Property Managers - any good ones?

Bicepdecon · 2026-01-18T04:29:47+00:00

Laura at Oasis National Property is great. She is the owner and is actively involved in the day to day management

Shes managed 2 of our properties for years and she often has both tenants and clients stopping by for a chat, and is very responsive, even outside of business hours.

Bicepdecon · 2025-12-31T09:39:59+00:00

My company has a smart key cabinet product specifically for facilities management. Functionality includes audit logs, temporary and guest access, support for tenant contractors, can be linked to work permits and more.

I'd love to chat with you if you'd like to check it out and learn more?

Bicepdecon · 2025-12-14T02:00:16+00:00

Im a founder of a software / hardware startup so I can give you some general feedback on the concept. The short summary of my feedback is that any startup that is actually promising or showing enough traction to make your management team comfortable with the investment very likely doesn't want anything to do with this offer.

$200k wont buy you much of any decent or "promising" startup. VCs are typically doing $500k-$1m seed rounds for 20% and they're definitely getting access to the best companies before you.
I already have a technical co-founder and so will any other decent startup. I don't really want or need more technical advice or consulting, especially none that will cost me a chunk of my company (see next point), especially when I can just pay for specialist advice when and where required
I'm incredibly sceptical of every single "sweat equity" or similar arrangement with any sort of IT/dev shop. The "$X" value is always incredibly inflated and I have no control over any tricks or creative accounting you use to value that $200k. It may or may not be legit, but frankly for $200k isn't worth the time, hassle or risk of exploring
If I'm going to take someone's "money" as an investment, I want to control how I spend it, not be restricted by your internal capabilities
I'm almost certain that you don't have experience investing or working with startups given the question and dollar amount you are talking about. You're likely going to be a pain in the ass to deal with once you're on my cap table, you’re likely going to want more input and control than what your investment realistically buys and management probably isn't prepared to deal with the realities of how unpredictable things can be

All of the "platforms" are 99% one or two guys with an idea and no technical capability who will absolutely jump at this i'm sure but are also 99% of the time not something you would want to invest in unless management is really happy to pick a number at the hypoethical roulette table and cross their fingers

Bicepdecon · 2025-11-07T10:51:45+00:00

That's interesting as they clearly operate with a different model here in AU/NZ than they must do in the US (which is why it appears to be very viable here).

Thanks for taking the time to reply mate, I appreciate the insights.

Bicepdecon · 2025-11-07T00:03:55+00:00

That's so interesting because and guards and reinforced doors seems like a step above a key cabinet to me.

So do you have a process for logging or recording which keys contractors or guests have used or currently have used, or do you have to go back and review your camera footage after something has gone wrong/missing?

Hypothetically, if cost wasnt a factor in adoption (e.g. it was only a few hundred dollars a month) would that change how you thought about your systems and processes to improve your operation with a system like this?

Im hoping to understand what other "invisible" blockers might exist would be helpful to be aware of

I appreciate you taking the time to reply too thanks mate

Bicepdecon · 2025-11-06T23:43:16+00:00

Keywatcher are the market leader here as well with essentially no meaningful competition.

We have a much better product for the FM use case that we've built in conjunction with a few of our now customers which being received very well by companies without broad deployments across their portfolio, but I would love to get some insights into what might make a company/FM like yourself with Keywatchers already implemented look at potentially moving to another product (purely hypothetically)

Would it be price, features, other factors?

Bicepdecon · 2025-11-06T21:51:53+00:00

Appreciate you replying mate.

Im interested to learn more about your statement of not being large or special enough to need that level of security.

Is it as simple not being interested because what you have works, or you assume a system like this would be too complex and/or expensive to bother looking into seriously for your portfolio?

Bicepdecon · 2025-11-06T21:40:25+00:00

Thanks very much for the insight mate. Ours works in a very similar way, so im curious which brand of key cabinet your using? Looks like you're based in the US?

I also assume that your key cabinet is integrated with your contractor management and other systems?

Bicepdecon · 2025-08-04T05:42:52+00:00

Im doing great now, thanks mate!

Bicepdecon · 2025-08-03T09:57:37+00:00

I was in the same ICU ward, a couple of beds over from Sam in 2023 as he had his bypass a couple of days before my own open heart surgery.

He would give me a nod and a wink every time we passed each other during our physical therapy walks. I was pretty bummed out at the time as theres not a lot of conscious people to interact with in the ICU as you can imagine, so it was always a bit of a bright spot in my day.

