean in my 12 years experience as an entrepreneur, you can imagine, man. I’ve gone ups and downs, man. And I told to myself, man, okay, it’s kind of time to be sleeping well at night, not having that stress of running out of cash, being caught up with a high mortgage, whatever. Not for me.

Dexter Cousins
So, what I want to talk to you about now, we kind of touched on this before. I think one of the issues that I’ve seen with a lot of fintechs over the last 10 years or so is that the ideas in theory sound great, but the kind of behavioural economics just don’t stack up. Now, clearly, from the discussion we’ve had, the behavioural economics have stacked up with PropHero. In this last 3 years, what kind of growth have you seen, sir? How many people are you now? What countries are you in?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, it’s been a crazy journey. Even my previous company had been a crazy journey where we grew bootstrap at a 100% rate year on year for the first 5 years. It was quite insane. But PropHero is a complete different beast. I mean, we’ve gone from Michael and myself founding the company, 2 days ago it was our third anniversary.

Dexter Cousins
Congratulations.

Pablo Gil Brusola
3 years. Thank you. To now being over 120 team members, present in four countries, growing at a 30% quarter on quarter. We’re now sitting at around in Aussie dollars 25 million Aussie dollar unrealised revenue, positive EBITDA. Man, it is insane the growth we’ve experienced.

And few learnings from here, one of them being, man, we are solving a real problem. This is the first thing I always challenge entrepreneurs is, okay, man, try to explain me what you’re solving, and man, is it a real. Entrepreneurs tend to just, okay, imagine the future, what is the future going to be? Is it going to be a problem in the future? Man, the problems when they arise. Let’s solve them when they are. Let’s not get ahead of time. So, that’s one of the big things. It is a real problem, the unit economics stack up. So, we make real money. We’re a bit EBITDA positive just after 3 years with this massive growth. So, it was really important for us to reach this milestone, which we reached last month.

Dexter Cousins
Sorry to interrupt, but that 120 people and the unit economics stacking up and the things that you’ve mentioned. I think we need to put this into context, right? You launched the business 3 years ago. And I remember 2 years ago, so it was May 2022, I was ringing in the alarm bells to say, look, the game has changed, right? And my clients were going from find us somebody who scaled a unicorn in Silicon Valley to just find us somebody who can keep costs down and still grow the business. So, 120 people in this environment with the challenges around funding, the challenges around unit economics, and it’s not been an easy economy. It’s some achievement, Pablo.

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah, I mean, look, we’re very conscious of that. We’re very blessed of and we’re very aware of it and we keep reminding ourselves, hey, things are going good now. For sure they won’t go as smooth. I mean, it’s not that it’s been a smooth journey. It’s always been ups and down. But that cash control, focus on profitability since day one both from Michael and myself.

So, again, I come from a 9 years experience bootstrapping a company, which for the first 5 years the first app I watched in my phone was the bank account to see if we had enough money to continue running the business. That was for 5 years every single day. So, that’s so ingrained in my nature now to control cash. But then you have to balance it with, okay, dreaming and making an amazing, growing fast. I mean, four countries, 120 people. Well, as you mentioned, in an environment which is not throwing out money like people giving money for free. It’s very challenging, but always with the premise of cash control, man. Cash is king.

And there’s always, I say there’s two things that breaks companies, especially at this early stage. The obvious one is cash. Cash will break your company. And then the second one is the partnership between the co-founder relationship. That’s also something very important to keep in mind and that can break companies.

Dexter Cousins
What was the kind of genesis for the idea for PropHero and how did you get it off the ground?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, the idea came from Michael, from my co-founder. He was leading the data and AI practice at McKinsey. So, one of these bright minds, mathematicians, engineer. And when he stepped out from McKinsey, cuz again, he kind of says he was getting bored, so he wanted to see where he could start his entrepreneurial journey with applying this data and AI knowledge he had. So, he tried one business before this, didn’t work. I mean, he didn’t give much time. Very okay, as he’s thinking that in 3 months it’s going to work. But anyway, it didn’t work out and then he saw property investment is, if not the one, one of the biggest financial decisions that anyone will make in their lives.

