This One Prospecting Shift Will Change Your CRE Business

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is Perry Terry. Perry Terry, thank you so much for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week, week, week.

This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Kusiima Boswell. Kusiima, did I say your name right? Okay, I thought so. I always second guess myself. Kusiima is the co-founder of Terrakotta. Terrakotta is a really interesting new commercial real estate software. And I'm excited to learn about it. Kusiima, thank you for being on the show today.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (00:27)
That's exactly right.

Thank you, thank you for having me. It's really good to be here.

Aviva (00:51)
Yeah. So talk to me. What is Terrakotta and how did it come to be?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (00:56)
yeah, yeah, Terrakotta like the pot or the building material except it's got a K instead of the C as a way I always, I always introduced the name. so what Terrakotta is, is it's an AI prospecting platform commercial real estate professionals. And it doesn't have to just be brokerage. We work with a lot of investors, acquisitions teams as well. what we do is we provide data and dialing.

for all of these different professionals, brokers, and investment teams. Essentially, what you can think of our product as letting you do is type in a GPT prompt, we'll source contact information and help build together lead lists that match that criteria. And then you sit back and hit dial. And all you do is really speak if you get connected with the prospect. If not, our AI system takes care of voicemails, updates to the CRM.

note taking, all of that. And so the idea is really to give you like an AI powered phone. I sometimes call it like a really souped up phone system help you do your prospecting a lot more efficiently, introduce you to more clients and get you on the phone with more folks that you want to speak to.

Aviva (02:05)
So how did this come to be?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (02:07)
I love this a little bit of background, maybe on myself and my team really quickly. So started the company Terrakotta with two of my good friends from middle school. played lacrosse together, the Wilson bros. And they both have a background in software engineering, very, very, very talented software developers.

They've worked in a lot of like the big techie startup companies or, you know, larger scale tech companies that you would have heard of. I took a different route. I studied business and computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. And after school, we kind of went into our first set of jobs at some of these tech companies and consulting firms. And we're like, man, we really want to work on a startup. So we kicked around a few ideas and worked on a few different things.

then we're like, look, you know, these are all interesting ideas. We'd applied to Y Combinator, we're accepted build a startup. So luckily had some funding and some time to actually get something off the ground. But we're struggling to think of like, okay, what is something that we can do that really solves a problem? So we called a bunch of our friends. One of my closest friends and one of our closest friends was formerly a commercial real estate broker.  22 years old.

And so I was just kind of asking him, what is it that you do for work? How are you liking commercial real estate brokerage? Because we were generally interested in sales software, but we didn't know what we wanted to focus on. And the question that I asked him that I got advice to ask when you're trying to do some ideation on a product was like, what's the

problem that made you want to quit the job? Like what is the thing that was so horrible that made you want to quit? And he said cold calling. you know, which I think is not an uncommon sentiment. And so he mentioned that and we started digging into a little bit more about what he was doing. he was like, yeah, man, like I'm leaving hundreds of voicemails day after day, but I can't not leave them. told me a story that he had

Aviva (03:52)
you

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (04:08)
He'd called an owner every two weeks for two years straight and voicemail after voicemail after voicemail, but he could hear the answering machine that if he did the right, you know, is the person he was trying to get in touch with. Eventually, after those two years, owner calls him back and is like, hey, man, I've been listening to all your voicemails that you shared some really great insights about kind of what's going on in the market. ready to go. Let's have a conversation about this. And so we're like, OK, these voicemails are really useful, but they are difficult.

and tiring, believe they take a lot of time. And so hooked up a speech model, which lets you clone a copy of your voice to a phone system so that you can go through and make calls. if you connect with the prospect, you have a really good conversation. I'm happy to talk more about like why it's still, it works a lot better for humans to interact with humans, especially in that context. But if not, you leave a voicemail, sounds just like you, it's personalized to the prospect and the message you want to get across and move on to the next contact.

