How AI and Operational Excellence Are Reshaping Community Management with Ben Currin, CEO at Vantaca

Welcome to the power of change, the podcast that delves into the intersection of leadership and technology in the finance world. I'm your host, Michael Prager, the CEO and cofounder of AvidXchange. In each episode, I dive into the leadership topics and industry trends with business leaders, partners, and customers who embrace the power of change. So today, we have, a great industry leader, Ben Curran, the CEO of Vannica. Vannica is a purpose built platform for community association management companies. He's been part of the Vannica leadership team since two thousand seventeen, growing through various executive strategy and operation roles before taking the helm as CEO. Before Vannica, Ben spent nearly a decade as a submarine officer and nuclear engineer in the US Navy, leading sailors and operational appointments around the globe. Ben holds a degree in economics from the US Naval Academy, and this is his second time on the show. So welcome back, Ben, and excited to have you today. So first of all, CAM or community association management as we call it, is an industry that really hasn't been known to be on the forefront of leading technology. Right? You're leading with technology. And I think what have you seen in terms of shifts in your industry now being more technology focused and what's still kind of lagging behind? Yeah. It's a good question and a and a and a big question. And also, Michael, thank you for for having me on. I I always enjoy always enjoy catching up with you and especially talking all things community management and and technology and everything else. So I think that an industry doesn't choose to to modernize, doesn't choose to change. It's kinda forced to do that because of pressure. The few things that come to mind are this. One, I I think there's been a long brewing challenge around labor and staffing and bandwidth that that got accelerated or accentuated during COVID. So I think that, you know, the strain on community managers has been growing and growing and growing, not just for years, but for decades. And then when so much of that became digital and took the form of emails and virtual meetings and, you know, everything else, that strain got really amplified and became more obvious. So I think that was kind of a forcing function that caused a lot of manager companies to say, okay. Maybe I I can't get away without having technology to give these managers and these folks that are so key to their operations leverage to to be more impactful. And in parallel with that, I I think the bar really got raised by competition. The the competitive bar got raised in the industry, and and that was from a bunch of different angles. There's obviously been a lot of, investment and attention and kind of private equity interest in this industry. I think that put a new level of competitive pressure and ambition, not just from those players, but for folks that were responding to that stimulus. So I think the bar got raised in terms of, service competition and then, therefore, the expectations of board members and winners and all that stuff. The the other thing that I think of when you ask that question is that AI in the last couple years, AI's really made the transition from being potentially interesting or a marketing, you know, pitch or slogan to, like, real proof and and tangible results that people are feeling and seeing and needing to compete with. So I think that those things kind of come together that to to generate this moment that we're seeing right now. Alright. I gotta put you on the spot here. So, on the AI piece, just give us one nugget, maybe a real life example where I know we're still in the early days of the AI evolution related to, you know, your sector, but what would be, like, one tangible example where you're seeing, you know, AI kind of impact, you know, either Vannaka or your customers? The most, like, interesting example to me, and maybe this isn't the most transformational, but it's the most interesting illustration, is the power of an AI voice agent participating in or joining your phone tree as a management company, where I I think it's a really interesting area because if a human answers a a call, it could be any homeowner, any board member, any vendor on the other side of that call that can ask about so many different things. If you're manager, company that manages hundreds of communities in multiple states and condos and co ops, and everything is unique, and there's the unique history of every homeowner and everything, it's impossible for a human to have that all that context in their head. Maybe they have the tools. Maybe they have Vantica. Maybe they have Avid Exchange in front of them to go reference these things, but it takes time and, like, you know, just effort to go navigate and reference and, like, kinda look up things and respond to whatever is on the other side of that. But to watch and listen and see an AI agent be able to instantly and accurately and thoughtfully provide the right answer with the right context immediately to any crazy range of of kind of inputs and questions is is frankly amazing. With with a perfectly calculated level of empathy. Right? Well and that's what that's that's the other thing that it continues to **** ** away is how much that has evolved just in the last year where, you know, I think early on, it's like, okay. Maybe the information's accurate, but I wish the tone was different. But, you know, we can now have such control as individual companies, as management company owners of, hey. I want my my AI, you know, phone assistant to have this type of an accent, to, like, have this type of empathy. Here's our company's core values. Like, incorporate these into everything that you do. And to see that come to life in a way that is, like, tangible and exciting and valuable is is pretty spectacular. Yeah. No. I fully agree. We actually have a partner that I won't name any names, but they're right now at about sixty percent AI agents for help desk support, forty percent