And still again, it’s totally locally biased, not transparent at all, not data driven. It’s very okay, trust the real estate agent, the neighbour. I mean, it’s not the way to go, right? So, especially when you see the rest of the industries being much more analytical, data driven. So, he saw the opportunity of applying these data models he built to property investment.

And him and I were friends from 8 years ago from the expat community around Bondi. We live just 2 minutes away from each other. So, we used to go camping, surfing, whatever. And one of those work chats, cuz I had stepped out from my previous company, we were chatting. He was telling me the idea. I had been a property investor myself for the last, since I had some money I started investing in property. So, I built up decent property portfolio. And then he came to me with these data models, say, Pablo, there’s an opportunity here. This is not for you to continue investing, but there’s an opportunity to build a company based on these data models and on a tech approach to make the process move. So, I was hooked straight away and my plans on taking some sabbatical, just decided to put them apart and start a business again.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. How did you first become an entrepreneur?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, I’ve always had this mentality. I’m the fourth of five brothers at the home. It is a trend where the last ones are surviving.

Dexter Cousins
Mate, you want to try being the first one. I’ve got to look after the

Pablo Gil Brusola
I think at least what I wanted is to be able to have some money to pay my expenses, whatever. So, I was the kind of guy selling beers in the door of a nightclub or whatever. And not that I came from, I mean, my family has given me everything. Don’t take me wrong. I come from a good family. But that, okay, way to try to find out a way to, I don’t know, to just make some money came from quite young.

And then I was working corporate and I was the worst employee. I mean, I couldn’t see myself. I remember getting an advice from one of my first bosses I had, managers. And he came to me and told me, hey Pablo, you know what? I’m going to give you an advice. I was, okay, look, man, excited. Let’s see what, I’m here to learn. And he comes to me and tells me, never leave the office before your boss. And man, that was for me, this place is not for me. What a terrifying place I’m joining, man. You know, when you don’t admire at all the boss you have. Man, that was me.

So, straight away I knew it was not for me. And I mean, I’m always thinking you always regret in life what you don’t do, rather than what you do. So, man, I had to try it. I had no mortgages. I had no kids. My girlfriend back in the days who is now my wife supported me.

Dexter Cousins
So, was this in Australia or was this back in Spain?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, back then I was living in Madrid, but I had done an exchange program in Australia. I’m an engineer as a background. So, I had studied at RMIT in an exchange program with uni. And man, I got in love with the country, it’s everything to be done here, man. It’s a very emerging country, so many opportunities. It was a lucky country. So, I told to myself I had to come back. So, I decided to quit my job and go to Australia, a one way ticket and see how it goes, man.

And that’s how I started my journey. I knew I wanted to start something. I didn’t know what, but I knew I wanted to start my own business and in Australia cuz it’s a lucky country, man. It’s a country full of opportunities. At least to kick off, it’s an amazing country.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. I wanted to ask you about that cuz I’ve got a not dissimilar story. I bought a one-way ticket. It’s actually 20 years ago next month that I moved to Australia. And I remember rocking up and I had a suitcase and a laptop and that was literally all I had. And I feel exactly the same way. I look back now. I’ve got my own business, I’ve got a beautiful wife. I’ve got family. Had an amazing life. It really is for me the lucky country as well, right? And the kind of place where you can rock up with a suitcase and a laptop and make a new life, right? Without having any friends or family or anything here.

But I wanted to kind of ask you about how you kind of made that first step, right? Cuz you get here, you don’t know many people. You were even younger than me, right? I was fortunate I had a job, I could at least pay for myself. How did you get the, I guess, the kind of first steps into that first entrepreneurship gig?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah. Man, look. One thing I learned from my grandpa who was also an entrepreneur. I asked my dad, “What did my grandpa do to be so successful?” He was big entrepreneur. And the response was he spoke to everyone. He was networking constantly. He was learning from everyone. Man, he would speak to the stones. And you never know who you’re going to end up talking to that may open doors. Man, trust me, and then you never know who’s going to open you the next door.