And that was really the entry point from there. We built in the software, had like tremendous results using it, did really well with it. And then we sort of, you know, continued talking to commercial real estate brokers and like, yeah, you know, the phone system is great and all, and it's amazing to be able to work through calls, but like I'm spending all my time trying to put together these lists of, you know, high quality leads and prospects. And so with time we both have some...

AI services and tools to handle that. And I've seen some really exciting developments as far as where we can take the product and where people are pushing us and what our users are asking for. So we've kind of just been building out more tools to help out brokers, investors. folks do what they're doing more effectively with AI, which is what I would say broadly is we are building AI that's useful.

and tangible and will lead to real results for commercial real estate.

Aviva (05:56)
It's a crazy world out there.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (05:58)
Yeah, 2025.

Aviva (06:00)
So where do you source your data from?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (06:05)
Yeah, that's a great question. So a lot of the data that we're sourcing is from public records. We're able to compile a lot of that information and one of the benefits of LLMs. So LLMs get a wrap as being really good at writing and producing content and information. The thing that I flies a little bit more under the radar, but in second nature, if you're using these tools a lot, is that they're really good readers.

of information. And a lot is unstructured and it's somewhat unwieldy in terms of how you wrangle that together. And that's kind of the case with a lot of public record data you would have office secretary of state, that you would have from a county tax assessor's office. It's a lot of documents and it's a lot of text. with AI, can roughly define least parameters and it's more flexible.

Aviva (06:32)
Hmm.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (06:56)
So, you know, it was really hard to try and compile a bunch of public records and extract like useful data or to run a search engine scrape of like, you know, here are all the search results that show up for a contact. It could be any of these numbers that they have listed on their company website or anything else like that. But with AI, you have flexibility to navigate that. And that's how we're able to compile that data by kind of leveraging like that, set of tools that OpenAI, AnthroOptiC are providing. And then

tailoring them a little bit to the use case and making sure that we're plugging in some of the right sources to like, obviously, ⁓ you you need the raw information.

Aviva (07:31)
It's pretty good. what percent do you find to be accurate?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (07:35)
Yeah, data accuracy is tricky, especially to a lot of like ownership structures are obscured intentionally. like, you'll have a governor and officer who started an LLC that's associated with the property. so that's really a major challenge. I would say on the, on the first pass through

Aviva (07:43)
Hmm.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (07:56)
what you can expect if you're gonna do like a public records poll or if you're gonna try and go through that process, which a lot of brokers are already doing, it can be like 30 to 40 to 50%. But the benefit of a system like Terrakotta is the breadth that we're able to bring to And so, on the first pass through, our data tends to be around 50 to 75 % accurate in terms of like who is the actual governor officer associated with the property.

what's their contact information just all of that kind of align going all the way back to that subject property address. Now, I always say this when I'm talking to users, if somebody is ever in my scene, they say, I've got a solution that's 100 % accurate. The data is going to come through every time. It's going to be dead on the first time. really difficult to do that. If somebody's done it, hats off to them. I think

me and my co-founders are really bright, really good engineers and we've been working on it and it's really hard to get something that's 100 % certain. But I think what Terrakotta does that is really valuable as we back up the data. For example, we will pull a list of phone numbers, right? But then what we're doing is validating it data that we're able to aggregate from like telecom carriers and providers. So we can say like, okay, this number is actually confirmed.

And that increases the likelihood of getting the right contact. So I would say it's never gonna be perfect. It's a huge challenge. I'm sure you know that very well. But I think the beauty of the way that we designed and have built out Terrakotta, or the cool thing about it, I should say, is that it's all inspired from what brokers are already doing. So we didn't build this product and say, we're gonna...

Aviva (09:38)
Yeah.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (09:40)
drop this solution on you and you need to like change your workflows to do this better. We basically said, okay, so the way you go about building these prospect lists is you look at the county tax assessor's office, you'll look at the LLC that's registered the property, you'll take the LLC, put that in the office, Secretary of State. So we just built agents that do those tasks. And you'll verify the phone numbers by calling on them. seeing, dialing at random for which ones are connected and in service. We were like, okay.

big stepwise improvement would be if we could just tell you if the number is actually in service before you call it, because that data is available and we can pipe that into the system.