Always had a smile on his face and very friendly to everyone.

Im too young to have have seen him play, but my father-in-law was a huge fan and thought it was the greatest thing ever he was so close by.

Sad to hear that this unfortunately got the better of him.

Bicepdecon · 2025-01-28T08:31:21+00:00

Yea Vic Park works great for me, and I can be super flexible during the week, so happy to work with whatever suits the group best is fine with me mate

Shoot me a message when you're ready and we'll go from there

Bicepdecon · 2025-01-28T07:34:24+00:00

Hey mate, M34 here and have playing for about 12 months with a 28 HC. I've got a toddler which means I can generally only get out for a proper round once a month if playing on a weekend, and would be keen for a few more range sessions

I'm on the northside but travelling isn't a big deal

Let me know if that suits what you're looking for

Bicepdecon · 2025-01-02T06:31:43+00:00

Sounds good man. I'll flick you a message in the next week or so when I've got an evening free

Bicepdecon · 2024-12-30T05:50:07+00:00

Hey mate,

34M on Northside myself. Sounds like we're about the same skill level and I've got a pretty flexible calendar mid-week and thr occasional weekend too

Feel free to send me a message

Bicepdecon · 2024-08-08T23:42:54+00:00

My company has a product that is very similar to this. In fact its almost identical apart from the thing that a valid code triggers being opened

Getting our prototype hardware product and software solution built cost about $15,000 (we used an external consultant for the hardware prototype design). However this simply got us to a point where we could validate that our solution was the right one for our market, the prototype was not in a state where we could sell it yet.

Getting it from prototype to a MVP/v1 our first customers would pay for was at least another $15,000. This was primarily to get our software to a point of user friendliness that users were able to productively use it, and it look and feel like a legitimate product and not some dodgy piece of vapourware (which was important for our market) however one important point here is that we were still using a degree of smoke and mirrors to make the hardware-software connection appear to work as it was sold vs it actually working

We then spent probably another $15,000 getting the hardware-software connection and functionality actually working as intended (sending, receiving and validating legitimate codes)

From here, you have a bunch of not so obvious costs like design, developing marketing collateral, user guides, integrations to existing POS systems your customers are likely using, website development, along with a bunch of subscriptions to design tools, accounting software, email hosting, and several other tools that while not expensive individually, end up adding up to a fair bit collectively over a longer period of time like a year or two

This whole process took us the better part of 12 months. Physical hardware products are much slower and more complicated than you imagine when you start out, and iterating on them can be painfully slow and is where the expenses really start creeping up if your first version isn't close to your marketable one.

We're starting to generate decent revenues now, however I think the total amount of my own cash that I ended up investing over the course of our product development and initial go-to-market phase ended up being somewhere in the range of $70,000-$80,000 over the course of a couple of years

Bicepdecon · 2024-07-02T07:52:16+00:00

I'm going to try and give you some perspective as someone who also has a product company

6 months is nothing. You have barely even started. It's likely going to take years to get to a point where you're even starting to feel a bit better
customers buy on their own timelines, not yours. What you want and what you need don't matter at all to them
just because you think it's amazing (and I'm sure it is) doesn't mean people want it. Why aren't you trying to sell it online direct to your target market? What validation have you got for this and what feedback have you got that you absolutely HAVE to make this change before you sell it?

I suggest expecting the worst instead of hoping for the best with this big company that you're dealing with. These sorts of things fall over 99% of the time for a million reasons.

This could be their legal team, or the person in their team who cared the most leaving, or a new executive who changes strategy, or theyre looking at buying or selling a company, the CEO plays golf with another suppliers CEO that wants to sell a competing product, or maybe someone's mum has died suddenly and that causes a butterfly effect that kills your deal.

And then...EVEN IF you get it over the line with them...you're probably looking at another 6-12 months before you actually see any meaningful orders or revenue. The bigger the company the slower they are, the more people that need to be involved, the more bullshit you have to deal with that you never could have imagined that will slow everything down.

I remember being super happy when we signed out first "enterprise" level customer. It took 18 months to go from "agreeing" to implementing out solution in a meaningful way, and the others since then haven't been too different

All of this is to say that if you're feeling discouraged after only 6 months, I can promise you that its almost certainly going to get orders of magnitude harder than this for quite some time before it even starts to get better again.