humans. And, this past year, the agents outscored the humans on empathy. And, you know, and what people don't realize is that it makes sense when you think about it is, like, humans, like, there's so many variables that happen every day. You could have a bad day. You know, you missed the, you know, the cutoff at daycare or you're not feeling well, so, you know, you're not quite on your game that day. All those type of things. Right? And, AI agents just unbelievably consistent. Right? A hundred percent. Exactly right. Yeah. Exactly right. Being in in your business in terms of, you know, community association management, you have so many constituents. Right? You have a core customer, you know, being the management company, but they're dealing with, you know, hundreds and thousands of boards, HOA boards, and then HOA board has, you know, board members. And so there's lots of different constituents. Right? Talk about, like, Vaneka's role in terms of the impact that you make in getting it right for them. And then what does it unlock for the association manager and their boards in terms of, like, efficiency and what they can do? That's a a big and fun question. So so our our core customer is the community manager as kind of the front of the office and then the management company infrastructure as the back of the office, like, that that unit. And so for for those folks, it's really trying to find what are all the friction points for their internal operations as well as their operations with their customers. And so it's it's everything from billing to financial accounting to banking integrations to getting vendors paid, providing reporting, all of those things. But then we think about what are the tools what is the self-service that a community manager would want to enable a homeowner or a board member to take on? And so really evolving that resident experience such that I only need my community manager for things that a community manager can uniquely add value to to me for, which is, you know, advice on how we should be planning for our reserves. It's, you know, governance questions on what's the right way to handle this as a volunteer board. You know, it's not it's not our job. What should we do, community manager? Help us do this rather than just the ticky tacky. Can I do this? What time is the pool open? Did this vendor actually do the work? All these questions. We wanna lubricate as much of that as we can to allow those interactions to to really be as as high value as possible both for our customers and for their customers. Well said. Well said. I know it's, it's a delicate balance because you have so many different constituents. The community association management's gone through really a unique period of high m and a activity. Right? There's been lots of different consolidation that's happened over the last five or ten years. Do you see that continuing? And then how has it impacted your business? I do think it will continue. I I I certainly do. And and there's waves of this. I think we see that the different environments, whether it's interest rate environments or appetite of private equity and private credit in general can, like, can build the wave, and then you can have the trough effect. But I think in general, the the tide is still coming in for kind of, I'll call it, external or private equity, you know, external capital to come into this industry. And so I think on the net, it's a good thing because at the end of the day, this is both a hyper local relationship business where there is a volunteer group of homeowners who are board members who really care about their community and are giving their time to to to do this thing and and want a community manager who they know and and who they think has their best interest at heart and can deliver value and protect the value of their community. But it's also a business where the bar has been radically, you know, raised in terms of what is good accounting practices. Like, what what is the standard for the financial operation to support all of this? I think both of those things together result in a much better product for homeowners and board members, is ultimately Yeah. What what we should all care about. The other part of your question is, like, what's that done for our business? I I think it's it's been really good for us, not not just because, you know, we're a great platform for folks who do want to grow through acquisition and standardize a technology platform and kinda standardize that service and, know, be able to scale it, but also because having the best technology in place both for tools that your team can use and also the technology that you put in the hands of your customers becomes critically important when competition goes up, which competition is is increasing in this industry for sure. Yeah. How do you think about how Vannaka leverages partners to bring some of that both feature set or elements to make Vannaka the best it can be by leveraging the best of what partners do? Maybe talk a little bit about that partner approach as well that you've had. Absolutely. And and, obviously, one of our longest standing and and most critical partnerships, you know, I'm here talking to you is Avid Exchange. It's a great it's a great illustration of what we do, which is so many folks, when they come and they're onboarding Vantica, already have Avid Exchange in place, and it's working really well for them. And so I think Avid Exchange is a good example of of our approach to partnerships in general, which is, one, how can we add the most possible value and reduce the most friction for management companies and their constituents? It's having choice in these things and being able to put together the right system of of technology products and technology providers that, again, can drive excellence in your back office operation and that can allow you to put a great product on the field for the board members and the homeowners that you serve. No. We we concur with everything you just said, Ben. We take kind of the same approach. And I think what we've seen is kind of the as it relates to