“It's important for you to think of the pros and cons of both capitalism as well as keeping culture and roots and technology, and how we can have a good balance—because I don't think there is a right answer.” – Dana Dunford

Dana Dunford (@dana110001) is CEO and Cofounder of Hemlane, an online property management platform. She started her career in finance with Symantecand Apple before working in business development at Nest. Her work with Nest built up her interest in the real estate industry, and she received an angel investment directly out of business school to start Hemlane.

Chapters

  • Affordable housing, self-driving cars, and the power of saying no
  • Recommended tools and books
  • On success, failure, and gratitude

Dana Dunford's Favorite Books

Transcript

Daniel Scrivner:

Dana, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's wonderful to have you.

Dana Dunford:

Thanks for having me, Daniel.

Daniel Scrivner:

So this should be a lot of fun. We try to keep these conversations to 20 minutes so they're a little bit faster pace and we'll ask you the same 10 questions we ask every guest. Are you ready?

Dana Dunford:

I'm ready. I think.

Daniel Scrivner:

Okay. First question, what have you been excited about or fascinated by recently?

Dana Dunford:

Okay, this shouldn't be a surprise. I'm in real estate. And so, one of the things that I think a lot about is affordable housing, and how do you provide great housing for the masses. So self driving cars is what is to me something I'm super excited about. And the reason for that is more people are able to work from home. If you have cars that can get you into work faster, you don't have to take that public transport, as well as the freedom to live anywhere you want. You suddenly increase that housing that's in city centers, and you make it more affordable, because people can now select to live farther away from their office location or their headquarters to do what they love.

Daniel Scrivner:

Are there any companies you're following in that space? Any projects?

Dana Dunford:

I think all of them I follow. I'm excited about Cruise. I'm also excited about [Lemo 00:47:02]. Fun fact, I was actually in Cruise's most recent advertising video, and not intentionally, I was walking across the street, and they were advertising. So I've been there in the ad video now.

Daniel Scrivner:

Well, there you go. You're part of your view of the future. It's a great place to be. What do you think are your superpowers? And how do you harness those strengths?

Dana Dunford:

Superpowers? So no one else is going to say this. And it might sound odd, but I love working. And that doesn't sound like a superpower. But let me give you an example. When I was in third grade, my mom just saw me sitting there copying encyclopedias down and she asked why. And I used to write quizzes on them. And I said, because the teacher doesn't give me enough homework to do.

Daniel Scrivner:

Which has never been said before.

Dana Dunford:

Never been said by a third grader. And so she went back to the teacher and said, the third grade teacher Mrs. Clark, and was like Dana needs more homework. And so I would get in my own packet of homework to do just so I could do more work.

Daniel Scrivner:

Wow, I don't even know what to take from that. But that's an incredible story. On the flip side, what do you struggle with, maybe the same thing? And how have you improved or worked around those things over time?

Dana Dunford:

Yeah, I mean, it's really difficult when you struggle with something to improve and work around it on your own. It really comparing myself to others. I'm always thinking about what are other companies doing? How do I grow? And even if they're not in our market, I'm still comparing us to them. And I think part of that has to do with I have a twin sister. And so I was always compared to her because we're identical. So it probably is something subconscious there. But I say how to improve and get around it is you can't really do it yourself. And so I funnel that energy into working with Gavin, who let her series seed round and really focused on how do we just focus on our own growth? And how do we focus on our path versus the path of others and using those people around me to help improve myself and focus on the things that really matter, that are really going to drive the needle.

Daniel Scrivner:

So it seems like part of that is just making sure you surround yourself with people that are going to fill in some of those holes and maybe keep you pointed in the best direction?

Dana Dunford:

Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Scrivner:

It's super interesting. On the habits side, what habits have you experimented with that have had a positive impact on your life and performance? And so these can be things you do today. This can also be things you just aspire to do again, worked really well previously. Anything like that.

Dana Dunford:

Yeah. I love this one because it's what I'm doing most recently, especially now, with things opening up more, it's the power of saying no. So I'm a people pleaser. I'm the type of person if I'm invited to an event, I used to always go to every event no matter what, or every dinner party no matter what. Now, I suddenly have started saying very politely, no, and very quickly. Right when I'm invited, not telling them I'll go and then cancel at the last minute. And what I found is that by doing that, without having those obligations, I'm much more focused. My center and motivations and stuff, are really now applied to my team at Hemlane. It's applied to my health, it's applied to my family. Rather than having this checklist of 5,000 things to do on the weekend. And just trying to get around to them all because I was invited to them. I found that that's been super impactful and helpful.

