Meet Amar Flora | AI in Real Estate & Coffee maker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amar Flora and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amar, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Office life just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore. I had these big ideas bubbling over, ideas that will be eventually enacted by others if I am just stuck in a cubicle. For a while, I waffled between playing it safe and chasing my dreams. But in the end, the itch to make my ideas a reality was too strong to ignore. I jumped in with both feet, but honestly, my first tries in my twenties were pretty half-baked. Fear of failure, fear of loss of income, not having money to enjoy weekends with family and friends, its all too real. The turning point came when I met a bunch of other entrepreneurs. These folks were all about going for it 110%, no safety nets. Their message was clear: if you don’t totally believe in your own vision, how can you convince anyone else to? It took some practice, but embracing that wholehearted commitment thing was the game-changer that led to the success I have today.

What should our readers know about your business?
Klaviss is my main business, a real estate tech company (https://klaviss.com). I am not a realtor neither an agent, I was in the process of buying a home in California and started analyzing the fragmented and disjointed transaction process. I also took note of the paperwork required, which although seems to follow logical method, certainly adds more anxiety and sleepless nights to home buyers and sellers. I have very good friends who are licensed real estate attorneys and brokers; these people are now my business partners. When I discussed my idea and presented my vision to them in 2021, they all wanted to join me. That’s when the five of us cofounded Klaviss. The residential real estate technology industry often presents a facade of cutting-edge solutions, yet many core processes remain frustratingly manual. At Klaviss, we’re changing this by bringing true automation and AI to the forefront, empowering consumers (brokers, buyers, sellers) with a more streamlined experience. Once uploaded to our platform, our AI reads all real estate documents, automates tasks for each party, sets the communication notifications, automates the regulatory and compliance functions, and also includes some practical built in features such as an AI real-estate knowledge bot for buyers and sellers. This is all being accomplished by an industry-first technology (which I won’t disclose at this stage) protected by a pending provisional patent. This innovation has garnered validation from California’s largest real estate member body and leading brokerages, a testament to its transformative potential. And we are fielding calls from other large US states wanting us to offer our services. We’re continuously adding tools designed to propel the residential real-estate industry towards a more automated future within the next 1-2 years. We are in the midst of some live transactions now, including organic signups of over 1,100 people.

My personal dream is to own and operate a boutique coffee after selling Klaviss at some point. To help kickstart this dream, we also started a coffee company in 2022, Orangutan Coffee. The coffee bean is 100% Arabica, premium grade and sourced from Indonesia, hand picked and harvested. 13% of our pre-sales goes towards the Orangutan Sanctuary towards preservation of the great apes, hence the name. The green beans from Indonesia are roasted in California, and sold online only, including some fun merch. Check it out at https://orangutancoffee.org.

Business-wise, I have never been one to play it safe! I’m a firm believer that taking risks is the secret sauce to getting ahead, calculated even better so. But even calculated risks are a paradox, often things just don’t go to plan. This goes all the way back to when I was, eight years old and flew solo from India to New York City. Risky or stupid, but it shows I’ve always been up for a challenge. Fast forward to now, I’m all grown up (well, mostly), have a family, but I still love a challenge, something that excites and scares at the same time. I left a very comfy, high-paying job to chase my entrepreneurial dream, including relocating from Australia to US. Interestingly, I lead my businesses with absolute honesty and transparency, especially amongst partners and clients. The challenges we have had are not necessarily business product or technology development related, but clashing egos and personalities. I, and fortunately so does my team, firmly believe in the ability to decouple emotions, so we can have intense and heated debates, make a decision, then go for a drink, laugh, joke etc.

I continue to learn plenty of lessons along the way. Some of these lessons are: – ‘learning to give and help’; it’s amazing doing this simple act, gets you a lot of goodwill and trust from others. In turn, they are always willing to help me when I ask. – Learning to live through distractions of ‘buzzwords and flashy advertising’: remaining steadfast to my vision, not getting distracted by what a competitor may have launched, and keep building in stealth mode until it is time to launch. – The power of action and execution: all of us find ourselves procrastinating, but its taking that next step to create something. – Almost cliched but very very true: surrounding myself with confident, smart and successful people: these people truly motivate and help elevate me. – As in business, in life, marry the right partner: I am very fortunate that I am married to a strong, independent and very smart woman. She is much more successful than I am in all facets of life, and that is a lottery in itself. The right life and business partner/s come after some failures and heart-break, so when they do come into one’s life, hold on to and cherish them.

My brand is my ability to have a big vision and bring that to life by creating a reality for others to jump on board with. I am able to bring diverse people together and unite them with a shared vision. I strongly believe in surrounding myself with confident people who are smarter than me, people who are savvy, possess soft-skills, and people who are not afraid of a challenge and finding a solution.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I live in the Bay Area, Northern California. Knowing my best friend, they will be content just hanging out and laugh, re-live memories. Usually, I ask what they would prefer to do, what interests them, and accordingly plan the trip. Thinking about it though, San Francisco city has great historical sites such as Presidio, the extreme hills to drive through or cable car, the unfortunate homelessness and drug center in Tenderloin, to magnificent city hall buildings, and some quirky fun night-out spots. These are the places that come to mind, since these are the only differentiating factors of Bay Area compared to other parts of the world where my friend/s live. They will be drinking coffee from Orangutan Coffee.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My wife, Simren Flora. My son, Arik and my dog, Thor. The latter two continue to teach me about giving joy and loyalty unconditionally.

My business mentors, who also happen to be extremely successful entrepreneurs in USA, Australia, London and India. They know who they are.

My business partners, David, Omid, Seth and Jacob.

My good friends Sunil, Randy, Cy, Robin, Marcin, to name a few.

Website: https://klaviss.com

Other: Orangutan Coffee USA: https://orangutancoffee.org

Image Credits
NA. Images are our own.