November 2020: Parul Bansal

About Parul Bansal

As a strategist, journalist and poet, Parul explores future narratives of connection. Her work focuses on housing, technology and the arts, sectors that are shaping our behaviour in different planes of being. She works with organizations that are creating novel real estate and tech solutions and pushing the edges of our current models. Parul uses storytelling and experience design to bring forward challenging conversations and unpack complex systems, from individual perception to social dynamics. She holds a bachelor of science from McMaster University; post-graduate certification in negotiation from Harvard University, and a fellowship in journalism from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Policy, University of Toronto. Parul is currently an artist-in-resident at Ukai’s year long residency, exploring cultural, community and technology. 

In Conversation with Parul

Below is a transcript of the Proptech Collective spotlight series interview with Parul Bansal by Stephanie Wood. Some questions and responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Let’s start with a little bit of background about your story and the path on how you got to where you are today.

I currently work at the intersection of art-tech-real estate. My journey has been a nonlinear journey. I followed the thread of curiosity as my compass. 

I started my career in healthcare tech, after I completed a biology degree at McMaster, where I translated strategy to technical language then implemented these tools to frontline workers. I was given a simulated environment to test how technology was received by end users. Clearly this was a long time ago, before user tracking software existed. 

This experience informed my career: understanding how to develop solutions that aligned with how humans function on a behavioral, emotional and psychological level. Thinking through the most efficient way from a human perspective, not necessarily from a process perspective. Since we can't truly be efficient if the human perspective is not optimized. 

Hopping forward, I started building tech tools to optimize the human experience in residential real estate. I was mentored by Venture Labs, an affiliate of MaRS. I went to India to meet developers and went to the U.S. to find investors. I loved the work I was doing, bringing together tech and residential real estate made me feel at home (pun intended). 

But it was also very uncomfortable at times. Investors were wealthy white men in the U.S. that didn’t share the same humanistic approach I did. I felt like I was being asked to bend my values, anyways, long story short, I decided to take a step back. And I'm happy I did.

It must have been an exciting space, but also a very tough one to be in. When you look at who has traditionally been in the “power seat” in real estate, it probably felt challenging at times.

At the time, people in the tech innovation community were really trying to support me. I don’t think I fully understood why and looking back, I'm like, oh yeah, it’s because there weren't very many people that look like me. 

After I took a step back, I moved into a residential real estate agent role. Still looking at it from a systems design perspective and trying to understand how to elevate the human experience. It was like a science experiment; selling real estate is a simple process, yet the variables in a transaction are broad and attributed to the emotional and behavioural responses of people. 

To better support the human experience (the variables), I studied the emotional and behavioural responses through practicing neuro-linguistic programming and studying negotiation via an executive program at Harvard. I really dug into the way we communicate and the patterns of language.  

It sounds like you were trying to bring the human aspect back to real estate?

The concept of a “home” is deep.  It’s where your family is. It's the centerfold of your feelings, of safety and belonging. And it's also your biggest financial investment – so, no wonder there's a lot of emotion and stress around purchasing a property. 

Concurrently at that time, I co-owned a photography studio at Adelaide and John in 2015. It was an experimental studio space, the home of Toronto Men's Fashion Week, and one of my entry points into the art world.

In 2016, I worked at Sonder where I launched the Toronto market for them. Sonder was much smaller then, with less than 70 people at the company. 

What did you learn while at Sonder?

I joined Sonder because I saw it as a way to introduce people to our city. A way for people to meet Toronto, or any city for that matter. We don't really talk about countries… We talk about cities. We say I am going to New York, rather than the United States.

That’s an important distinction – that every city has its own personality and nuances. Toronto is different from Calgary, which is different from Vancouver… When you look today at residential PropTech companies, they typically will launch different “city” markets separately. In almost all cases, you won’t have the same strategy work the exact same way in two different places – there’s no one size fits all in real estate.

