The Secret Costs of Condo Living (And How CondoScan Decodes Them)

Paul Davenport Boast: Hello and welcome to what the tech Firm boasts, where we talk with some of the brilliant minds behind new and exciting tech initiatives to learn what it takes to tackle technological uncertainty and eventually change the world. I'm Paul Davenport Boast, resident tech journalist and today I'm thrilled to welcome to the show Niall McLeod, co founder of Condoscan. At Condoscan, Niall and his team have built Alberta's fastest condo document review, taking on the heavy lifting so customers can buy condos with complete confidence. They've developed a simple transparent process that's personalized to each buyer's situation, offering a comprehensive review with same day delivery and dedicated support at uh, every milestone. It's an incredible mission that speaks to Nile's natural entrepreneurial spirit. He's led growth and partnership functions at leading Calgary businesses in the past while being active in the greater Alberta community, including being the co founder of the Patrol Foundation. It's an awesome journey and I can't wait to pick Niall's brain on what's next. Without further ado, welcome to the show, Niall. Niall again, thank you for joining me.

Niall McLeod: Of course, happy to be here. Thank you.

Paul Davenport Boast: Very happy that you could join me here. Um, I did a little bit of buttering up for you and I gave a little bit of a spiel about your background but I want to hear from you. Who is Niall? How'd you get into the tech space and yeah, what drives you?

Niall McLeod: Yeah, um, I guess kind of getting into the tech space. A large part of my family is very entrepreneurial, um, had parents that were in tech, uh, but then my grandmother was a seamstress, um, uh, in Ontario, uh, and so very kind of entrepreneurial family. Always really liked the idea of creating something and being able to run some type of business. Um, went to university for business as well. The focus there was to also just get hands on experience working at, you know, small startups. Um, so that was a really big focus for me, was purely focusing on, you know, small companies, you know, where I was joining on with a founder, trying to build up an idea, um, as you know, just a university student kind of willing to do anything. Um, I remember at one point we were buying gum packs at the dollar store, cutting them in half, wrapping them with logos, going to hand them out, um, super scrappy, uh, at the ground level, uh, trying to figure out, you know, how do you build a company and what are some of the things that are successful for different founders. Kind um, of fast forward to now. Um, we finally got, I guess, finally got the opportunity where we saw a problem that we could jump in, make a pretty big impact. Uh, we started Condoscan, my co founder kind of had the idea a little over a year ago here. Um, and uh, fast forward now, we've but quit our full time other jobs, bootstrapped, uh, the business, um, and are growing it uh, quite well here, which has been, uh, super exciting.

Paul Davenport Boast: That is fantastic. Also a different take on kind of like the lemonade stand story would be a gum and relabeling, basically white labeling on um, something.

Niall McLeod: Yeah, exactly. Early white labeling to get a QR code on something and getting people's hands. It was good.

Paul Davenport Boast: I love it. And again, so you were getting into the nitty gritty of the startup ecosystem while you were still in school too. Which again, I think, um, on this podcast we have a lot of founders on and sometimes it's folks who are like, oh, I was, it was a lemonade stand thing. But they actually left school because something else distracted them or sparked their interest. But you like the startup space? Like, tell me a little bit more about just like why that's where you want it to be and why you've continued to kind of be in that uh, ecosystem.

Niall McLeod: Yeah, um, truthfully I think I always found the idea like, of working at maybe like a larger company or you know, something where it was like very confined, uh, in your day to day as being a little bit terrifying. Um, and so being in university, like, especially in the business side, it was like very much like finance accounting, kind of just like these very set stages where you had, you know, the next few years of your life and you know, onwards, totally mapped out. Um, and I don't know, I always thought maybe that wouldn't really be the route for me to find something new. Um, and so wanted to just kind of go and explore, you know, what different types of companies. I got to work at a later stage startup, which was really cool. Um, but at the end of the day the real goal was just to kind of like understand how these businesses are operating, get to, you know, get experience working with various different types of people. Um, and uh, yeah, with the eventual goal of, you know, someday. Yeah, being able to work on my own thing with uh, a good team.