Daniel Scrivner:

I imagine it's hard if you're a people pleaser. If you're someone that just naturally you feel the yes coming up. Leave your mouth as soon as someone asks you a question. And have you gotten to the place where you can be so confident and quick to say no? And is that still difficult for you? Do you just have any techniques where you're like I'd say no to start. How do you work around that natural disposition?

Dana Dunford:

Yeah, I mean, I think from that perspective, it is thinking about always on the other side if I were that person. So if the person invites me to dinner and I've told them three weeks in advance that I can't go to that dinner, it's okay, because and I know it's going to be super late night dinner and I really need to get my sleep or whatever it may be. It's okay for me to say no politely and I'm okay with it now because I know that now they can extend that invite someone who really does want to go. So from that perspective, I think the speed of response has really helped me say, it's not that bad to have the alternative. Because on the flip side, if I wait too long, or I feel guilty about it, that I'm not doing what's right for me or what's right for that person.

Daniel Scrivner:

That makes sense. On the health side, what's your approach to diet, exercise and sleep? And how have those things evolved over time for you?

Dana Dunford:

I think they evolved over time is the easiest one to answer because of COVID. It's really helped with my diet, and how in part because working remotely has made it increasingly easier for me to eat healthy food. I eat yogurt, and oatmeal, and eggs in the morning. I always have a salad for lunch, and then on the health side of things, and really changing and evolving over time, before COVID, I used to go to work every morning at 7:00. And I would come home at 11:00 PM every night. And I never had dinner, I would always eat in the office and I would always have a power bar or remember those Soylent that were really popular?

Daniel Scrivner:

I still See those around sometimes.

Dana Dunford:

I would have a Soylent for dinner, which is terrible to have that for dinner every night. But now I cook dinner every single night with my husband, every night, we have dinner together. And it's actually made me much more productive, over just work and getting things done. Because taking a little bit of time away from work makes you remember, oh, the big things I need to get these things done rather than the little things. And then I think on the exercise side, which I think is super important, too. I work out every week with a friend. And we hold ourselves accountable where we have to meet together. And then this friend that I work out with, she's a professor at UCSF, so med school background. And I think that is actually helpful to do exercise with someone who's not in your industry. Because then she keeps me very balanced. She has a different take on things. So while we're exercising and catching up over work, it makes me remember everything else out there that doesn't have to do with technology and the industry of property management.

Daniel Scrivner:

It's a great balancing factor in your life. On the ideas side, what books, podcasts, even movies have had a striking impact on the way that you think and that could be in your personal life, at work, just anywhere.

Dana Dunford:

Does everyone say your podcast?

Daniel Scrivner:

No, actually, no.

Dana Dunford:

Besides Outliers Academy, I'd say there's two, in two different ways. Po Bronson wrote a book called Why Do I Love These People. And it's small stories about just individuals who were nothing and made something big and changed people's lives and started from nothing and builds great companies that you've probably never heard of. They're not the tech companies like the Ubers and Airbnb that you've heard of. And I love that, it's so empowering. The other book that I love is Thomas Friedman's I know it's super old, Lexus and the Olive Tree. You see things very polarized right now, especially with what you saw happening in Afghanistan and culture as well as capitalism really pulling at each other. There's no right answer, right?

Dana Dunford:

And that's why things are pulling in different directions. And there's wars out there and all of that. But I think it's important for you to think of the pros and cons of both capitalism as well as keeping culture and roots and technology and how can we have a good balance. Because I don't think there is a right answer. And I think that book really opened it up, there is no right answer. But what we have to do is make some very educated and conscious decisions of how we build things. And what we do to make sure there is a balance between globalization and everyone having their unique cultures.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. Which I think we're going to continue to struggle with and grapple with for a very, very long time. But those are great books, because those are new answers I haven't heard. Tools, what tools do you use to manage your work tasks and time?

Dana Dunford:

I love this question, because there's one that I love so much that I would hope more people would use. And shockingly, I don't hear it. So I use Boomerang in my email inbox. And it's the biggest thing for project management for me. So every email that I get, I basically if it requires a response, I say if it's within one week or four days, and I don't hear from this person, send it back up to the top of my inbox. And what's the benefit of that is nothing goes undone when I'm trying to get work done. It also reduces the amount of to do lists and spreadsheets I need, because it's just at the top of my email, op, I need to respond. Or if someone says to me, hey, I'd love to partner with you guys but it's going to be another month, I say great.