Through Sonder I had the opportunity to help people feel a city through the experience of where they were staying. We generally had two days to make an impression on them. For me, it was a beautiful marriage of real estate and creativity, allowing me to share my love for cities and my love for Toronto.

While at Sonder, I lobbied for them at the municipal level during the short-term rental discussion – I was sitting at the table with Airbnb, Booking.com and other hotels alternatives. It was a fascinating experience to understand how we serve Toronto. 

Did you see any big changes that were made because of this lobbying? What were some of the big takeaways from that experience?

I am not a lobbyist. However this was critical to Sonder’s success in Toronto, so my approach was to talk to and meet every single stakeholder group to gather a fuller perspective of the ecosystem. I tried to meet with people from “opposing” sides, and I quote opposing because we're not really opposing, we just have varying interests. This was my attempt at identifying a cohesive solution for the broader ecosystem of Toronto. Through this work I gained a ton of visibility and understanding of different stakeholder groups. 

It also provoked me to attend the Munk School of Global Affairs at University of Toronto as a journalism fellow, focusing on humanizing city building. 

How are you carrying these experiences forward into your initiatives today?

I am an advisor and a consultant for urban-centered organizations helping them with strategy and storytelling. I facilitate challenging conversations, unpack complex problems from values and identity to working with various stakeholder groups. This requires me to: understand the ecosystem. What are the interests of all the players? How are we offering them value? 

I am the executive director of an artist residency called Anda. Where we use art to talk about urban issues and advocate for civic engagement.

I am also the founder and curator of Radical Cities, a platform that uses cultural micro experiments, ranging from art experiences to interview experts, to imagine futures of cities. 

What’s something interesting you've learned through working with some of these companies?

People use the word disruption a lot. But, if you think about it, disruption is invasive. It does not honour what exists and is impactful to the human in that existing system. I am more interested in the expansion of options. How do we increase the optionality that people have, because the current options aren't serving everyone? 

What options can we create to further democratize access? I’m interested in creating different and multiple entry points into our housing economy, enabling broader wealth distribution. 

We are all aware of the housing affordability issues in Toronto and cities across the world. There’s lots happening in this space to help young people try to build equity and enter the real estate market. 

The current system is designed for people that have wealth. We need creative solutions to create optionality, and democratize access. That leads into why I am in the PropTech field. Real estate shapes our built environment and how we interact with the world. Technology is shaping our social fabric and the way we communicate with one another.  Art allows space for abstraction so we can think about things differently. All together these elements can elevate the human experience.

Shifting the lens forward, what in PropTech really excites you right now - looking ahead three to five years are there any trends you’re following? 

I am really, really excited about what's going to happen in PropTech. The last few years of innovations have been focused on the commercial side of real estate, which I totally understand since it's a more cohesive sector. I think we're going to see some interesting ideas come forward on the residential side. 

Concepts like fractional ownership and cohabitation are growing quickly. As well as, evolution in community engagement at the condo level; integrating more technology and leveraging concepts like sharing economy. This could change the way that we will build buildings moving forward. 

As well, Covid-19 has provoked us to question isolation and the home. A big question to address is how can we mitigate the feelings of loneliness in how we live. Technology and housing play equal roles in solving for this as they shape our built and social environments.

⚡If you could time travel to any year, which one would you go to…

Pangea: when the world was one continent. 

I want to see what the world was really like, versus what the history textbooks tell us.

⚡What inspires you?

Nature. 

⚡Your morning routine is…

I want to feel alive in the morning. I try to ignite all the five senses. I light some incense, make some tea, poke my head outside, meditate, and dance it out every morning. 

⚡What's a great book that you've read recently?

The book Sand Talks by Tyson Yunkaporta has forever changed my perspective. The author illustrates how indigenous practices can be applied to the systems of our current world. It is beautiful, hilarious and non-conformist.

⚡If you had a superpower, what would it be?

To hug anyone in the world who needed one.

 I think we forget what a nice hug reminds us of – that we are alive and connected. Our feet are on the ground, and that our hearts are in our body. That we matter. Each and every one of us.