TUP EP 116

Nomination: [00:00:00] I am proud to recommend my dear friend Emily Levin, who is the co-founder of the Revolutionary Company Access. With Access, Emily's able to combine her [00:00:15] deep care of those in need with the modern technology that allows their basic needs of housing to be taken care of. I'm inspired by the work Emily is doing and can't wait to see how many lives will be changed by it.

Welcome

Aransas Savas: to the [00:00:30] Uplifters where we share stories of courage, transformation, and the brave leaps that change everything. I'm your host Aza, and today I am introduce you Levi, who[00:00:45]

someone who has herself. From a trauma therapist working one-on-one with clients to a tech founder [00:01:00] tackling one of our most pressing social issues, the affordable housing crisis. Emily's journey began on the front lines, helping chronically mentally ill New Yorkers transition from the streets and to stable housing, which led.[00:01:15]

But she always knew that individual healing wasn't enough. The system itself needed to change. And so a year ago, she made a leap that might have terrified her [00:01:30] former self. She co-founded a company called Access with her husband, creating the first AI platform that streamlines affordable housing processes.

It's a company that's already raising capital, signing customers, [00:01:45] and generating actual revenue, all while getting families into safe, affordable homes faster. So today Emily's gonna share her story of releasing old narratives about who she thought she could be, the daily rituals that help [00:02:00] her build courage, capital, and how a photo of her daughters keeps her brave even when conversation about transformation.

Motherhood and the compound interest of courage. Emily, [00:02:15] thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. So take me back to that kitchen table moment. Last summer when your husband shared his vision for access, what was it about that conversation that made you [00:02:30] say against all odds?

I'm in. My

Emily Levin: husband has been building government technology products for many years and has built many different products for many different city agencies. During COVID, he [00:02:45] started working for a New York City agency building the affordable housing lottery system. And so because we. I was privy to a lot of his experience with building that product, and we [00:03:00] talked a lot about his frustrations and how much he was learning about the affordable housing industry and how broken it's, and how broken and siloed the various systems are.

He also on the [00:03:15] side started building access, which is the AI.

A around what?[00:03:30]

When he decided he wanted to go to market, we were sitting down talking about it, and it was just him at the time. He didn't have any other people that he had been building [00:03:45] it with and he had technologists helping him, but no one really with really the people skills or the experience in the market actually, that I had had as a social worker.

And he kind of looked at me like. So, [00:04:00] and I kind of panicked and I just said, you know what, let's just give this a try. Let's see if I can do this with you. And honestly, if you had told me I, you know. [00:04:15] Before that moment, if I would ever start a company with my husband, I would've said no way. But there was something really compelling about what he was building and my having [00:04:30] kind of lived on the ground with people in that experience that made me feel like, I don't even know if it was fully a choice.

It was like this. And so from that moment on, I've just [00:04:45] been going full force.

Aransas Savas: Wow. I love to this point that it's really tapping into your innate expertise because as women we tend to underestimate our credibility and our readiness to [00:05:00] do new things, and what I hear you doing is saying. Actually irrefutably.

There is something I know that this guy doesn't know that he needs, and so I'm gonna show up with my expertise and use that as a [00:05:15] stepping stone to gain more confidence and more credibility in other areas. Yep.

Emily Levin: Yes.

Aransas Savas: You've talked about this in the past as not just a single moment, but I love the phrase, the slow enrollment of [00:05:30] possibility.

What does that phrase mean for. I

Emily Levin: working for. I kind of started to feel like a spectator [00:05:45] into all of these amazing, brave experiences that people were flying off into. I guess I kind of was slowly signing myself up to eventually kind of join in there with them [00:06:00] and not be a spectator. Now obviously there's something very active about listening to people and their life experience.

I was just on the sidelines, but I wanted to build something like a [00:06:15] lot of them were. I started to get a lot of women in my practice that were mid to senior career who were working in banking and working in startups, going to business school, and there was some envy. [00:06:30] And I always like to think of envy as a really helpful emotion in that kind of give us direction around what.

And so I think I slowly was kind of signing up and rolling in new experience for [00:06:45] myself, so it was slow. Where it was gonna take me. I just knew I needed something. I wanted a seat at the table.

Aransas Savas: Mm, yeah. I talk about this show doing exactly that for me and for our [00:07:00] audience. And so the goal here is really that if you listen to enough of these stories, you will have so much evidence that you can do big, scary, brave things, that it becomes impossible to say no to your own [00:07:15] calling.