Paul Davenport Boast: Yeah. And ideally a startup doesn't stay in that startup phase for sure. So of course, yeah, there's going to be that graduation. You're going to hit those milestones. I think that's incredible. I'd love to know a little bit more too. You had mentioned you're a, uh, co founder. So tell me about your co founder. What was it like? How did you nail down I want to build a business with this person and this is someone who I'm going to go to bat with, I'm going to go to war with. Uh, we've used and abused the, it's a family thing and I never want to conflate work for family but in the startup space you are spending time with these people like they are your husband or wife. So. Yeah, yeah. How did that relationship come about?

Niall McLeod: Yeah, so we met uh, at a previous company that we worked at here in Calgary, um, actually in this space that we're in today. And so we met. He had initially joined on um, to help uh, the company kind of build their first model of the product, kind of the MVP side. Um, he had joined on as more of a contractor role, kind of just helped them get through and then he went off traveling. But in that kind of few months that we knew each other, kind of built up a uh, pretty good uh, relationship just working together. I like them and kind of just stayed in touch over the years. Fast forward two and a half years later, almost three years later, I'm still at the same company. He's been kind of jumping around doing a few different things. Um, he joins back on to support with some development work that we were doing and we just kind of get chatting again about you know, what, what he's been up to, catching up, stuff like that. Um, that's when he talks about this idea that he's been having, kind of trying to build out, uh, you know what, uh, this whole condo document, uh, review space. Basically just helping people buy these, these condos here in Alberta. Um, and it sounded like a really interesting problem set. And I started kind of helping out on the side just with some of the growth, commercialization side of it all. Um, his background's entirely in development. Um, and so he really wanted to figure out how we could get that side going. And it kind of just happened quite naturally from there, um, where we started to meet with customers, get a full understanding of it. He's very product focused which is awesome. Um, and uh, yeah, makes it a perfect pairing here. So um, and then yeah, kind of just from that point we met with customers, tried to figure out how do we build it out and uh, how do we get this into a product that uh, is commercial and people will pay for.

Paul Davenport Boast: Absolutely. I love that you kind of hit the nail on the head on terms of like finding that complimentary skillset. So like you said, he's very product focused. He's got that development background, it kind of shores up along with being somebody that you want to actually do work with. You like them as a person, and they have a skillset that compliments your own skill set. So you're not overextending yourself or forcing yourself into something that's not going to be fun in the long haul because you're not interested in it, maybe at the end of the day. So that is critical, I think, and something that I want all of our listeners to take to heart because that's been a driving theme across a lot of the conversations I've been having today.

Niall McLeod: Um, yeah, yeah, it's been. I think it was perfect just because, you know, very much the confidential skill set and like, I want nothing to do with development in terms of actually getting gritty, nor do I have any skills, uh, of that. Uh, and so, and then for him, you know, it's kind of vice versa on the sales side of things. And, you know, that side of the business, he loves to just build. Um, that's really what he wants to do, you know, all day, every day. Uh, and so that's fantastic. And yeah, it's been a great kind of pairing in terms of, uh, you know, kind of exactly what we're missing on each side.

Paul Davenport Boast: Yeah, I love that. And even going back to. You were talking about kind of the differences between working in, like, an established enterprise space and how that kind of almost not to put words in your mouth, but feels like retirement. That's how I've always kind of viewed it. I've worked for startups, they've gotten acquired, I've gotten offers to come into the behemoth that acquired them, and I was just like, I'm not ready to hang my hat. I'm like, it feels like retirement. I want to be scrappy. I want to do the work. I want to actually build something. I want to build our content engine here at Boast. So it's a very unique opportunity that we have here. Um, just needed to shout that out because I, I really related to that when you had mentioned that earlier. And again, the skill sets too. If you have people who can be superstars at their jobs, you can have fun going deep. Like, I produce a lot of content for both. They let me do it because we got the right people focused on all the other stuff too. So we're able to sell this product because we aren't pulling the developers away from what they need to do. So it's probably pretty baseline and an oversimplification of everything, but I think it's worth repeating.