Aviva (10:16)
Tell me the best use cases that you have seen be the most effective at terrakotta.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (10:22)
Yeah. I think it's something that a lot of brokers are already doing, but I think one of the best use cases is ⁓ reaching out to prospects or property owners that are nearby to an existing listing that a broker has. I work with a really awesome multifamily broker out in the Midwest. He's been doing it for over 20 years. He's been, he always says, man, deals sell deals. You know, like that's...

That's really where the business comes it's kind of this snowball effect. And so the strategy that he really leveraged and that I think a lot of users leverage is super effective is to say, okay, I've got this property listed. I worked really hard for that listing or it came about through some sort of referral or connection. Let me take that and basically say, Hey, Terrakotta, I want a list of every similar property owner where the comps on their property is similar to what

I've got listed within a 10 mile radius, pull all the contact information for me and pull mailing addresses and email addresses and things like that. So we'll assemble that list for them using these AI tools that we developed. And then once we've got that list what they'll do is they can sort of extract a mailing address, drop a mailer, they can send an email and then they can obviously follow up with a call in the platform.

And it's again, I actually don't think like any of what we're doing is totally far off from, like it's not this revolutionary new technology that's like descended from outer space, like this AI thing. It's more just like, okay, how can we take the strategies out of

Aviva (11:42)
sure.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (11:54)
proven to be effective and just make them more efficient and help you get them done in a shorter amount of time so you can scale up kind of what you're doing.

Aviva (12:03)
Is there anything you guys are working on for the future of terrakotta?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (12:10)
Yeah,

so one thing that we all find very interesting is connectivity in the market. It's definitely, different. like before starting Terrakotta, I worked in management consulting. Management consultants do not talk, like a management partner at one firm is not going to be chatting with a management consultant, you know, not the same way that a broker is going to be talking with another broker, that broker is talking with an investor and developer. And it's kind of like this,

really awesome network where information is shared and there's an exchange of that because information is really valuable. ⁓ I think one thing that we're interested in is some sort of network aspect and adding that into Terrakotta. Because like I said, we've got a lot of investors who use a product for certain purposes and they want to get in touch with the owners.

Aviva (12:42)
Mm-hmm.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (12:57)
We have a lot of brokers that we work with and so I think some element of using AI to facilitate better connections in the market is It's really interesting. So whether that looks like you know an investor basically Specifying what their portfolio looks like saying hey, this is like, you know ⁓ This is what my buy box is and being able to log that into you know, obviously like a secure private

resource and terrakotta. And then we sort of allow our AI to like do the matchmaking work of getting them in touch with the broker that's going to be most helpful to work with them on that. Or if a broker has exactly the types of boots on the ground expertise that an investor is looking for, being able to facilitate those types of conversations and connections is I think where I would like to see us continue to go.

My co-founders talk to lots and lots of brokers. We don't automate any of, although we're an AI company, we don't use AI for any of our customer support. So we answer every customer support request ourselves. And then we get on the phone with our users and we just talk to them and talk them. So at the end of the day, I can come up with a vision of what I think would be interesting or cool to do, but ultimately we're gonna do what like brokers are telling us like, hey, you guys need to build this, like this would be so helpful

Aviva (13:56)
That's interesting.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (14:14)
and life changing for the work that I do. So there's some extent of like, this is where we could take in. This is where I think there's more opportunity and more exciting things out there. But there's also like, we're gonna take care of our users first and foremost and make sure we're building tools that are really, really helpful to what they're doing.

Aviva (14:30)
Well, if you're not sold at this point...

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (14:32)
Ha!

Aviva (14:33)
you know, the world is very, very opportunistic here in commercial real estate. Specifically when you get online. And I'm just amped about it because we're just getting started. And we really don't know the capabilities ahead. But young smart people like you are working on them. And we're going to figure it out.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (14:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly. I guess one question is like, have you found ways to use AI and what you're doing right now? Or is it something where it's like case by case and very different? is there any workflows that you've found that can kind of streamline this or turn into a process?

