State of the GEM 2025 (Transmission #315)
And with that, let's go back to our regularly scheduled programing.
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Collectively, GEM Diamond is a diverse community of proptech innovators spanning every role, sector, and geography.
There’s a lot to be proud of in terms of 2024 accomplishments. The year behind us was highlighted by a record number of dinners, 37 awesome Transmission essays, six truly magnificent private residence dinners, and the successful execution of our first multi-day relationship-building exercise, the GEM Proptech Getaway. The biz intel, innovative thinking, and curation remain as valuable as ever. Peer Circles is the latest, and most important, initiative we’re focused on. We remain committed to satisfying the intellectual curiosity of proptech leaders. Through thick and thin, our relentless pursuit to deliver curated connections to propel real estate and Built World leaders forward remains core to everything we do.
Without further ado, maintaining the tradition started five years ago to report transparently on the makeup of the community, we bring you: The State of the GEM in 2025.
Total members: 606
...from sectors far and wide
…in varying roles
...representing locations across the globe
Let’s be real: 2024 was another rough year across the board. Once again, we saw many new faces join us but about the same number move on. 122 new members in, 125 members out. We went from 609 to 606. Large companies are still axing spend and the wells of capital at many startups are running dry. Not to despair; things are looking up for 2025. And we’ll rejoice along with the rest of the industry if rates come down to juice transaction volumes (and corresponding commission dollars), office vacancies drop, and new home starts rise.
We remain 60% of the way to our cap of 1,500 members. Know someone who should be here? Send them this link with a two-pager.
Now, let’s get to it…
Rentals and home services were added as separate categories this year. With the launch of Peer Circles, I suspect we’ll start to see a more even rise in other segments beyond residential moving forward.
No surprise, agent and broker tools is our largest "middle" sector represented.
The roles makeup remains largely the same year-over-year. Still heavily, heavily founder-focused.
...and...
Our top US hubs remained unchanged. The big uptick in San Francisco from 71 to 103 is due to us combining San Francisco, East Bay, and Silicon Valley into this figure for 2025.
DIVERSITY
Female: 16.34% (up from 15.76%)
Persons of Color: 23.75% (down from 24.14%)
EVENTS / NETWORKING
Dinners were up, stemming from a clear focus on curating more of them compared to 2023. Obviously, even though there was only one retreat, it was by far the biggest lift in energy. I'm a bit disappointed we didn't schedule a few more soirees, but we'll get more of them on the calendar in 2025. Coworking days have been a success, a more casual way to convene members in a local market (Seattle and SF so far).
Fundraising office hours and peer practice pitches are always great events, but we need a more consistent cadence.
2024 REFLECTIONS
Let's briefly look back on last year's resolutions:
- Build up four local chapters: Draw. Though those chapters still aren’t formalized, it's not a total loss, since we did facilitate a coworking day in San Francisco (as well as multiple in Seattle). Further, organizing five private residence dinners in Seattle was a big unlock for the strength of the local community. More on this to come in 2025; it remains a focal area for improvement.
- Streamline event management: Win. While we still have room for improvement, there’s no doubt 2024 was better than 2023. It’s part art, more so than science.
- 20 GEM Dinners: Win. With 24 dinners, we prevailed in convening the community in person.
- GEM Crystal newsletter growth: Loss. An investment in an email marketer early in the year was made to help, but didn’t wield the positive results we were hoping for after three months. For the time being, we’re remaining focused on GEM Diamond.
- Expand Crystal readership in GEM Diamond organizations: Loss. While we have provided discount codes at the bottom of every Radar and Transmission, it doesn’t seem to be getting much uptick. We’re well short of the goal of 50.
- Migrate 30 Paypal subscriptions: Draw. We migrated 10 members from Paypal to Chargebee. I call it a draw because we only have 33 remaining subscriptions in Paypal, but a percentage of the difference churned rather than migrated.
- Proptech Getaway success: Resounding win! ❇️Last year’s event❇️ was a highlight of the year for all those who attended. Here’s what York Baur had to say: “The Proptech Getaway is a super high-value event for any entrepreneur that's in proptech or thinking about it. No better way to mainline ideas, industry perspective, and startup energy in a beautiful and relaxed setting.” We’re bringing it back this year (and upping the spots available from 22 to 30).
- Real estate data intelligence: Loss. We didn’t complete three more parts of the ❇️property data biz intel series❇️, plain and simple. We need to do better in 2025.
- One international dinner: Win. We hosted ❇️a dinner in London❇️ with Natasha Terinova and the REACH UK team in May during CREtech London.