kind of just, you know, how we partner with, you know, companies like Vannaka and others is that the the trend and kind of the evolution and, you know, AI has been a component of this, is how become a real embedded experience. Right? And so from a user perspective, it doesn't feel like they're in, you know, two different applications. It's a user experience that's consistent, but it's leveraging the underlying, you know, technology and execution capabilities of both partners. I still think we're in the early days of that, but the impact has been pretty dramatic already. Yeah. I I totally agree with you. For sure. Let's move to a little bit of the personal side of Ben. And there's a, you know, one element that maybe not all of our viewers slash listeners know about, but you've had a a career in the Navy. And I think, you know, certainly, you know, when I think of the Navy, I think of, you know, operational excellence. And talk a little bit about mindset and focus on, you know, that you guys have on operational excellence and and how do you apply it to your business in terms of, you know, your navy experience. Yeah. First, I'll say I'm so grateful that I had that experience and and kind of had that had the chance to learn in that environment. I I learned a ton. My my job in the navy was a a submarine officer, and so every submarine officer spends time first as a a nuclear engineer. And and the stakes are the stakes are pretty high operating a critical reactor in a in a steel tube, you know, hundreds of feet underwater. And so I think the way that we approach learning from mistakes in in the navy is a really is a really useful blueprint to learn from mistakes. And and, you know, it's certainly in a software company and and even on a submarine, mistakes will happen. But how you like, how you approach learning from that, I think, is really important. And what can we take away from this that we'll never have to learn the same thing in the same way again, whether it's change something operationally or put a checklist in place? How do you learn a new thing next time, not say, oh, we keep making the same mistake? You know, we we should we shouldn't we shouldn't do that more than once. Well said. You know, I'm grateful for your experience and you're serving in the Navy as well. So before we go to lightning round, let's put you kind of a, you know, your adviser hat on and, you know, you're a strategic adviser to the community association management company and, helping them with their strategic vision. What advice do you have in terms of maybe, you know, the top one or two or three things that, you know, every HOA manager or CAM manager needs to have as part of their strategic vision going forward? You asked a minute ago about this kind of wave of consolidation. I think through that lens, I would I would ask kind of the question, what kind of company do you want to be as this all plays out? Because I think that's that's really important. It can't just be we're gonna try to keep doing exactly what we've been doing. That's a losing recipe. Being better out competing, differentiating, being ready to go and, you know, ride this wave or take advantage of it or, you know, react to it and strengthen what you do, I think, is critical. And so and I think that can inform kind of every strategic, and technology decision between now and whenever that future point is that you you become kind of a a new company. And so I think that's that's key. And because, you know, what what I know and and what what Vannica does is is technology, Rather than saying, okay. Like, yes, you have to have have the right technology strategy and right technology platform and be taking advantage of AI and all all those things, sure. But if I were a a manager company owner and operator, I would really think about the how we get work done as a real hard asset in our business. Not just that we got it done, not just that we managed to not get fired by the board this month. Right. We managed to get the financials out that we, you know, got through the, you know, the calls. But how did we do it? Because I think that how will define how competitive you are, how valuable your business is, how durable your business is. I think technology can influence that, but it's certainly not the whole thing. The the human approach to deciding that we wanna evolve the way we work and differentiate and make that into an asset, I think, is really critical right now. Yeah. And maybe just, you know, kind of add to what you said. You know, one of the things that we're seeing across, you know, our both customers and, you know, potential customers we're talking about is that they are looking for us, know, Avid Exchange, Vannica to help them with their technology and AI strategy. Neither, you know, whether it be a real estate or a communication, like a cam manager, an HOA manager, they're not gonna be the ones that drive necessarily AI in their business, but they're looking for partners that can help them do Right? And I think that's kind of evolving as, you know, really important role for both of us across, you know, the ecosystem is, you know, how do we bring, you know, the right AI tools and embed them into our offerings to really create that leverage and that power for our customers. I I think that's exactly right. And and that's a a job and a responsibility and an opportunity that we take very seriously. It's a big deal to be a partner to our customers on that journey, and we we believe in that. We know that that's that's our job to do. And on the other on the other side of the coin, what I think the opportunity is for management companies is is on the people side and the environment that they create. So I think that if if I were a managing company or talking to a managing company, I'd say, your people strategy in some ways is your AI strategy. If you can create the environment, and the culture to take advantage of everything that is possible today and everything that's going to be, you know, possible tomorrow and next month and next year with AI and evolving tools, you'll have created a a culture and