I hear that echoed in your own experience, that you had this front row seat to other people facing their challenges, their fears, their uncertainties. And [00:07:30] finding their way through it. That said to you, Emily, if they can do it, you can too. Yeah, yeah. And you're not just, and this is one of the things that I love about your story, is yes, your experience [00:07:45] working with unhoused people, with people who.

Limited economic access is super relevant to the experience of the product you're developing, but that's not all you're doing. [00:08:00] You're running the business.

Emily Levin: Yeah. Yeah. That's the crazy part. I mean, that's the part that I think is. Every day. I'm sort of like, wait, what? But I love it. I mean, I really love it [00:08:15] and a lot of what I'm doing in running the business at this stage is being out there, meeting people, telling them our story.

I mean, with a startup so much, at least in my experience, is the story that [00:08:30] compelling.

A solution that you have. It's pretty much the most important part of running a company in the early stages. And [00:08:45] so, mm-hmm. I've spent so much time on our story and that could mean pricing. That could mean how are we gonna get from. Revenue to 200 million, whatever number. It's, [00:09:00] see, I'm not a great numbers person, but you know how they're like

Aransas Savas: big, I'll say like, that number's big.

Right, right. Or that one's smaller, right? It's all very relative. It's

Emily Levin: how are we gonna [00:09:15] get to big numbers

Aransas Savas: to be able to say that actually this thing that we already do really well. Is incredibly valuable and like the success is entirely dependent on that. I think it's a really [00:09:30] validating and reassuring idea for those of us who are bravely waiting into something new.

The the things we're not good at necessarily aren't even the most important things.

Emily Levin: Totally. And if we tap into the things we know we're good at, [00:09:45] that's all we need Really. I mean, I don't know. The story isn't all written yet for us, right? We're a beginning company, but I like to think that tapping into my strengths, my husband, tapping into his strengths and kind of going with [00:10:00] that is what's gonna be useful for us.

And it's definitely fascinating moving from a. That was really female centered. It's like moving from that kind of world into like [00:10:15] a very white male world. Mm-hmm. Was a little jarring and actually quite shocking to hear that. I think this statistic is like 1.4% of female run startups get [00:10:30] funded. Like that's just insane.

Like how, and I

Aransas Savas: think only something like 16% of founders or even women,

Emily Levin: I've had so many meetings with investors, you can really tell there's just a bias. [00:10:45] Think is what's build the next unicorn. I think we as women have change that

Aransas Savas: men certainly aren't gonna change that

Emily Levin: they're given the money. Why would they?

Yeah. Yeah,

Aransas Savas: yeah. It on [00:11:00] I That's important to acknowledge too. This idea that I hear in your telling of this, that you are leading from your strengths, not just as an individual but as a woman. And so you're saying this is what makes me [00:11:15] different and this is what makes me better prepared to lead this particular mission.

So what are some of the qualities. That you're noticing have helped you enter these conversations in this [00:11:30] very white, male dominated world with confidence. And I'm not even worried about the credibility piece because I think as women we put too much emphasis on that, but about your own feelings of confidence and readiness to have the conversation.

Emily Levin: Oh boy. [00:11:45] Time just continuing to do it. The practice play a big piece to conjure memories of playing when I was little. When [00:12:00] kids are playing, everything they're doing is made up, right? Mm. I remember playing that. I was a real estate agent as a kid for hours in my room. I would like draw pictures of houses and I would like pretend like I was showing people the [00:12:15] house and I was super into it.

I was an architect, I was a therapist. I had so many. I didn't know what I was doing. It was like all made up, but I loved it and it was this magical world. Some point in [00:12:30] adolescence that kind of stopped because we enter into a different kind of pure world. And honestly, sometimes I will sort of bring that time back where I'm like, you know what?

I'm just gonna play that. I'm a.[00:12:45]

Maybe it won't be pretend anymore, like it isn't actually pretend. So that's been something that I actually have found really useful and exciting. So I think that's a big one. [00:13:00] Community I've worked really hard to find other founders, just participated in the Robinhood Foundation, has a accelerator for impact founders.