Niall McLeod: Uh, yeah, I think it's also interesting in that side or like that way of thinking about it is oftentimes it can be a very generalist person, um, maybe aside from having a very specific kind of skill set, whether it is on the development side. Um, but I always found myself as very much a generalist. Never really liked certain structure that would come in with a job, whether it was, whatever it was. It was kind of like, okay, how do we get something from 0 to 1 and then truthfully find somebody who's really good at the rest of it, who's much better at ah, following that process or building a process and getting it from there. And so I always loved the um, zero to one aspect uh, of things. And so I think this is, you know, the epitome of that, ah, as it relates to building something and kind of getting it going. Um, and so that's always, you know, been something I'm working on as well is, you know, how do we get it past, past, you know, just the first few and kind of start to build up that process here. Um, which has definitely been, you know, a newer skill set for, for me, but uh, really obsessed. And I think it's does lend well to the people who like that 0 to 1, figure it out type, uh, of mindset.

Paul Davenport Boast: Absolutely. And you discover more about yourself too in that process, which I think is so cool. I never thought I'd be hosting a podcast. I went to journalism school, print journalism. Uh, I'm a thousand years old, so there were still newspapers when I enrolled, weren't when I graduated. But um, I've learned because I've had to push myself in these smaller teams to be a little more of a generalist and kind of just like, we gotta try some new things. And then I discovered I really like this kind of stuff. So I think that that's a great approach. That's to learn. Like you're saying you're going to learn about yourself, but also you're going to find where you need that support and you're going to find where you can get the right people and then you know explicitly the skill set that you're looking for. So again, it helps you identify those complimentary personalities and skills that you want to bring onto your team.

Niall McLeod: For sure.

Paul Davenport Boast: Yeah. Now we haven't talked a lot about the product condos, obviously, but before we get to that, I would also like to go back to how you mentioned building the team here in this literal physical space and with this actual ecosystem and this actual Community. Could you speak to me about what that's looked like in practice? Um, I've learned a lot talking with all the other folks today, and Phil is amazing. Um, how does this community in particular support each other or, uh, this workspace kind of help you guys achieve the success you're looking for?

Niall McLeod: Yeah, I think this workspace here that we're in is a pretty good example of it where there is, uh, a lot of different people building different things kind of together. That lends itself quite well to, you know, the whole dilemma that you get in sometimes when you're like, nobody shares my pain, nobody knows what I'm going through, or I have a very specific niche problem and you know, I have no way of solving it. And so I think being able to kind of lean into other people who are at the similar stage, uh, of business or even better is, is, you know, the people who are farther along. Yeah, that's often where I found, you know, both kind of balancing out, uh, you know, chatting with, with both those types of people. And I think Calgary is quite, uh, a unique example of that is there are, you know, very established companies, uh, here in tech that have built something quite, quite amazing and you know, have hundreds, uh, of employees, um, some of them, you know, thousands. And you know, you're still able to chat with the people kind of operating those businesses. They're still willing to give back kind of help, support that side of things, um, which has been such a big thing for me, uh, at least is like getting to chat with, uh, various different leaders here that, you know, are willing to talk about when they were in those shoes. Um, because, you know, it probably wasn't that long ago and it's super valuable kind of info. And so that side of things has been amazing. But then also being able to um, chat with, you know, the people who are in your shoes right now and have experiencing the same pain. You know, obviously you grew up in that other room there, like a lot of businesses, similar stage to us, um, you know, kind of operating very similarly as well. So that part has been, has uh, been nice to uh, you know, bounce ideas off and uh, make yourself kind of feel sane when you're going through it all.

Paul Davenport Boast: Yeah, you need that sanity check for sure. That is critical and. Yeah. And being able to just look over your shoulder and not feel like you're alone in the woods. It's like, oh no, they are literally going through it too. And this isn't. I mean it's always gonna be unique, but this isn't isolated So I love that. Um, now let's talk about the product. So why this market? Why now?

