From Data to Deals: Our Journey from $500 to $50K per Month—and Beyond

Over the past 11 months, Austin and I have transitioned from newcomers in the world of real estate to budding operators. What began as a modest $500/month data business has evolved into a $50,000/month real estate market maker. While we’re still in the early stages, here are some lessons we've learned and how we will reach $500,000/month by the end of next year.

The Closer You Are to the Transaction, the More You Earn

Our early users fell into two camps: (1) those with established outbound efforts who generated 25x or more ROI on our monthly subscriptions, and (2) those without established outbound efforts who wanted to use the information but didn't have the infrastructure to do so. Regardless of which camp our users fell into, their feedback was the same:

The raw signals were useful, but they were not as useful as they could be.

We took action to engage with and qualify homeowners looking to sell, set listing appointments, and channel those deals to appropriate partners—including brokerages, realtors, wholesalers/flippers, institutional investors, and other prop-tech firms. This shift to becoming the market maker not only removed one of the most painful steps for real estate operators—generating deal flow—but also allowed us to significantly increase our revenue (capturing a percentage of each transaction versus a flat SaaS fee).

One Man’s “Junk Lead” is Another Man’s Gold

The traditional approach to generating deal flow is notoriously inefficient. Private equity funds operate under strict investment mandates, local investors have narrow "buy boxes"—specific criteria for the properties they consider—and realtors are primarily interested in properties that are ready to list. As a result, the majority of respondents to these campaigns cannot be serviced effectively.

The Problem Today

Beyond the inefficient ad spend that lowers marketing ROI, we've also observed significant resource drains in the process of qualifying and managing these leads. It's common for small teams to employ 10-15 virtual assistants to sift through multiple Excel sheets of mostly unsuitable prospects. Managing these assistants involves handling employee turnover, training, and communication challenges—especially with non-native English speakers. This results in lost time and resources that could be better spent on viable opportunities, and potentially losing good deals due to disorganization.

We optimize this pipeline by streamlining the lead qualification process. We leverage LLMs to reduce the need for large teams of assistants, focus on deals that match buyers' specific criteria, and ensure that promising opportunities aren't lost in the shuffle.

Our Approach: Every Lead is Gold

We don't adhere to a strict buy box because we have the infrastructure and network to match any seller with the right buyer. By enhancing the homeowner experience and proactively engaging to understand their needs, property details, and selling timelines, we can route them to the best operators suited to their unique circumstances. By finding a home for every lead, we ensure that no marketing dollar is wasted, and every opportunity is handled with care by buyers seeking that specific type of property. This aligns the incentives for all parties involved:

• For Homeowners: They receive timely assistance and are connected with buyers who meet their needs, whether they desire a quick sale or have a flexible timeline.
• For Buyers and Investors: They can operate without the overhead of managing their own marketing campaigns and receive deals tailored to their investment criteria.
• For Goliath: Generating revenue from delivering deals—not just data—significantly increases our earning potential.

LLMs and the Rise of Market Makers

The data we generate today isn't proprietary; sophisticated teams often invest heavily in manually scraping and normalizing the same websites we monitor. However, similar to financial markets, the concept of "alpha decay" cannot be overlooked. Consider a company like Pulley or Carta—would they prefer a monthly CSV of new startups that's already outdated, or a live stream of all newly funded companies?

Speed of information, powered by Large Language Models, provides us with a significant advantage in generating deal flow, positioning us as a market maker. AI accelerates the entire information processing pipeline—not just data normalization. This enables us to outpace and outscale any manual systems, rapidly identifying and qualifying potential sellers far more efficiently than competitors who rely on traditional methods.

Generating deal flow through publicly available information achieves two critical objectives:

1. First Right to Exclusive Data Sources: At scale, we can create data partnerships with firms like loan originators and data brokers—sources that newer teams can't afford to access.
2. Barriers to Entry: By ingesting and acting on all readily available data—and leveraging our distribution network with established operators—we leave newcomers with little valuable data to work with. They must invest heavily to access less promising data and charge higher prices for lower-quality opportunities, making it difficult to attract clients without incurring unsustainable costs.

The Road Ahead: Scaling to $500K per Month

To achieve our next milestone, we are focusing on:

• Automation: We'll continue investing in the use of LLMs to automate and enhance data processing, lead qualification, seller and investor communications, and transaction coordination.
• Market Expansion: While we're building our stronghold in Tennessee, we will expand into Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina over the next year.
• Leveraging Existing Campaigns: We'll offer to recycle unused leads from others' PPC campaigns, qualifying them and returning those that fit specific criteria while utilizing the rest within our network.
• Goliath Realty: Establishing a brokerage arm will allow us to handle transactions end-to-end, effectively doubling our revenue per transaction and providing a more seamless experience for clients.

Conclusion

Over the past year, we've experienced rapid growth and strategic evolution. By moving closer to the transaction, we've significantly increased our earning potential and addressed the inefficiencies in traditional lead generation systems. Leveraging the latest technologies, we've positioned Goliath as a market maker that transforms raw data into actionable opportunities for homeowners, investors, and local operators.

As we set our sights on reaching $500,000 in monthly revenue, we're focused on further automation, market expansion, and launching Goliath Realty to handle transactions end-to-end. The real estate landscape is changing rapidly, and we're confident in our ability to navigate these shifts and lead the industry forward. Building brick by brick 💙