Woman: AdaPia d’Errico
Company: d’Errico Creative Consulting Ltd.
Place in the Industry
AdaPia’s highest-profile project to date may be her role as chief marketing officer at Patch of Land, working with the founders and CEO to set the strategic marketing objectives necessary to raise $23.6 million in series-A funding. And eventually becoming one of the first and most prominent players in the real estate crowdfunding industry. However, the “brand evangelist” has been swimming with the big fish for years, providing consulting to international companies like Mattel and Disney as well as a number of smaller companies often based in the real estate industry.
“Real estate tends to be very deal-oriented,” she said, noting this often leads real estate investors to overlook the importance of branding themselves and their businesses.
“I’ve grown fond of the real estate industry over the years. There are some wonderful companies out there run by great people doing good work and providing good investment opportunities,” she said. “They deserve to be able to build their book of investors, and investor communities and investor networks are something I’ve specialized in over the past few years. That is one of my key offerings.”
Key to Success in the Industry
“Building an investor network is so important for private lending and real estate companies. A lot of brand building and channel marketing comes into play when you are making people aware of investment opportunities. Investors have to be open to their viewpoints a little bit to new ways of investing some of their capital.”
“There’s a huge community effect when investors come together. Becoming a source of information for people rather than just promoting a product or investment opportunity is so important. You’re not going to differentiate yourself if all you’re talking about is what you’re offering instead of the value being involved with you offers.”
Proudest Moment
“I’m definitely so proud of Patch of Land. When I started, there were the three founders and then I joined. Now it is one of the top, most well-known real estate crowd-funding companies. I am so proud of everything I did with that company: building it with the founders from three people into a company of 40 people, raising capital, building the networks we did and really being a leader.”
A Word for Women in Real Estate
“Women bring so much value to real estate investing, and it’s not just a soft skill set. It’s the way we interact, the way we look at the world and see opportunities. As more women come into real estate and the finance side of it, they’re able to connect a lot of data and hard metrics with an almost intuitive understanding of trends and how those trends affect a business.”
“There have always been a lot of women in marketing because it’s such a creative space. If you’re going to differentiate yourself from the competition in any sector understanding how people relate to each other and, by extension, how they will relate to your brand, is key.”
What’s Ahead in 2017
“I’m really excited for myself, personally, now that I’m open to working with more companies. It has been a little bit hard for me not to be able to promote the [real estate] industry at large [in the past few years].”
“Also, 2017 is the year the bigger real estate companies are starting to turn toward direct investing, online investing and crowdfunding…as opposed to just going through traditional methods. You’re going to see some private equity companies which were only open to people with a lot of money make more opportunities available to more people. It’s exciting for people to have access to bigger deals and certain kinds of opportunities which are a really important part of a portfolio they might not have had access to before.”
Every Monday, Think Realty is highlighting 1 of 10 women who have made a significant impact on the real estate investing industry. While each woman has a different specialty in the industry, one thing ties them all together: success.
0 Comments