So, that’s something both my ex-business partner, he’s still my business partner because I am still shareholder, but and I did since the beginning. We are constantly, okay, we would set up every Monday, okay, let’s set up some targets, objectives on this type of business that we’re launching and let’s try and get it out there. Testing, learning, speaking to someone.

So, just to give you a few examples there, accounting. At the beginning for us everything was expensive, obviously. We came from Europe to Australia, is an expensive country. So, until you start earning from Australia, everything is ultra expensive. So, even to set up the first company, it would ask for us 10 grand to set up, whatever. I mean, it was no way, man.

So, we ended up finding, after speaking to many other people, an accountant that would take pity of us. Okay, don’t worry, man. I’ll take care of it. Just pay me the minimal expenses, it’s like for the assets, whatever. And I’ll set up for you for free, do the accounting, whenever you have money, I’ll pay for it. For us it was mind-blowing to see, okay, man, that generosity cuz it usually comes from entrepreneurs that have started from scratch. It is a trend to give back. And I’ve done it several times with a lot of people, man, spending time with them, giving them tips, showing them, even giving them whatever financial resources I have. So, it was an amazing realisation to see, okay, man, people are willing to help, genuinely.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah, and I think there’s kind of this fine line, right? Between hustle and hassle. And I think a lot of people have confused hustle, right? with hustle. And for me hustle is just when people see that you’re not asking them for money. You haven’t come up with a pitch deck that’s a rubbish idea and you’re asking somebody for a million dollars. But you’ve actually gone out there and you’ve proved something and you’ve kind of shown that real kind of hustle and determination to make something work. That’s when it clicks and, as you pointed out, right? People are super generous with their time and their resources and they want to kind of help and be part of the journey.

Pablo Gil Brusola
It has to be genuine.

Dexter Cousins
That’s right.

Pablo Gil Brusola
I feel like there’s so much, I apologise for the original, I removed that one, man, but

Dexter Cousins
Oh, no, I’m happy for you to say that word. I think it’s the appropriate word, right?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Man, and thinking that money is given for free and just with a, I mean, I’m not saying no. Each one has their own methods. I learned not to criticise anyone. Any entrepreneur is valuable for me cuz man, it’s so difficult to get out there. But man, when it comes genuine and it is so much more powerful. Even to me that I get approached by so many on LinkedIn or whatever with crazy ideas, crazy things, whatever. And man, whenever I see a genuine message, I will respond always. I will take time to say, okay, hey, how can I help, whatever, or where can I guide you? Man, I like genuine people.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. You mentioned something before about the kind of pivot point in your career of the boss giving you the advice. And I remember having a pivot point in my career when my boss gave me advice. Mine was I was just getting really frustrated being a manager and a kind of team leader. And the thing that I couldn’t get my head around was that people were coming to work for different reasons. I’ve done that path.

And I kind of wondered from you as a leader and that journey that you’ve gone on, now you’ve got 120 people. I’m pretty certain not all 120 are going to be entrepreneurs and not going to have the same drive and the same things that have kind of helped you on your journey. So, how have you managed that kind of one frustration, but also to build a culture where the business is evolving and the business is thriving?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, man, I think to every entrepreneur and every startup, recruitment and talent is the biggest challenge. We have a lot of process in place to avoid the toxic people. So, that’s what we don’t want. We know what we don’t want. Now, there’s different roles for different people. You don’t want everyone to be an entrepreneur cuz then it would be, as much as chaos is something that I appreciate, that freedom within a framework. It’s not meant for everyone. You need the more doers, you need the more entrepreneurs. So, there’s a combination of everything. So, for us at the leadership level, man, they all come from being entrepreneurs, most of them. They drive. Yes, they have their own ways of working and you can’t pretend to have them working your way. That’s not what I want. I want them to, hey, man, this is the North Star. This is the vision. This is where we want to reach. Let’s see how we get there.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. That’s, you mentioned that, right? And that’s the biggest challenge that I’ve seen working with businesses that are kind of at that next stage where you have to bring in other execs, is that the founders recognise that they need to bring in people to help them, but then when they come in, they find it really difficult to let go and trust that person. Especially if they’ve been brought in externally and they’re not within their network. How have you managed to kind of let go and kind of trust the people coming in so that they can come in and, as you said, do it their way, not the way that you want it to be done?

