Theo K. Browne: Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Brian Saab from Unearth Technologies

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Brian Saab from Unearth Technologies.

Without further ado…

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m a cofounder and CEO of Unearth Technologies, a data management platform for physical assets and large scale construction projects. When we created Unearth 3 years ago, our focus was drones and their potential to enhance the construction industry. It only took about 6 months for us to realize that drones were just a symptom of a larger trend: an explosion in data collection and analysis for the built world in general. As CEO, I ensure we recognize these larger trends and steer the company toward the forefront of the market’s current and potential needs.

What problem does your product/service solve?

Any company that works with physical assets, like buildings or infrastructure, has a significant amount of digital data to deal with. When managed correctly, it can optimize your operations and save millions of dollars. But, when companies become buried under their data, it can actually slow them down and cost them millions. Unfortunately, when it comes to the built world, most companies are in the latter situation.

Files and folders have always been the primary means of organizing any information. They work well when you’re talking about abstract data, like financials, performance metrics, and recordkeeping, but when you’re dealing with data related to a place or building, they actually become a hindrance. The need for industries like utilities, construction, oil and gas, and telcom to have a simpler, more profitable way to manage their data is the focus of Unearth.

Our software unlocks the benefits of modern data management for industries that have been neglected by the tech world. In our initial focus on drones, we realized the most natural and convenient way to organize data related to something physical, something in the real world, is with a map. We were fairly surprised to find that no one had built a simple way for companies to data management at scale with maps, and jumped at the opportunity.

What are you most excited about right now?

We’re currently launching a niche module for our platform focused on cross bore mitigation and detection for the utilities industry. It’s an essential process for preventing deadly gas explosions, and also one that proceeds painfully slowly due to the limitations of current systems. We’re significantly streamlining how utility companies assign work to contractors, review the inspected pipelines, and store the data for future reference. We reduce the process from several weeks to several days. It’s exciting for me because we’re not only providing immense value to our customers, we’re expediting a critical process for preventing future catastrophes; something that will ultimately save lives.

What’s next for you?

It’s time to start to grow faster, and that’s my biggest focus in the near term. We’ve built an incredible team and product – and with our work with Utilities, we’re solving a mission critical problem around the country. With our incredible progress over the last year, and we’re ready for an expansion to exponentially increase our ability to capture new markets and opportunities.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

My family (Jessica and I) are big supporters of a charity organization called Global Partnerships. The mission is to stimulate entrepreneurship in developing economies, which almost exclusively means empowering women as the heads of household to start a company and build security for their family and broader community. It’s an incredible mission and we’ve seen how transformative even a little bit of capital and guidance can be to an entire community. It’s not just wealth we’re talking about here, we see health conditions, education access, shelter and security all become achievable in a matter of months. It’s really inspiring to be a part of an organization that can affect such significant change for those in need.

Thanks to Brian for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop me a line (drew @ geekestatelabs dot com).

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