And it was a five month program where we all work [00:13:15] together. They, they give us investment and we work as a community on learning a lot of different kind of foundational skills that you need in order to run up a startup. It's a really, really diverse group of people. I [00:13:30] get it. And interrupting that loneliness that you can feel as a founder

Aransas Savas: mm-hmm.

Emily Levin: Really brings confidence in a way because you realize everybody's feeling it. Even that person that just got the 10 million investment and [00:13:45] looks like they're building this

Aransas Savas: huge, you're like, they have it all figured out.

Emily Levin: They don't. We had some amazing women come in and talk to us. Amazing. Like the the founder of Girls Who Code and so many women founders who just shared [00:14:00] their stories and their fears and their anxieties.

And these are people who have founded huge companies that have been really successful and.[00:14:15]

Screaming into your pillow. I, you gotta pull on everything possibly at any given moment to kind of just going.

Aransas Savas: One of the things you talked about was future casting, [00:14:30] and I think that's related to this make believe play that you talked about, but you described it as closing your laptop and imagining you're already that seasoned CEO.

And I love this idea of, of sort of envisioning your [00:14:45] future self. And it's no different than what I do when I envision myself crossing the finish line of a marathon. Yep. Yep. I start to cultivate belief that then inspires action. Anything we do that takes [00:15:00] a lot of energy and investment, physically, mentally, financially, I.

I think from a distance looks really freaking hard and then like you and I have learned through our own endeavors, it's okay. Take a step, [00:15:15] take a deep breath, figure out the next step. And it really is just a series of steps. But you also mentioned community in here and you shared with me earlier that when you feel uncertain or you're going into something that [00:15:30] is unfamiliar, you call your 82-year-old, his.

Emily Levin: The interesting thing about my dad is that my dad has always been very risk averse and had a legal career for [00:15:45] 45, 50 years. Like same practice, the same kind of law. Yet when he's talking to me, especially as an 82-year-old who's retired, and you know, he's raised his kids. He has [00:16:00] his retirement like side a lot scary things.

There's a. To the risks I'm taking and a certain [00:16:15] excitement that I think he feels living kind of vicariously. So just that kind of implicit communication. Like he'll call me every day and be like, so how was the demo? And I went to the library and they [00:16:30] were giving a talk on affordable housing and. You need to send me more decks and like he's, he's so supportive and, and in it with me in a way that is kind of, you can't really [00:16:45] get it from anywhere else other than supportive family member.

And I feel like I. I try to do that with my kids too. In fact, my daughter will be interning for us this summer. She's 13. Not sure what she's gonna be doing, but she's gonna be our intern. [00:17:00] And because I keep saying to myself like, God, this is taking up so much of my time. How can I multitask? Right? Because I'm a woman.

So it's like we're always thinking about how we can multitask my. That's parenting [00:17:15] them, right? If I don't have time to go to their soccer game, but like I can have them sit on calls with me or sit in the background and listen, like I think they're gonna take in something in ways that maybe they miss out on me [00:17:30] being there all the time.

I don't know. So I'm trying to actually replicate what my father is.

And that feels really amazing. I have to say. I have a 13-year-old and a 3-year-old, a three year old's a little less aware, but [00:17:45] 13-year-old, I had a pitch for a demo day that I had to do and I was pitching for her constantly. And now she like walks around the house, reciting my pitch. She's like, I know your pitch, mom.

Do you wanna hear it? And she'll just say it like, with all the numbers [00:18:00] I'm.

Especially really. I hope she'll get something from that [00:18:15] because she knows that I'm really a therapist and now I'm, she's like whiplash.

Aransas Savas: Wow. What an incredible story and experience for her. Yeah. And for you.

Emily Levin: Yeah. Yeah. It's super fun. I'm gonna make her business cards and [00:18:30] actually one of her friends is gonna intern as well.

I don't know. We'll find things like she knows how to use the computer in I, for me, she can go on and figure out ways to advertise our company, [00:18:45] find figure.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. What a beautiful thing to be able to say to both of you too. We don't have to know all the answers. Yeah. We'll figure it out.

Emily Levin: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: How does relationship with your daughter and motherhood in general influence your own [00:19:00] willingness to keep learning and pushing through obstacles in this process?

