"You Can Create These Amazing Experiences" Mykal Bush - LYSTPROS - Matterpod Ep. 11

You don't want to miss this awesome conversation with Mykal Bush from Lyst Pros about the Matterport Pro 3, advice for Matterport Providers and much more!

To get in touch with Mykal, give him a follow on Instagram (@lystpros) and send him a message.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Matter Pod. Today we are joined by Michael Busch from List Prose. We're super grateful and excited to jump in and chat with him about Matterport and all things virtual tour related. So Mike, thanks so much for taking the time to be on the call. We really appreciate it.

Oh, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.

So to go ahead and get started. Michael, would you mind just introducing our listeners to list pros, the different services that you guys offer and maybe chat about how long you've been in the industry and how you kind of started this process and got everything going?

Sure. So we are primarily a real estate media company. We serve as everything from, you know, real estate agents, brokerages. We have a lot of designer clients and builder clients that we service as well. We've been doing this 12 years now, and we were a very early adopter of Matterport when they first rolled out the the pro one camera.

So however many years ago that's been we had one of the first versions. So yeah, that's kind of essential. What we do, we do anything from photography to aerial. Certainly the Matterport Floorplans, I think it's probably the general scope of what a lot of real estate media companies do and or trying to get into is what we cover.

So that's awesome. Well, I can see in the video you've got the camera right behind you. And so let's let's jump right into it. What has your experience been like so far using the Pro three camera and how would you compare it to the pro two, especially for real estate and what you use Matterport for on a regular basis?

Sure. So we specifically purchased the pro three camera for our builder clients. We do a lot of construction scanning for way. Some builders refer to it as six way depending on the industry. Just at that inspection phase of everything. And we wanted to make sure that we had a camera that could scan longer distances and was as accurate.

If you've ever scanned with a pro, one pro to there, there can be some issues with larger spaces. So that was really the catalyst that kind of pushed us to order the Pro three. And since doing so, we've really kind of put it through its paces in terms of what it produces in the back end, what we can do with it with outside stuff.

And we've actually matched it up against some of our our pro camera gear. Looking at a solution that we can possibly use there as an all in one solution for even a realtor clients, I think one of the large advantages I know there's lots of forums that have conflicting information on, you know, the the pros, the cons. My experience with the pro three specifically is that it's one lens.

So you don't get a lot of the artifacts that you do with the pro two. So it's a much cleaner image, a lot less editing if you're using it for any, you know, extracted images. So for that reason, we love it. We feel that it really marries well when we, you know, use it with software such as open house, for example.

Like it just it's a much cleaner presentation in our opinion.

Yeah, that's that's incredible. I know you and I offline have chatted a little bit about comparing photos that you can pull from the pro three camera and like you said, comparing that with some of your, you know, DSLR professional camera equipment. Talk me talk to me a little bit more that more about that. I know you are a photography guru and definitely know that space well and so how would you say if I have photos that I'm pulling from the Pro three versus your camera setup that you normally use?

Like what? What what do you think about it?

Yeah, I mean, I, I've been in this industry a long time. I've been a realtor for over 20 years, so I've kind of been through a lot of aspect of, you know, real estate and listing specifically. We even had a brokerage of our own working with a lot of listing agents, and there was kind of a common thread and some out there obviously may know this too, that you've got your really good client base that you know, understands the importance and value of quality media.

And then you have kind of that subcategory where for lack of a better term, they are very cost conscious and they don't want to spend a lot of money on media. And we've seen kind of a transition. I think a lot of us is, you know, iPhones and Android phones. The camera quality is improving tremendously. Matterport even offering some type of a solution that you can use with your phone.

So I think the question for us is how can we kind of evolve and adapt, even though our primary services photography and utilize the tools that we already have. And for us with the Pro three, we really see kind of some light there, to be honest with you, for for those clients. I guess to backtrack a little bit, for those clients that are cost conscious, which I think many of them are.

How do we add more value that can also put more money to our bottom line and watch our costs that we're spending on outsourced editing. If if you're doing so time in the field, time behind your desk. So that's why we're really looking at, you know, Matterport and specifically the Pro three to evolve our media company and offer that all in one solution where it's like a one time on site scan and with the pro three even exterior images, we've actually edited quite a few.