Pablo Gil Brusola
So, there’s two things here. First of all, it may not come from your network, but you have to make it your network. At least what works for me. To bring an exec, man, you’re giving them so much responsibility that you might as well trust that person. So, I mean, again, what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for other people. What has worked for me is, first of all, trust. I need to trust that person. So, I need to have some kind of relationship or know them for a while before even joining. And this has happened, or can be referred from one or the other. So, trust for me is one of the most important things.

Once you have built the trust, letting go for me is very natural. In the company they call me master dispatcher, man. I will just let go. If I’m trusting you, I trust you. And I walk the talk. Man, I’m not going to be managed, like we set up the clear, okay, as clear and our North Star vision. Man, surprise me. That’s why you’re there and you’re much better than I am at what you’re doing. I’m good at very, very few things, that’s the humble mentality I try to put into myself.

So for me letting go is the easy thing. I mean, it’s not easy. I’ve learned it in the past, it’s the only way to scale. I catch up with so many entrepreneurs that they are flat out drained, they think they have to get into all the difficult problems and solve them themselves. For me the mentality is, man, when I have a very tough problem is, okay, who can I call or who can I reach out to help me solve this problem. I don’t expect myself to solve all the problem. I’m not, I’m at the best at financing, the best at sales, the best at, man, no way. You can’t be the best at every role. You can’t cope and your role as an entrepreneur is to attract the best at every role.

So, that is my mentality, is constant networking, constant opening my network to learning, who’s going to be the next person who’s going to allow me to elevate myself. And this is the culture we try to impose in the next layers. So, the leadership team, I tell them, hey, I will measure success on you based on how fast you are on removing yourself from a certain task that you’re doing. Cuz at one point you need to put someone doing the task and you have to go for the next task or role or whatever. So, you have to constantly reinvent yourself and you need people who are going to reinvent themselves cuz business goes so fast nowadays, man, that you don’t need the hard skills. You need just the resilient people, the flexible people, flexible mindsets who are just going to find a way to make it happen.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah, look, that’s something that’s been a real challenge for the industry globally, right? I like to use Uber as an example. You had a guy who, what, 2010 creates an app pretty much from his bedroom. In 2016 there’s like 40,000 people around the world. He’s got regulators going after him. It’s valued at 60 billion dollars. And the media are calling him out for acting like a jerk. And I’m thinking I’d be acting like a jerk if I went on that journey as well, right? As humans to be able to develop that quickly. But that’s what business is demanding of us now, right?

And if you look at the stages of growth that you’ve gone from, 1 to 20 people, and it requires a different person from 20 to 50, to 50 to 100, to a 100 to 200. And I think the trick is for all of us, whether it’s our careers or people as entrepreneurs, is how do you kind of, you mightn’t necessarily do it all in the one role, but how do you over your career kind of get it so that you can take a business from one to a thousand or two thousand people or ten thousand people. And that whole process of development and growth just never ever ends, right?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Never.

Dexter Cousins
I think it’s what wise kind of you have to have a break from it sometimes, right? Because it’s just, it’s intense.