Emily Levin: I mean, I think it goes both ways, right? Like a part of me is like, okay, my husband and I are taking this big risk. We're building this company [00:19:15] to what expense does that for our children? Who like, could we be saving more money or, but the way that I counter that is sort of by saying they're watching us as a couple live out our dreams.[00:19:30]

And not just our passion for affordable housing and changing it, but our passion to build something that doesn't yet fully exist. So that keeps me going when I'm like, oh, I could see more patients and make more money and save that [00:19:45] money. I'm like, yes, I could do that. But also what they're hopefully learning implicitly is something invaluable that doesn't come in money.

Aransas Savas: So much richer. I think about that all the [00:20:00] time that I'm not earning as much now. Mm-hmm. As I did in my corporate career. I'm not getting annual merit increases. Right. And I'm getting incredible growth in [00:20:15] so many other ways. Yeah. And so I just started telling myself that like this year's bonus is, yep.

Snack time, right? This year's bonus is, and just like naming these things in the [00:20:30] same terms for myself to more consciously equate the value of them. Because I think we do grow up with at least many of us, so many strong messages about money is worth and value, and there's just so much more [00:20:45] to finding our own path.

But for me, it really does help to. Give them the same names I used to give them.

Emily Levin: Yep. I love that.

Aransas Savas: Oh, look what I, look where I gotta raise this year.

Emily Levin: Right? Right. Like you're not putting it into the 5 29, but [00:21:00] you're, I think nowadays, we talked a lot about, in the accelerator program that I was in, we talked a lot about like we're at a real inflection point as a culture and a society.

Right. It happening. I [00:21:15] mean, being in the startup world. It's unbelievable how fast AI is moving in.

Aransas Savas: You guys are, are tackling an affordable housing crisis Yep. Through technology. Yeah. For people who might [00:21:30] not understand the scope of this problem.

Emily Levin: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: Bring your daughter on please to give us the pitch.

Okay.

Emily Levin: Totally. So when I was working as a social worker helping families navigate the affordable housing process, [00:21:45] I was working with a mom who was a single mom of three. She had been living in a shelter for over nine months, and throughout those nine months she had been applying to to housing. She had a good job.

She had good credit, good, but [00:22:00] because of the broken system, she had to take paper applications to all of the different housing facilities to apply.

Fact.[00:22:15]

She had to go in person. She wasn't allowed to like do a virtual walkthrough or all the things that exist in market rate units that you can do does not exist for affordable housing. And so [00:22:30] eventually, I mean, we were trying and trying and she had to maintain her job. She had to maintain like the three children.

Eventually she just gave up. There's 30 million Americans in the US that qualify for affordable housing. Only [00:22:45] one in five actually receive it. In New York City, a huge percentage of people that get housing vouchers don't actually end up using them

Music: because

Emily Levin: of. Many different aspects of the [00:23:00] system. There's overregulation.

I mean, Ezra Kle has been talking a lot about this idea of sort of deregulating housing so that we can just get housing built and get people moved in. So because of these broken [00:23:15] systems, property managers who manage these properties, it takes 80 hours to lease up one unit.

Aransas Savas: Unreal.

Emily Levin: If they make a mistake in compliance, they can lose up to $7 million per building in tax [00:23:30] credit and vacancies cost property managers $1.5 billion a year vacancies.

So property managers are hemorrhaging money. The these that are managing, you know, affordable units and people aren't getting housed. [00:23:45] So there's a real problem. And most of the property management systems that exist in the market are not built for affordable housing. They don't deal with the layers of complexity with compliance.

I mean, it's very, very complex system. [00:24:00] So we have built a suite of products that uses AI to read applications. So that 80 hour lease up, which a. Application packets [00:24:15] being 150 pages long because people have to submit all of their paychecks. Now with the gig economy, you know, people are working for Uber, they're working for DoorDash, they have all different forms of income.

There's [00:24:30] many, many different things that go.

So it cuts the lease up. Time for property manage sort saves them money and it gets people housed faster. We [00:24:45] also have a wait list management product. Now property managers are using pen and paper for a wait list. The average wait time to get into affordable housing is like nine years or something because the wait list is on pen.[00:25:00]

Half of those people are no longer eligible. Some of them aren't even alive. Some of them have moved out of the country,

Aransas Savas: and I'm sure they [00:25:15] just reach out and they're like, Hey, you're up. And then there's some waiting period for that person to answer until finally they're kicked out of the queue and then we go through it again.

Emily Levin: Yeah, I mean, it's absurd. They'll send a letter in the mail. To the address [00:25:30]

Aransas Savas: because people who are looking for a house have super stable residences in general. Right? Totally, totally makes sense.