Aviva (15:13)
⁓ I mean, yeah,

everything has changed since chat, like since we got chat GPT and just like learning it processes.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (15:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aviva (15:25)
Everything I'd like fear what life would be like if I didn't have chat GPT, which is funny. you know, this is like my one pain point. So we have CoStar, right? We actually have like no formal MLS.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (15:29)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aviva (15:42)
And we have CoStar, nobody likes CoStar, but everybody has to use it. And then like the CoStar, you could be a buyer of a property, okay? And you tell me your criteria, I need XYZ. In residential, you put that in the MLS and at 4 a.m. when something within the criteria comes on the market, your buyer gets an email with the listing. We don't have that in commercial.

Because CoStar is bogged up with APIs and

I'm sure I'm not the first broker who has gone on a tirade to you about how they feel about Costar

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (16:19)
Yeah, no,

no, I understand.

Aviva (16:22)
So that would be cool, some type of automated, but when you figure that out, call me.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (16:26)
Exactly.

Hopefully we're headed to something like that. I don't know what it'll look like or how it'll come to fruition, but I think that pain point it resonates, I've heard it.

Aviva (16:37)
Whoever can overthrow CoStar is going to have a good day and the support of the entire community. So, Kusiima, what is a good commercial real estate secret for the listeners?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (16:49)
I think the biggest secret to success, or however you define that, is just consistency doing something.

and over and over again. There's just like super cheesy quote. And I think I probably saw it from like some buff gym dude and a polo trying to give like cheesy sales advice on Instagram. But he was like, you always overestimate what you can do in one year and you underestimate what gets done in a decade. And I think like the reason for that is people were able to stick on, you know, with something for 10 years show consistency.

You have to be consistent if you want to make progress. And so I work with a broker in a smaller market and he does 10 calls every day, but he never misses those 10 calls. And what I've been able to see, it's like 20 conversations a day. That's 100 a week, 400 a month, that's 1,200 a quarter. There you go.

Aviva (17:37)
Hmph.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (17:47)
I talk to

managing directors and guys who have quickly established some sort of platform for themselves in the business. It seems like without fail, they all tell me, I made 200 calls every single day, I never missed it. I would come in on Saturday mornings. I just didn't, I did it week after week after week. And I know that you are like the guru of all, like all the other strategies that are so effective and so good outside of that.

But I think too, like I've seen it for us with Terrakotta. Like I said, been making a hundred calls every day for every business day for like the past, I don't know, and now it's over 12 months, 14 months, 16 months since we launched the company. And you see it start to compound and that compounding effect that you get from consistency would be the secret that I've seen. But I'm still, young, I'm early on with all of this.

And so some of it is observation, but I think that would be the secret that I would want to share.

Aviva (18:47)
Kusiima, thank you for that secret. Couldn't agree more. For the listeners, where can they find you, follow you, learn more about terrakotta, et cetera?

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (18:57)
Yeah, so you can find us just by visiting our website. It's Terrakotta. That's T-E spelled on my shirt. T-E-R-R-A-K-O-T-T-A dot A-I. ⁓ You know, welcome to follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn and Twitter as well, or X, guess, as well. ⁓ But I would say the website is the best place to check us out. There's a link right front center on the homepage to schedule a demo.

It's a 10, 15 minute walkthrough and you can bring anything from crazy ideas about how you see AI being used and things that you want to see in ⁓ your toolkit to very specific targeted questions. And we can help you get set up with some AI workflows to really help you scale up your business ⁓ using some of the new technology that's out there now.

Aviva (19:52)
Terrakotta.ai. Well, Kusiima, thank you so much for being on the show today. You have me excited? I'm gonna log in. Yeah. And for everybody listening, we'll see you next week.

Kusiima Boswell (Terrakotta) (19:59)
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.