If good instincts make a good entrepreneur, consider Reannah Glover blessed.
“One thing about me — that’s helped me tremendously — is I’ve always sought advice from people,” Glover says. “And what’s neat is that entrepreneurs, no matter if they’re billionaire entrepreneurs or what level they are, they love to help people.”
Including apparently Kendra Scott — yes, the Kendra Scott of entrepreneurial fashion fame.
Hoping to glean some wisdom from Kendra Scott, Glover guessed her email address, pounded out a message on the keyboard, made sure she had a catchy subject line, and hit send.
Emails are free, after all, Glover reminds me.
“I knew I needed to write something that would make her want to open the email,” Glover says. “So, I wrote, ‘Cowgirl Tech Startup.’ And she told me, ‘When I saw that on the subject line, I was like, what?’ She opened it up and read my story.”
Glover nailed it — email address, strategy, tactics … everything.
That email and, ultimately a phone conversation are all part of Glover’s journey to this day: The formal launch of The Real Time App, a PropTech platform that keeps realtors and their clients up to date every step of the way during the often complicated process of buying or selling a house.
The platform allows agents and clients to track every step of the deal in real time. It details the timeline and deadlines for the buyer and seller. She says it eliminates chaos from scattered emails, spreadsheets, texts and other apps. Clients have access to every detail of their experience through the realtor’s subscription.
Glover, 31, the founder and president of The Real Time App, brought to the enterprise an unconventionality and ideas born from a real estate career of more than 12 years and in excess of $140 million in closed residential real estate deals.
“At the start, my sales activities were chaotic, un-coordinated and frankly, all over the place,” Glover says. “As I grew as a realtor, I became passionate about helping myself, other agents and clients communicate better, stay organized, and definitely reduce stress during the buying/selling process. I designed Real Time App to simplify the transaction process.”
The subscription price for the app is $39 a month with annual and volume discounts available for teams and brokerages. A free trial is available on the website.
Glover conducted a soft launch in September. A couple hundred agents tested it. She says the reviews were good and the trials allowed them to work through any glitches.
A new Fort Worth resident, Glover — a West Texan from head to sole and soul — headed east, where the wide expanse of God’s country begins, to get this off the ground.
She is a client of TechFW, the nonprofit that since 1998 has served as Fort Worth’s leading startup incubator and accelerator. Proudly Fort Worth–made, the app was built by Agency Habitat.
She had a connection to Agency Habitat through a close friend.
“The first thing I did was an attorney to trademark and help me before I ever went out,” Glover says. “They introduced me to some companies up north that did development. I was going to go with whoever was best. If I have to fly, I’ll fly.
“But the designers at Agency Habitat were so strong. The design was so important to me. I wanted it to feel good, to flow. When you opened it up, it brought you peace. I know that sounds funny, but real estate’s so crazy. I wanted it to where when you opened it up, it didn’t give you more anxiety. I wanted it to be just like, ‘Ah, here’s my business. Here’s everything. Great.’ That’s why I went with Fort Worth.”
Glover’s story coincidentally mirrors Scott’s just a bit.
Glover is a native of Bandera, a town in the Hill Country, the “Cowboy Capital of the World.” Not surprisingly, she was a barrel racer, a pursuit that led her to Big Spring and Howard College.
She had been in school for a semester when she discovered that the college fund her grandparents had left her had, ahem, disappeared.
“It was one of those moments where it was like, ‘Man, I can sit here and be mad and angry about it, or I can do something.’”
She found a job at a bar in Midland, a 40-minute drive from Big Spring. She commuted to and fro Big Spring the second semester. She went to school and rode during the day, and she worked the bar at night.
That schedule, as well as the economics, weren’t sustainable.
“I knew I couldn’t keep it up,” she says. “I was paying for horses, truck, trailer. Everything had a payment.”
That summer after her freshman year, Glover was introduced to real estate in Midland. She planned to study business in school anyway, so why not just jump in headfirst?
“I never thought I would be a college dropout, but I was like, you know, why don’t I try this for a few months? If I like it, then I can pursue real estate. And if not, I’ll just step right back in and get back to my business degree.
“I loved it.”
She made good money and darted ahead, like any good barrel racer, of her would-be college classmates.
“I think college is awesome, but for my journey, it didn’t look that way,” she says. “It was a huge blessing the time I had [at Howard College], but I just went straight into working.”
And she got to meet Kendra Scott, another “college dropout.” Scott followed her teenage-beloved from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to College Station and Texas A&M.
Scott moved to Austin. There she began making jewelry out of a spare bedroom. Suffice to say, it all worked out for her. Her net worth is $900 million, according to Forbes, which keeps tabs on these things.
Glover was an admirer before hitting send. She had taken interest in her career and read her autobiography.
After receiving the email, Scott’s assistant reached out to Glover. The fashion mogul said she could give 30 minutes of her time.
“We ended up sitting on the phone for an hour, and she walked me through so much stuff and just gave me so much advice and so many thoughts,” Glover says. “That was one of her things — being a college dropout, being unconventional, lean into that. All from a random email.
“Emails are free.”
It’s amazing what can happen when pressed by circumstances into getting out of the comfort zone of a saddle. Oh, yes, and you hit send on an email. A free email.