Niall McLeod: Yeah, I think, um, so the whole kind of origin story of it is one of Yuen's friends was buying a condo here. They were going through all the whole process. Um, and it's a lot different than, you know, maybe buying a house because you're buying into a condo corporation, you know, that's a company, uh, in itself that's governed by bylaws. They have financials, they have kind of a full kind of set of documents as a result. Um, you know, you could be buying this condo, but you're buying into this company that comes with, you know, debt or all these different parts of, you know, looking at how do we assess what you're purchasing. Um, and so one of the big things with buying a condo here, uh, in Alberta and actually in every single province, just slightly different is this review. Um, and so kind of think of it as, you know, doing diligence on the company. Um, and so we started to look at it, understand, you know, what's currently offered in the market here, how we can speed things up, how we can just make it a better experience for, for the buyer. Um, we started chatting with lots of different realtors and then also buyers, um, and everybody kind of rolled their eyes at it, um, more so of like it's a pain to do. And so the moment we identified that, it was like, okay, how can we, you know, try to solve the problem from, from both sides, Whether it is, you're a first time buyer, you have no idea what you're getting into. It's one of the biggest purchases of your life. Um, they're throwing all these things at you. You have to figure out, you know, your mortgage, you have to figure out all these different things. And then they're like, well, you're also buying into a corporation, it has financials, it has balance sheets, it has, you know, it has, uh, the insurance, the bylaws, meeting minutes. It's everything about that, uh, that corporation. Um, and there's just a lot of complexity to it. So trying to make it so that it's easy for them to understand what they're getting themselves into, if there's any financial risks, anything like that, you know, what the community is like, what are some of, or ongoing maintenance things like that, um, and ultimately just helping them feel confident in their decision.

Paul Davenport Boast: I like it because, yeah, it's, it takes what is a scary scenario, just because to your point, it is one of the biggest purchases you're Going to make it is going to define a big part of your life for a long time when you're buying a condo. And um, if you can take some of the pain out of what is inherently a little bit of a scary situation, that's huge. So. And again, making sure that those customers, those people who are actually making the purchase are the end goal and making sure that they're satisfied and that they're pleased with all of this, it's incredible. I think it's really, really cool. We've talked to a lot of folks today, again who are in kind of the property, uh, space, um, which again another unexpected theme of uh, this podcast series. But I think the condo of it all is something that feels like a little bit of a black box to me just because I rent right now. Um, I've explored the condo process, but to your point, it's entering a corporation. It seems scary and I'm just like, uh, not even, not even going to sign up for that yet when I could be having a condo with equity rather than paying rent all the time. So yeah, maybe you could talk a little bit more about some of the uh, due diligence that actually does go in that you guys are going to be aiming to alleviate a little bit. Not necessarily take the diligence out of it, but take the minutia m out of it.

Niall McLeod: Yeah, I think one of the biggest things is like trying to understand what it all means. Um, and so it's easy for us to say we're going to review the documents and tell you what's going to happen. But a lot of it is identifying risks that could come up. Um, and so condos have two different financial accounts. Uh, one of them, we like to always paint it in more real world, kind of like relatable terms. They have their checkings account that they're using to pay their day to day um, maintenance, kind of little things like that. Um, then they have what's called a reserve fund, um, that think of it as like your long term savings account. Basically what they do is that gets assessed, the building gets assessed by an engineering firm. They create something called a reserve fund study. That study lays out basically the spending and saving plan for the corporation for, you know, normally next 30 years. Uh, and so from there as you can kind of understand, you know, how much you're going to be paying in, uh, your condo fees, you know, when they have to replace the roof, when they have to replace the elevator, the building envelope, all the different major components and they kind of work back from it so to figure out how much money they have in the account so they can save for it when they have to spend, you know, millions of dollars on a roof. Uh, basically the whole idea there is just to make sure that the buyers are aware of, you know, how these fees are going to influence them. Um, if there's something called a special assessment, which is basically like a cash call where everyone in the, that is an owner has to pay the corporation, you know, in order to have enough money so they can replace the roof for the elevators. Um, and so those are a lot of the things that, that buyers get quite scared about. Um, and we try approach the problem in like a very relatable way that that's easy for them to understand. Um, but we also try to make it personalized. Each person is different in their, their own situation, whether it is their appetite for risk, um, and you know, hidden costs, stuff like that. Any type of ownership when you're buying a home comes with a, uh, certain level of, you know, surprise costs that could come with it.