- 12 Office Hours with VCs and Angels: Loss. We organized 6, which falls short of our goal of monthly. If you’re a VC or Angel investor interested in participating, let us know.
Overall 2024 Score: 4-4-2
2025 RESOLUTIONS
- Match six Peer Circles: With 19 submissions, we’re seeing strong interest already. Now, the hard part—actually matching the right people together into 6-8 person groups. This is new for us, so we’re not sure exactly what to expect. Kicking off six groups in 2025 seems like a good metric to shoot for.
- 20 Dinners: The proptech dinner party continues. This year, we'll hit at least one new city – Houston (during ❇️NAR NXT❇️).
- Test a referral program: It’s finally time to provide an additional incentive to refer members other than “to improve the quality of the GEM community.” Stay tuned for an announcement.
- Improved GEM Proptech Getaway + GEM Walks the Camino takeaways: Not happy with the status quo, Greg Fischer and I are focused on improving upon last year's event. And I'm deeply interested in sharing the learnings that come from ❇️the international excursion❇️ that Heather Harmon and I are co-hosting in Spain.
- Pilot a "Chapter" model with a local ambassador/host: I've long been trying to re-create what we have here in Seattle, where I live, in other cities. Cracking it isn't easy, but we'll keep trying. I'd like to say tackling two cities is doable, but I think one is more realistic until we figure out the right model. If you're interested in being a "Local Chapter Host," send me a note.
- Publish 35 Mastermind Showcases: These articles have been running on Geek Estate Blog for a few years now as a way to bring more exposure to companies represented in GEM Diamond, and we’ll up the frequency to these from 24 in 2024 to 35 in 2025.
- Complete Paypal migrations: With only 33 left, finally shedding Paypal completely is within reach.
- Get current on accounts receivables: Operating a “community” means lots of messiness to AR and we aren’t as strict on offboarding members for non-payment as we could be. That said, we have a backlog of invoices that need to be collected.
- Streamline backend processes to improve current CRM systems: Room for improvement exists to get our CRM (currently, Mailchimp) to talk to our Master member spreadsheet.
- Additional middle/micro sectors: It’s been a few years since we refreshed our macro, middle, and micro sector lists. We haven't surfaced micro here because there are simply too many of them. At a minimum, you’ll see a few new Middle Sector entries in the State of the GEM in 2026.
PUSHING FORWARD
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying we’re facing yet another turbulent year. Yes, I hope (as you do) that venture activity ticks upward to help usher in the next wave of real estate and Built World innovations. But, I’m not banking on it. Peer Circles push us toward becoming more of a proptech entrepreneurial organization—meaning leaning into leadership development initiatives. Peer accountability and knowledge sharing is certainly a big part of that, but there’s more to it. ❇️How to hire❇️, fire, structure team meetings, identify top performers, communicate, and make decisions is part of that. Public speaking and PR training. The list of skills, strategies, and tactics is seemingly endless. We haven’t even scratched the surface here in GEM as of yet.
That said, at the end of the day, relationships build companies–especially in this industry. And that will become more true as AI continues to automate basic company-customer outreach, conversations, and relationships. Breaking through the noise will require introductions, referrals, and emails from trusted sources. GEM is already extremely well positioned given ❇️the wide range of in-person gatherings and virtual discussions we curate❇️. All of those build new trust, to be used down the line. I remain utterly convinced that what GEM provides will continue to increase in value as content and customer relationships are handled by AI.
Of course, we will continue to be the bridge between real estate and tech, sharing insights that spark curiosity for aspiring proptech minds. GEM’s Weekly Transmissions, aka thesis-driven essays, are an exercise in clarity of thinking. While I am humbled and thankful that you find enough value to consume them, I’d write them even if no one read them.
Even as the makeup of our community shifts, changes, and grows, there is still no more interesting collection of real estate and Built World leaders anywhere.
I love the real estate and Built World (aka "proptech") industry, and the amazing possibilities for innovation it includes. GEM is not going anywhere regardless of what happens with the public markets, proptech VC confidence, housing starts, or interest rates. Given we focus directly on the largest asset class on earth, there will always be great technology companies being built to serve it. Our mission remains delivering to proptech founders and executives the connections, peer support, and business intelligence needed to lead their companies toward transforming how we buy, sell, live in, and invest in real estate.
And, where else will you find an organization that arranges life-changing group excursions like our walk on the Camino de Santiago?
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. — Steve Jobs, 1997
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