Dana Dunford:

I'll check back with you in a month, Boomerang in a month and it's back to my inbox and I can respond rather than putting together a task and then checking off the task and then going back to my email and following up. So I've loved Boomerang, it's been super helpful and I think quite a few salespeople use tools like that, but it's been fantastic.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah, I use a feature like that called remind me at Superhuman and it's been similarly life changing because yeah, many, many, many occasions, where it's like, well, how about we talk in October? Or how about we go and do this in three weeks and just be able to quickly be able to set reminders is super, super helpful. On the success side, what is your definition of success?

Dana Dunford:

I think this probably more broad, it's making the world a better place before I leave. So time is very finite, right? We only have a certain amount of time. And we never know when our time is up in this world. But making sure that I do everything possible for people to say, wow, this has changed other people's lives and made them better. And I'm doing that through business, obviously, through Hemlane and feel really passionate about that. But I think for anyone, when I look at other humans, it's what are you doing to make the world a better place from that perspective, and really changing the world and not just doing the same process every day and that really isn't inspirational.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. I love that. When it comes to failure, can you share a favorite failure? And I think what we're looking for there is something that didn't work out for whatever reason, but that taught you something valuable or propelled you in a better direction.

Dana Dunford:

I've got a lot of failures. So one I can think of, it was called Portico, I think we still have the Portico Instagram handle. So basically, Frank and I had started by saying, hey, the process to qualify tenants is very difficult. If you're looking for tenants, it's very difficult. You have all these people come in and you're trying to qualify, who has great credit, great stable job, etc. What if we create LinkedIn for tenants? And so in other words, instead of going to Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, PadMapper, Apartment List, Zumper and Finding properties, what if there was just one place where a tenant said, here's who I am, here's when my lease is coming up. Here's how qualified I am. And here's what I'm looking for. And you would basically get matched with them before your lease is up to say up, you can connect with this person and invite them to come to a showing, and that way, tenants don't have to look as much for homes as well as you get pre qualified folks right off the bat.

Dana Dunford:

And it completely failed for so many reasons. We don't have time to go over. But I think that really led to me really understanding what are pain points and how to solve them. And realizing that was not one in the industry. It was hard to grapple with, because we were pretty passionate about it. But now in hindsight, I know a lot of reasons why it wouldn't have worked.

Daniel Scrivner:

Did you learn any tricks or clues to be able to tell when you have an idea that's just totally out of left field and is not going to be something that's a common enough pain point?

Dana Dunford:

Yeah, it took us too long. And I think this is where strategy versus hard work plays a huge roll. I think from that perspective, we were doing too much of a parallel to the employment world, where I was relating it to myself, like when I got the job at Apple, I didn't apply. They reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, are you interested in a job? And I said, no, they said, great. We'll see you on Monday morning. And that was how I started a job at Apple. So from that perspective, I was relating it to the same thing, of hey, I'm tired of searching for properties. I just want to see what's out there. But I didn't talk to enough people before building it. We literally started building it. I didn't go out and do any sort of design, user experience research of like, okay, so what would happen is next.

Dana Dunford:

Now, what happens if you get these apartments? What would be your concern? Would you still go out and search for apartments to see if you could find something better? I never asked the right questions and set up a really good design process, which Daniel, you know so much more about than I do. But in hindsight, we definitely should have done that.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah, I think the strategy versus hard work pieces. I love the way you phrased that. I think that's one of those instances where hard work is not going to get you there, grinding harder is not going to make Portico take off, it's kind of taking a step back and really thinking from first principles. Last question, I'm very excited to hear your answer to this one is around gratitude. And the question is just super simple. It's what are you most grateful for in this phase of your life?

Dana Dunford:

That's actually a pretty easy opportunity. I feel like when I left business school, there was this weight on my shoulders to do something big, then I had this opportunity, but I didn't have the puzzle pieces. And it actually makes it really stressful. It makes you think, why can't I just go back to 9:00 to 5:00 and not have to think about career and changing the world. But now I feel like we're at the right at place the right time. We're closing around to funding right now. And we have this huge opportunity and we have an incredible team. And so I'm most grateful for that, that it's come together and we have an opportunity to make so many people's lives matter. And that's a really cool feeling.

Daniel Scrivner:

That's very cool. And that's a great note to end on. I know you work a lot, can people follow you on social? Can people find you on social?

Dana Dunford:

Yes, of course you can. My name is Dana Dunford D-A-N-A D-U-N-F-O-R-D the only Dana Dunford you'll see, most of my social says @Hemlane and so anyways, would love for you to follow me there.

Daniel Scrivner:

And where can people go to find out more about Hemlane?

Dana Dunford:

You can go to www.hemlane which is H-E-M-L-A-N-E .com.

Daniel Scrivner:

Thank you so much for coming on, Dana.

Dana Dunford:

Great. Thanks, Daniel.