Emily Levin: So they're sending it to someone's grandmother. It's all just to sort of check off the box. It's not the operator's fault, there just isn't [00:25:45] any other better solution.

The statistics say that like 95% of people living in poverty have cell phones. So people will say to us. These people don't have technology, like how are you gonna [00:26:00] use technology? That's not actually the facts. People have cell phones. There's all kinds of subsidies to get a cell. So we send emails or texts to people through our.[00:26:15]

Every month saying, are you still interested in this unit? Have you moved? Has your income changed? Please let us know if you want us to remove you from the wait list. Seems intuitive, right?

Music: Mm-hmm.

Emily Levin: Just stay in touch with people [00:26:30] and the idea is that it will cut down the wait time significantly and fill units faster and keep operators so they're not losing all their money on vacancies win.

Aransas Savas: I love it. I love it. [00:26:45] Yeah. So I know your next brave step in this is to close your seed round and to scale nationally. Yeah. And then capture your lessons for other founders. What do you most [00:27:00] want that book to say to someone who's sitting where you were a year ago

Emily Levin: to start and.

You don't have to sacrifice [00:27:15] revenue, that you can build something that is changes our society. Changes systems for the better and also make money. And investors have to know that because investors say, these [00:27:30] systems are so overregulated. How are you gonna make money on this? Why would. It's a huge pain point and there's a lot of revenue to be made from these pain points.

Mm-hmm. And you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. And so I [00:27:45] wanna see more female founders in the impact space who are also raising capital and paying themselves. And I think all of those things

Aransas Savas: can happen. What would you say then to the person who [00:28:00] describes themself as words and feelings? Not numbers and capital?

Emily Levin: Yeah, that's me. There's people who can teach you things. If you are passionate about something, the numbers come. They do, they [00:28:15] come together, right? You can hire somebody to do numbers, hire somebody, and in so. I think just start, learn, grow, see what [00:28:30] happens, and just live on

Aransas Savas: the edge to know that that's what we're doing.

And it's by choice. And living on the edge is like instead of it being a place to tumble to your death, it could be a place to jump into a beautiful crystal ocean, [00:28:45] right? I hope the chances are you're gonna swim. Yeah, you'll figure it out. As Uplifters. We love to lift up other uplifters. How can we as a community come together to support you and this [00:29:00] incredible mission?

Emily Levin: That's such a sweet offering. Tell our story to everybody. Go to our website. Tell investors to check us out. Our website is.

Aransas Savas: And who would you [00:29:15] like to nominate for the Uplifters?

Emily Levin: So I would like to nominate my friend Holly Diamond, who is a fellow founder who is incredible. I won't tell her story because I want her to tell her [00:29:30] story, but she is an immigrant. Who has done amazing, amazing things and has so many incredible stories.

Every time she talks, I cry. You'll be blown away.

Aransas Savas: I can't wait to meet her.

Emily Levin: Yeah.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. I'm blown [00:29:45] away by you. Your journey. Thank you. Your courage I think, is so relevant to so many of us, and when I think about. Making big deposits in my Courage Capital account. It always comes from talking to other people Totally, who are doing that [00:30:00] too.

It's like you've just compounded my interest, Emily, and I wish you so much continued success. Thank you.

Emily Levin: Thank you. I can't wait

Aransas Savas: to watch this all unfold and all that you'll learn in the journey. Thank you. [00:30:15] Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation [00:30:30] over@theuplifterspodcast.com.

Head over to Spotify, apple Podcast, or. Wherever you get your podcast and like, follow and rate our show, it'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure [00:30:45] you never miss one of these beautiful stories.

Music: Big love painted water, sunshine with rosemary, and I'm dwelling perplex. No, you find it [00:31:00] faxing.

Toss a star for be around best love for relish in a new prime land, a tree in springtime dance. With that all hindsight, bring the sun to twilight. [00:31:15] Lift you up. Whoa. Lift you up.

Lift you up. Whoa, [00:31:30] lift you up.

Lift you up.

Lift you.

Lift you [00:31:45] up.

Lift you up.

Beautiful. I cried. Isn't [00:32:00] that little thing you did with your voice, right? In the pre-course, right? Uhhuh. I was like, mommy, stop.

Nomination: Mommy, stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.