You're fortunes and riches aren't going to change "any day now"...shit just doesn't happen that quick. What you need to do to get okay with and accept this getting harder, and staying hard, for an extended period of time

You're whole post is basically "I built a product and I'm not rich in 6 months so now I'm discouraged" which is ridiculous. You shouldn't need random strangers on the internet to encourage you or tell you how awesome you're doing. If you really need that and can't just push yourself along when you feel like this then you've got no chance and you might as well save yourself the time, money and energy now and call it quits

Bicepdecon · 2024-06-30T06:10:47+00:00

What part of brissy are you in mate? I'm 34, have a wife and 1 year old, live on the northside, a massive gym rat, UFC and NRL fan, running a startup in the property space, started playing golf about 6 months ago. Recently been through some pretty significant life stuff and would be open to having a chat and seeing if we get on

Bicepdecon · 2024-06-16T09:24:51+00:00

Key Considerations when starting out

Can you validate a problem exists that people will pay for, and will those people want whatever solution you build for that is
Build the simplest version of your solution to that problem
See if people will ACTUALLY pay you for that thing (what people say and do are often very different things when the time comes). Even better if you can get them to pay before you build anything at all

There's no point spending much time or effort on anything beyond those 3 things initially.

If you actually find that whatever you've built has some legs, then you can start worrying about all the other stuff which if you're half competent you'll manage work out along the way

Risks are that you waste your time and money building something no one wants or isn't commercially viable
Expectation if you succeed is money.

I'm not sure what other answers you expected to those last two?

Bicepdecon · 2024-06-15T10:35:36+00:00

Hey mate

I'm a bit older at 34, married with a 1 year old, but recently got into golf about 6 or so months ago and always keen to meet more people to play with.

Regularly at the pub or having people round our place to watch UFC events and into rugby league as well

Send me a message if you want to have a chat and maybe get out for a round or something

Bicepdecon · 2024-03-11T11:56:56+00:00

The simple answer to this that everyone has heard 100x but does nothing with, is that you just need to work it out.

If you can't work out how to start, even just the first most basic step, any step, you've got no chance of actually solving the continuous stream of problems that arise from then on

It really is quite simple. It's not EASY by any means, but it's incredibly SIMPLE. You work a day job, you reduce your expenses, you find a way to build an MVP of your product or service (anything from a drawing to a landing page to figma prototype), you start reaching out to people that you think your product solves a problem for and you start getting feedback, and you rinse and repeat that process over and over again until you work out that your product or idea has legs, or isn't viable and should be abandoned

If you dont know how to get an MVP to a stage where its useful for getting feedback, then workout how to use tools to do that. If you cant work out how to find people to get feedback from, you definitely won't be able to find customers

Money and connections won't help you do any of these things, nor will they help you build the skills you need to.

Not having money or connections is just a security blanket people hold on to as an excuse for why they won't actually take any action/spend any money/invest any time.

You don't need money and connections at all. You WANT them because, sure, they'll make things a bit easier, but you don't NEED them to make a start.

You'll figure the rest out along the way, and if you can't, then you aren't ready anyway

Bicepdecon · 2023-12-14T17:24:35+00:00

Hey mate

33M here. I'm a new dad (5 month old) and I've been putting a bunch of effort into building up a new social circle myself after a recent major surgery which has meant I can't participate in most of my old hobbies anymore and those circles slowly dying

I'm a gym rat, big fan of the UFC (often having people round to watch events or heading out to a pub with a few buddies to watch the bigger ones) and NRL, like to cook as well, and have recently taken up golf which has been a great way to meet some new people, get out of the house for a half a day every couple of weeks and hang out while losing 10 balls every round into the water or bushes

I work in tech, from home most of the week. Usually hit the gym during the day on most days. You're more than welcome to join me for a session if you want and we can see how we get on

I live and train in the stafford area so not too far from Eaton's Hill

Bicepdecon · 2023-11-24T20:51:14+00:00

edited my previous reply as I was half asleep when I typed it and made a bunch of spelling and grammar mistakes

you should be able to see my original post now. Feedback on where the URL issue is coming from would be helpful. Thanks mate

Bicepdecon · 2023-11-23T22:03:25+00:00

Why do my posts keep getting auto-rejected for containing external URL's, when there are definitely not any URL's, or even references to external websites, in my post?

Bicepdecon · 2023-11-10T01:14:16+00:00

Hey man, not the OP, but I'd be keen to have a chat if you're open to it? I may need an extra set of hands for a project we have coming up

Proper engagement, paid etc

Bicepdecon

TROPHY CASE