Paul Davenport Boast: Totally.

Niall McLeod: The whole goal with a lot of condos is, you know, those are diminished or they're wrapped up in the condo fee. Um, but, but they happen all the time still. So we um, try to basically just give them a good understanding of what this whole process looks like, what they're getting themselves into. Um, but make it personalized to them. So they want to do renovations, they have pets, they want to do a short term rental, something like that. There's so many things in the bylaws of these corporations that can sometimes stop people, um, or they buy it and in five years things completely change for them. So there's a lot of kind of nuance in the whole process that uh, people need to be made aware of. But, but there's also a lot of fluff that they don't really need and it maybe just scares them um, in terms of getting overwhelmed with the info. So we try to do uh, a good job at kind of balancing overwhelming them but also keeping them quite informed. Um, because at the end of the day it's their decision. Uh, and we're just there to help summarize some of this info and provide analysis and prediction stuff like that.

Paul Davenport Boast: Yeah, they need necessary knowledge, but they need actionable knowledge. It can't just be dump. Here's all the resources, go with God, make that decision. That makes a scary scenario even scarier. I'm like, oh, I have to do homework now. Making sure that you understand how you can be strategic and actionable with the Reality of the scenario and understanding, like you said, those secret costs. I think there's always secret costs. Buying a home, buying a car, buying a condo, anything. There's secret costs. So just getting the full lay of it all, I think is really important, for sure.

Niall McLeod: And we're able to also come in and provide our analysis on the finances, for example, and that, you know, could influence the. The price. Uh, it would be about a month ago, we helped a, uh, buyer purchase a, uh, property here. They negotiated over $100,000 off the asking price. Um, and that was one of the craziest ones that we've ever seen. You know, normally it's a few thousand, maybe call it 10, depends. Um, but 100,000 is, you know, that's a lot of money. Um, and that is really from being able to say, okay, here's what's coming down the road. Here are the unknowns. Um, and being able to kind of like build up the proof on that side. So we often will meet with realtors, kind of give them a rundown, um, just to help everyone in the transaction on the buying side. So, ah, that was a fun one. Um, and definitely the largest dollar amount that we've helped influence, which was really cool.

Paul Davenport Boast: That sounds more than fun. That is material.

Niall McLeod: It was crazy. It was really cool.

Paul Davenport Boast: That is awesome. Okay, so aside from helping enable more $100,000, uh, discounts on these things, what's on the roadmap for you guys? What's the goals for the next year, maybe?

Niall McLeod: Yeah, that's a good question. So we're, um, right now based very much so in Alberta. Definitely looking to expand throughout Canada. Each jurisdiction, um, has different rules on the real estate side for these corporations, what documents are available, stuff like that. Um, and so we're kind of looking to adapt the product and bring in the right people to help kind of make sure that it can be replicable, uh, in the various different provinces. Goal for us definitely go down, uh, into the states as well. Some, um, various different states have similar type rules, um, and similar need for services there, uh, which is a big one. But then we're also trying to look at what else goes into this whole purchase. Um, for these buyers, we're able to collect a large amount of data, um, from every single review that we do. You know, we have, you know, data on, on thousands of properties here. Um, and so being able to figure out how can we use that to create action across different industries or different parts of the whole buying process, um, is going to be, you know, a big thing for Us. So how do we help realtors make more informed decisions in bringing their buyers into to, uh, different condos? So one of the cool parts about this is a lot of this data, um, that we have about these buildings never comes to light until you get a document review done. And so as a result, I could be taking you into a building, uh, you could fall in love with the room, you know, where your couch is going to go, you know where, uh, your bed, all of that stuff. But once you get into the documents, there could be immediate, you know, no's from your list, whether it is certain bylaws, you know, you could have a German shepherd, they're not going to have large pets. And it's little things like that that don't actually come up. So there's so much time that gets wasted in this process. Um, so one of the big pushes for us is we're launching a map. Um, this map is going to be a, ah, realtor tool to help understand these buildings at a high level so that they know which ones are really good for their clients and which ones maybe aren't so much, aside from the cosmetic side of things. Um, and so we've been getting a lot of feedback from them and kind of building that out. So we're hoping to launch it within the next month or so here. Um, and we're really excited about that because I think, uh, it really helps change the buying experience, but then also helps the realtors, which at, ah, the core is one of the people that we're really trying to service and make it easier for. Um, so it's a fun problem because we get to deal with both sides of the deal, whether it is the buyers and then also the buyer's realtor or just the actual buyers themselves. Um, so it's a fun problem set and really excited about this map and data side of things.