And you know, with some basic editing, you're getting a really good deliverable image. This is certainly my opinion, but I would say a vast majority of people looking at listings as a consumer are probably doing so on their phone or their iPad. And, you know, for me, you know, we're editing on multiple monitors and we're seeing these things huge.

And it's easy for us to pick apart the smallest of details. But really, people are looking at this on a phone that's, you know, six inches, you know, wide basically when you're looking at it. And if they're not looking at it in landscape.

So we and your eyes are going to see way more imperfections or things you're like, oh, well, it's not quite as good because you've looked at thousands and thousands of photos. But to your average person who's just looking at a real estate listing, would you say that you think the images that you can pull from the Pro three are more than sufficient and you're real estate agents that you've done work for have been happy with the photos that you've been able to pull from them as an all in one solution?

Yeah, we actually have a client that that's all they request is that service from us now. So we kind of set an expectation with them. We're certainly not the least expensive media company in terms of photography. We've kind of become known for the quality that we provide. But it's an alternative solution for, well, really anybody you know, it doesn't have to be a certain category of agent one who has 20 listings a month versus one who has, you know, two years.

The quality to us, even setting that expectation with them. Sure, there are limitations, but nothing significant that we found that wouldn't allow us to move forward and actually offering this is like a long term solution.

iPhone cameras, Android cameras are so good these days that it's not that difficult to do real estate photography. But with the added value of the 3D tour and a 3D floorplan or a 2D floorplan, you're adding those additional content elements that they're not able to get from just your standard iPhone or Android camera, and you're able to do it for a similar price.And so you're still maintaining your profits or you're making money on your bottom line while adding more value to the real estate agent. Is that is that what I'm understanding?

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, very, very accurate. You know, we we do see a change coming for us. You know, when when I first got in this industry, there was two photographers in my particular town, my my being one of them. And now when you look through, there's 20 or 30 plus actual real estate photographers. We're a little bit smaller market.

We're close to Las Vegas, but we don't really stretch that much down into to that market. So now that there is quite a bit more saturation, you know, how can we I mean, I think some of it's how do we differentiate ourselves with a tool and really get it out there in an AR market specifically, people are aware of Matterport, but you don't see a lot of them still on listings.

So I think it's a good move for us to really kind of push that to market even more and show the flexible ality of what it can do. And then certainly with the ability through Open House to be able to brand these either to our company and or for our clients. I mean, that's huge. You know, we're not just sending a generic link, you know, here's your Matterport scan.

So we've really enjoyed that. I'm I'm big on branding myself and I love the ability to make it feel like hours when we're not really looking to go down the path of, you know, custom developing something. You know, we just are really grateful for all that we can offer to our clients, that it also makes it feel like it's theirs too, in a way.

Speaker 2So totally. Do you feel like, Michael, you mentioned that you still don't see a ton of listings that have Matterport Tours as the housing market has kind of slowed down a little bit in the last couple of months. Have you seen the change in demand for Matterport Tours? Has that gone up or down or has it kind of stayed around the same as before?

What are your thoughts about that?

Interestingly enough, we're probably doing anywhere from 7 to 12 Matterport scans a week currently. Still. Wow, we have a lot of vacation rental clients and we've we've worked with them for quite a while and they're utilizing that Matterport for, you know, visibility through like VR bio, for example, and their channels that they post to. So on the real estate side of things, I don't know that I'm the best judge necessarily of, you know, are we seeing more or less on listings.

I think I think we're probably seeing more of a need to market differently than we were, you know, 6 to 12 months ago where things and most areas were flying off the shelves. So I think it's a good opportunity for us in this space right now to offer a solution like this where you can get more eyes on it.

People can have that experience. And I, I hope I answer your question kind of indirectly.

Totally.

Okay.

Yeah. No, no, no. You're good. That was perfect. It is going to be interesting to watch it continue to unfold. We posted a an Instagram release this past week talking about Apple, who's planning to launch their a AR VR hardware product this spring sometime. And so as the hardware for digesting this 3D type content also continues to improve in the coming year or two years, three years.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when it comes to the demand for added portrait and 3D content as well, because right now, I mean, like you said, most people are viewing listings on their six inch phone, which honestly for a Matterport tour is not an ideal user experience. It's not bad, but it's not a great medium for being able to that type of content.