Pablo Gil Brusola
But again, it all comes down to talent again. If you have the right people you’ll be able to disconnect, to have a life. And I’m very firm on that, my family time, my health time. I am very strict on that. I don’t compromise it for the business. It’s as important, one or the other. And one thing that you mentioned, there’s always going to be the critics calling the entrepreneurs, calling against the business people. And they’re going to call us jerks. And I’m conscious of that. I know that at one point people will call after, “Hey Pablo, hey PropHero doing this bad.” They always will look for the things that you’ve done wrong.

So as humans everybody will do things wrong. Everybody. That’s natural. Best organisations in the world have done things wrong. Now going back to the beginning of the conversation, it’s if you’re able to go to sleep every night relaxed is because you’ve done it in the best way possible or at least being true to your values. Transparency, honesty, man. Doing things genuinely well.

Now mistaking, it’s part of the journey. We’re going super fast. It’s for sure that we’re going to mistake. Now as long as we’re doing things in a good way with proper values in place and that you have the right culture and you select the right people that have the right values. So we don’t want toxic people again. We don’t want people who are just going to get the dollar smashing someone. That’s not the way we operate. Then man, look, people will go, will chase us. There will be always the critics, whatever.

And again, Australia is very business friendly. Trust me, Europe is not business friendly. And Spain less. They will always go against the business people.

Dexter Cousins
Really?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Ah man, the best business people in Spain, Juan Roig, Amancio Ortega. I’m talking about the founder of Inditex, Zara. Biggest retailer, the Woolworths of Spain. And Florentino Pérez, the ACS. See me. Man, they hammer them. Media hammers them. And they are, man, the best thing that Spain has. So, but this is very natural in certain countries. So you know it’s going to happen. Now you need to be relaxed and go to sleep every night relaxed by knowing you’ve done the right things.

Dexter Cousins
What’s the kind of tech startup scene like in Spain?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Man, it’s amazing. You know, the good thing about Spain is that it’s the best country. I mean, together with Australia, the best country to live in. Everybody wants to live here. It’s true, right? Obviously it is fun. The energy it has, sunny every, like 360 days a year. It’s the energy, it’s everything. It’s just amazing. So you’ve got all the Europeans, you pass the Pyrenees up north, it’s always cloudy. So everyone wants to live in Spain. So you get the best talent wanting to live here in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Malaga. You’ve got real tech hubs. And man, some areas in Barcelona you only hear English.

Dexter Cousins
Wow.

Pablo Gil Brusola
So it is amazing the tech scenery here. And then geopolitically wise it’s super well connected cuz you’ve got the open to Europe, to South America, even to the US, to Africa. It’s very well positioned in the world. So man, I love it. I’m loving it here.

Dexter Cousins
And in terms of, I guess, the move of growing a business that’s an Aussie business and taking it international. I mean, that’s, I guess, the pinnacle for every founder. What have you found have been the ways to do that successfully? And what advice would you give for other founders?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Man, again it’s a lot of try and guess. You can plan, do all the business plans, whatever. If I tell you how was the cracking of opening in Spain, that I just sent it to my network, a few properties I was buying myself. “Hey, do you want to invest here?” Man, all of them wanted it. So they empty, okay, done. There’s a business here. So at the end of the day it is just trying, knowing that many of those tries won’t work.

Dexter Cousins
Tested the market first before committing to

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah, but the testing market was through my WhatsApp, my network, a few connections here and there that I knew they like property investing. And man, all of them wanted in. So I was, man, there’s a business for people here in Australia also buying overseas. So but yeah, definitely Australia is a small market. It’s a lucky country but it’s a small country and it’s away from the world. Even politically it’s very, very protective from the outside. So you need to go outside to grow. And again you’ve seen it, Atlassian, you’ve seen Canva. All these great companies, they have moved away to make it bigger. And that’s what makes Australia big. From Australia to the world.