a, you know, a group of people that are gonna be really successful in the next era. Well said. We're gonna go to the lightning round to give it, you know, everyone a chance to meet, you know, Ben Curran at the next level. And so first of all is, what time does your alarm go off every morning? When do get up? So I I have a an alarm set every day at four twenty five, and I have a backup alarm set at four thirty, which I never get to. I'm I'm a first alarm kinda guy, but I I've got young kids. I've got an eight and a ten year old, and I like to be I like to help with the kinda pre off to school routine and all that. Like, I think that's a really important part of my day and and our family, but I like to also try to get a workout in. And, inevitably, it won't get done if I try to do it after work or, like, you know, life is gonna happen. So four twenty five every day, get to the gym, do that, get home and help help get kids get off to school and all the stuff. Let's talk about personal technology. What's the first app that you look at in the morning? I usually probably pop open the Wall Street Journal app first just to, like, check a couple news at like, see if anything happened overnight at a global level or or or at a national level that I need to pay attention to. Probably pull my email up next, email in Teams, but I wanna make sure if there's anything urgent, I understand what it is pretty early. Last time we chatted, I think you're reading a book every week. And are you still doing that? And if so, and what's the last book you read? I think that's probably the pace. I think some weeks it ends up being more than one and, you know, then there's times where it takes a couple weeks, But I think that's probably a a not crazy average. The last book that I finished, which was last week, was a a book called Running Down a Dream by Bill Gurley, kinda legendary venture capitalist from Benchmark, and cool cool book. Recommended to everyone, especially folks who are earlier in their career or just getting out of school and figuring things out. It's kind of like finding, like, real fulfillment through your professional endeavors. And right now, I'm in the middle of a book called The Language Game, which is actually a pretty neat book. It's written by two linguists, and this is before before kind of the big LLM and AI moment. But it's about, like, language really is and how we communicate and what is uniquely kind of human about that, which is which is pretty cool, especially now in in kind of this era of large language models Yeah. And language has taken on a whole new meaning. The question I have to ask though is, okay, you get up at four twenty five, you're going to the gym working out, you're getting your kids to school, you get into the office, when are you reading? So so good question. I I have I have, like, quirky reading habits too. So to read as fast as I wanna read or to, like, get through the books that I'm interested in, I'll usually download a book both in, like, the kind of Kindle version or or e reader version and the audiobook. So I I love if I'm running or riding a bike or whatever, I love to listen to audiobooks while I do that. So it's kind of, like, in the car, working out, all those things. And then at night, my wife and I try to read before before we go to bed, you know, thirty, forty five minutes of, like, you know, winding down time. So let's get personal AI. What's the last thing you've asked AI and which which app did you use? I've interacted with AI a lot today. I've interacted with, Anthropix Quad a lot and, ChatGPT. I think the last thing that I did was getting Claude, Anthropix Claude, to coach me through, pulling some of the skills that I I had built and used in kind of the the web version of Claude into my Claude code instance and make it easy to, like, port all that over. And I didn't know how to do that, so Claude coached me through doing it and and kinda took me there. It's amazing. I mean, you know, that's all the tools and Claude's certainly one of those. It's just like, you know, the the power and the leverage is just amazing. Alright. So the world is moving so fast, largely driven by, you know, kind of the AI evolution. And so what have you figured out so far in twenty six that you wish you knew a year ago? Progress is only going to accelerate. Our ambition and vision is go is almost always going to be the constraint in this moment right now. And so I think that thinking really big about what's possible and then relitigating that as frequently as possible is is critically important. I think that I've I've got a better understanding now on that point than I did even a year ago. Alright. Last lightning question. If the Ben from two thousand seventeen could see you as a leader today, what would surprise him? I think today versus how who who I was or how I led in twenty seventeen, I think I'm much more patient today, but also more decisive. And so I think I'm willing to to be a little more thoughtful rather than just like action for the sake of action. If you were to ask twenty seventeen me, I would have I would have, like, bought into the the phrase life is short, so you gotta, like, do everything right now and gotta go fast and, like, we have to take advantage of this. Think I I heard this at some point and it really struck struck me and stuck with me over the last few years is actually the right phrase is life is long. Like, we've got we've got a lot of a lot of time to do things. Now it doesn't take away urgency. It doesn't take away the opportunity for us to have a massive impact and to make hard decisions and and and do things. But the life is long and we should appreciate that we have plenty of time in this life. Well said, my friend. And with that, we're gonna wrap, this edition of the Power of Change podcast and it's super exciting to have certainly industry leader and luminary here, Ben Kern joining us today. So thanks, Ben. Awesome. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for listening to the power of change presented by AvidXchange. 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