Paul Davenport Boast: That's so cool. And again, it's specialized, it's personalized, it is unique to the different scenarios without being one size fits all. So you're driving efficiencies but not getting bogged down by the data. The data is actually driving the efficiency.

Niall McLeod: Exactly. Yeah.

Paul Davenport Boast: That's incredible. Yeah. Niall, this has been fantastic. I cannot thank you enough for joining us. Um, one thing I'd be remiss to bring up was the nonprofit side of things. I was talking to Phil a few minutes ago. I mentioned it in the intro. But tell me about, uh, your mission there on that front.

Niall McLeod: Yeah, so this was, I guess, kind of a fun little side project that we've been working on for the past three years, uh, almost four. Um, we have a nonprofit called the Patrol Foundation. Uh, it's all started as a way, uh, we were kind of playing around the idea of doing something fun to raise some money. Um, and it was, you know, during the whole kind of Movember campaign. So that's what we stuck with. At the start, we would run 1km for every $10 raised. Uh, it was myself. And then we had. There was, I think seven of us total, um, or call it eight. Um, and then, uh, we. That kind of took off. We ended up raising like $30,000. We were running like every single day. Um, it was funny. Uh, it was a lot.

Paul Davenport Boast: Um, that sounds like a lot. Yeah. And we like running in Boston too. That's a lot.

Niall McLeod: It was, ah, it was a lot of work, but essentially. And then Phil got wind of this grant, um, and to throw, ah, a party. They essentially it was like a event grant that could, could be, was, uh, given by the city of Calgary. We ended up throwing a party downtown, which was kind of like this gala red carpet event, uh, to celebrate all the money raised, um, that sold out and we had like 300 people and it was really, really fun. So we kind of thought, okay, we have something cool here. How do we to do this, but maybe find more local causes. Um, and so fast forward to now. We run, normally run three to four events a year. Um, we've raised money across various, uh, different groups here. You know, the Alberta Cancer foundation, um, and then also focusing on different groups here that support kind of youth and families, uh, in need. And so I think this past year we raised close to a little over $150,000, which was quite cool. Um, our events have like five or six hundred people at them. Uh, and it becomes like a fun, fun thing for the community and kind of young people to kind of get out there, but also find a way to give back. Um, so, uh, turns out throwing fun events and uh, various different runs and kind of things like that, we do stuff at Stampede, uh, is a good way to bring people together and uh, rally behind something.

Paul Davenport Boast: Yeah, it's not even just all about raising funds. It's actually throwing those parties is part of the actual mission too. That is cool. It gets people out. Like you were even saying together. And you can really rally, ah, your successes. And I just love that. That is fantastic. And it again goes back to that entrepreneurial spirit that I pegged on you when we were doing the intro. That's so cool. Um, you bring the community together. It's non cynical and it's for a good cause, which is so cool.

Niall McLeod: Yeah, it's been great. So it's been exciting, but, uh, it's nice.

Paul Davenport Boast: Sweet. Well, Niall, this has been a total pleasure. I cannot thank you enough for joining me here. Uh, this is the last of my sprint of, uh, podcast recording. So thank you for getting me at the end of the run. I hopefully didn't, uh, lapse on you. I can see myself getting tired on came camera, but this was a blast. I had a really good chat.

Niall McLeod: Well, hopefully it ends with a bank. Awesome.

Paul Davenport Boast: Thank you so much.

Niall McLeod: Thank you.