Dexter Cousins
Yeah. What is it that’s got you excited about fintech right now, Pablo?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Man, fintech startups is the excitement of every day being different, man. You know, now I used to plan my Sundays. Okay, let’s organise. Now man, I just say okay, what’s ahead this week? What’s new this week? And there’s always something new, man. Today is the podcast with you. Tomorrow is this journey, this networking when I had a good. It’s always the changing environment constantly and being always connected to the changes cuz when you speak to other entrepreneurs who are doing also amazing things you end up learning from them. So it’s following the world which is very changing. So you are following the world. That’s what excites me. It’s just being on the move constantly.

Dexter Cousins
In the intro I talked about you using data and AI. We haven’t talked about AI once. You’ve just talked about customers and actually getting out and talking to them and proving the concept before building the solution or building the platform. What advice do you have for founders who are kind of torn at the minute thinking, “Hey, we got to put AI on the pitch deck to earn us money or we need to sprinkle AI on this to make an attractive solution.” What’s your thoughts on that? And what advice would you have for people?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah, I mean, first of all, don’t put, again going back to the, man, make it genuine. Is it real AI or not? At the beginning we were more data analytics. We are very data driven. It wasn’t about AI. Eventually now it’s like we’re starting now with all the gen AI, all the opportunities, don’t expect to have the best AI. I mean, you don’t have the resources. And where do you get the talent, right? It’s so expensive to get the talent. How can you

Dexter Cousins
I actually see that a lot, Pablo. Where I’ve got people who are putting pitch decks together and they’re going to build this thing. And the first thing I want to say is where you going to find the people to build it?

Pablo Gil Brusola
And for us, I mean, my business partner, he is like a micro founder. He is data and AI. So that’s why we could be kind of, but again otherwise no way we could put it. So that was one of the biggest points of differentiation. We are true to our values and true to the use of, very believers on how data and AI is going to transform the way we operate the business, we find the next gems, areas to invest in. But again, there’s always the combination also on people. For us it’s not just data which will find you the best properties. It’s also the relationships we have with those real estate agents, with those local real estate agents who are the ones who really know how to get the best deals.

Dexter Cousins
It’s been fantastic having you on, Pablo. Before we wrap up, what can we expect from PropHero in the next 12 months?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Our plan is to continue growing the business sustainably. So we will reach 40 million annualised by the end of the year and being around 10% EBITDA positive. That’s the financial plan. And then to continue developing our app where we can make our vision true, where you can just manage your property well through a click. That is what we’re continuing to build.

Dexter Cousins
Brilliant. We get some amazing talent listening to this podcast. If anybody’s listening to this and they’d like to find out more about careers at PropHero, where’s the best place for them to go?

Pablo Gil Brusola
LinkedIn is usually where we post everything, every job opportunity. Keep on networking. A lot of our job ads we don’t even have time to post them because they end up being covered through our network. So man, go and network, meet our Australian CEO Subid, the team there. Expose yourself if you’re interested, man.

Dexter Cousins
And in over 40 countries, right? So there might be people who are in Spain listening to this as well.

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah, we’ve got another country CEO here, Jaime, who’s great, man. So reach out to me. I mean, I get approached many times through LinkedIn and I end up just referring them to our recruiter, internal recruiter.

Dexter Cousins
And if people are interested in actual product as well, where can they find out more about PropHero and how to invest?

Pablo Gil Brusola
Yeah, so prophero.com. Everything is through the website, then, or just downloading the app, and then you can book a call or start your process here.

Dexter Cousins
Pablo, it’s been awesome having you on the show. I really enjoyed this chat. Thanks, sir.

Pablo Gil Brusola
It’s been my pleasure, man, and I really thank you for inviting me.

Dexter Cousins
As always, folks, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. If you’re new to the show, make sure to give us a follow on your favourite podcast player. And if you’re coming back, thanks so much for your support. Until the next episode, keep well.

Fintech Chatter is brought to you by Tier One People, leaders in fintech executive search. We’ll help you bring in world-class leadership talent to build world-class fintech ventures. And you can find us at tieronepeople.com.

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