So my hypothesis is that as hardware continues to advance, i.e. companies like Apple releasing hardware that make this type of content easier to digest, it's going to become a must have. If you're trying to sell a home, you're going to want to be able to view that via 3D glasses and walk around, Look at what you want when you want to do it type of thing.

So I think it'll be interesting to watch over the next year or so. One final thing I wanted to chat with you about is you've been in the industry for a lot of years now. You've got a lot of experience. There's a lot of people out there who maybe are doing Matterport tours or photography services kind of as a side hustle hobby type thing, but maybe would like to get into doing it more full time and take that leap.

And so what advice would you have for someone who is maybe newer in the industry and is just getting started? How would you advise them about trying to expand their services business and grow to a place where it can become maybe a full time gig?

Speaker 1Sure. I think one of the best things in talking about someone who might be new to the industry or new to real estate photography and they want to add Matterport. I'm sure they've seen or you're aware of those solutions, like using, you know, a Ricoh camera or, you know, a 360 camera. That's a good entry point to to start letting clients know that you do offer these.

And I think gradually over time as your use case changes, upgrading to different equipment. We still have two pro two cameras as well that we use primarily for real estate, the pro three we're using for our other use cases, but we still use them for for just traditional listings or for vacation rentals. I would say for anyone who's maybe been doing this a little bit longer and might have a Matterport camera that made that investment that's having a little bit of trouble finding out where it fits would be dusted off, get it, get it out of its case and and scan some unique spaces.

I can't say I advocate much for just giving things away for free, but if it's content that you can use on your own site for marketing, you could you could go to like a public space, for example, show the uniqueness of it. You can use this with Google and especially and I'm going to refer to to what you guys are doing at Open House so you can create these amazing experiences that can connect to so many different things.

You could even potentially start another, you know, a competing business with yourself as just a tour provider, you know, offer the service through your primary business, but also take some time and just offer just those services exclusively. So I think there's some ways that, you know, you can be creative with this. We've scanned some local businesses with a few mom, mom, pop type shops that didn't have a lot of visibility online yet.

And, you know, they were very welcoming with the idea. And we went in and scanned their space and they thought it was incredible. And now with being able to do the shoppable experiences, I guess to kind of wrap this up, I can conclude this with working with realtors for so many years. It's easy to kind of get fixated that that's your client's set.

And if you if you really open up to the idea of, you know, businesses, vacation rentals, outdoor spaces, even, you know, public squares, things like that and create those experiences, I think people would see a lot of different activity for their own business.

Totally. I love I love what you said about dust off the camera and just go try and scan something. You don't necessarily have to give it away for free. But like you said, if you can benefit from using that content for your own purposes, maybe you scan a local mom and pop shop for free for somebody, but then you can go to a different mom and pop shop said, Oh yeah, we did this tour for so-and-so.

We'd love to do something similar for you. And then there you have a marketing or a selling tool to, you know, use with a future or potential new client. And so I think that that's that's a super awesome piece of insight and advice for people looking to try and grow and expand. Awesome. Michael We really appreciate you taking the time to to chat with us today.

I think there's been some super good insights on the Pro three camera, how it fits in in your tool belt and also how people can grow their their Matterport business in general. So thanks so much for being with us today.

I really appreciate it. Kristen, Thank you so much.

Michael, If people want to reach out to you and ask you further questions, what's the best way for people to find you? Maybe on Instagram, social media, What's what's the best way?

Yeah. Ah, Instagram is at list pros. It's l y s t process we're pretty active on there and might be the most responsive way is through our Instagram. We're happy to connect with anybody and answer any questions and we can always take the conversation further.

Speaker 2So for sure, if you're looking to get ideas on beautiful content that you can post to your Instagrams, go check out list pros because, well, first thing, they're in charge of the parade of homes in southern Utah this year. And so Michael's capturing all the photos and the videos of some of these beautiful 3 to $5 million custom homes in southern Utah.

So go check out Michael's content. He does an awesome job there. So go get them to follow. But thanks again, Michael We'll we'll we'll be chat with you soon. I'm sure.

Appreciate it, you guys. Thank you.