VidTech’s cofounder, Jason Schwetz, began his career in CRE in 1986 as a Property Manager, then a leasing Broker, a Tenant, and ultimately a Landlord. In 2018, Jason was looking to acquire a property over 1,000 miles away. Typically, he would hop on a plane, walk the site, jot down some notes, take photos, and then return home to review. After repeating this process numerous times, he began to think there must be a better way.
Finally, as he was about to fly across the country to look at another property, he got a bright idea. He would hire a drone pilot to capture footage of the property on his behalf, giving precise instructions as to how the property should be shot. So that’s exactly what he did. Once he got the footage back, he was blown away because it told him everything he needed to know…without the time and travel expenses.
Then Jason got a second idea. He could make it even better by adding the property data he’d typically have in an Offering Memorandum over the video. This was so effective that he started doing it for other properties, replacing his use of an OM entirely. Not only did this work incredibly for him, but the people receiving them (investors, other brokers, property owners) started asking him how they could do this for their properties. Thus, the Videom (Video + Offering Memorandum) was born almost by accident.
Once Jason started using Videoms regularly, he could never imagine what life was like before them, and he recognized he wasn’t alone. The use of a PDF OM that he knew by experience barely got read all the way through (if at all) suddenly seemed so archaic. He saw an obvious hole in the market, so he decided to fill it. However, he knew he wasn’t about to leave commercial real estate entirely. So, he looked for a cofounder. Someone passionate and capable enough to take the helm and help him build a company around this idea.
After a lot of searching, Jason found that person in Evan Brandt. Evan brought an impressive marketing, sales, and technology background to complement Jason’s CRE background. The two created a vision for bringing Video-as-a-Service to Commercial Real Estate and named the company Videoms (later rebranded to VidTech).
The two started with some basic fundamentals. They would:
- Laser focus on only the CRE industry
- Service every stage of a property’s life cycle
- Deliver the highest quality digital products through a simple, defined process at a reasonable price
- Utilize deep CRE industry knowledge to become an invaluable extension of their Clients’ teams
- Build a top-tier team capable of providing at-the-ready coverage across all of North America
Over the course of building the business, other products were introduced, such as the “Vidspection” which provides construction monitoring and project oversight. So, they decided to rebrand the entire product suite, including the original Videom, under one name: VidTech. Four years later, with a team of 80+, VidTech is now the number one provider of CRE video in the U.S. Videoms are currently considered a critical component in closing deals for North America’s largest and most successful brokerage houses. All because Jason didn’t want to get on one more plane.