Research & Business Development Intern

About the company
The company has an early-stage real estate technology platform designed to make commercial real estate underwriting faster, more standardized, and easier to evaluate.
The platform uses technology and AI to analyze real estate investment opportunities, financial models, underwriting materials, and market information and generate a standardized assessment designed to help investors.

The Role
We are looking for a highly motivated Research & Business Development Intern to work directly with the founder of the company. This is not a traditional administrative internship. The intern will help research the commercial real estate and investment-management market, identify prospective customers and partners, build targeted contact databases, support business-development campaigns, analyze competitors, and assist with the go-to-market strategy for an early-stage technology company.
The position is ideal for someone interested in the intersection of commercial real estate, private equity, lending, technology, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship.

Responsibilities

Market Research & Prospecting
• Research commercial real estate investment firms, private equity funds, family offices, lenders, developers, syndicators, LPs, GPs, and other potential users of the tech platform.
• Identify relevant decision-makers, including acquisitions professionals, investment managers, asset managers, underwriting teams, CIOs, principals, partners, and managing directors.
• Build and maintain organized prospect databases with company, contact, strategy, geography, investment size, and other relevant information.
• Segment prospects by customer type and potential use case.
• Research industry associations, conferences, networking groups, universities, accelerators, and other channels where the tech platform could gain exposure.

Business Development
• Assist in developing prospect lists for targeted outreach campaigns.
• Research prospective customers before introductory meetings.
• Help prepare personalized outreach through email and LinkedIn.
• Track outreach, responses, meetings, follow-ups, and prospective customers.
• Maintain and update the company's CRM/business-development pipeline.
• Help coordinate product demonstrations and follow-up communications.
• Identify potential strategic partnerships with real estate companies, technology providers, data providers, lenders, investment managers, and industry organizations.

Competitive & Industry Research
• Research competing real estate underwriting, analytics, AI, and investment-management platforms.
• Compare competitor products, pricing, target customers, features, positioning, and business models.
• Monitor developments involving AI and technology within commercial real estate underwriting and investment management.
• Identify market gaps and potential new applications for the tech platform.

Product & Customer Research
• Collect feedback from prospective users and help organize recurring themes and requested features.
• Help evaluate how different customer segments could use the tech platform.
• Assist management in identifying potential product improvements based on market feedback.
• Test portions of the tech platform user experience from a non-technical user's perspective.

Marketing & Content
• Research topics for the tech platform articles, LinkedIn posts, newsletters, and thought-leadership content.
• Help develop market statistics, charts, industry observations, and research that can be incorporated into marketing materials.
• Assist in maintaining company and prospect databases for email and LinkedIn campaigns.
• Research relevant industry publications, podcasts, conferences, and media opportunities.

Strategic & Capital Research
• Research venture capital firms, family offices, strategic investors, accelerators, and other potential sources of capital appropriate for an early-stage PropTech/FinTech company.
• Build databases of potential investors and strategic partners.
• Research comparable PropTech, FinTech, and AI companies and relevant funding transactions.
• Assist in preparing market research and information used in investor presentations and business plans.
The intern will assist with research and preparation relating to potential investors but will not solicit securities or perform regulated capital-raising activities.

Qualifications
We are primarily looking for someone who is curious, analytical, organized, resourceful, and entrepreneurial.
Candidates may be undergraduate or graduate students studying:
• Real Estate
• Finance
• Business
• Economics
• Entrepreneurship
• Data Analytics
• Technology
• Marketing
• Architecture / Real Estate Development
Previous real estate experience is helpful but not required.

The ideal candidate:
• Has strong internet and company research skills.
• Is comfortable working with Excel and Google Sheets.
• Can organize large amounts of information clearly.
• Writes professional emails and business communications.
• Is comfortable using LinkedIn and online research platforms.
• Has an interest in commercial real estate and investing.
• Is interested in technology and artificial intelligence.
• Can work independently and take ownership of assignments.
• Pays close attention to detail.
• Is comfortable working in an entrepreneurial environment where priorities evolve quickly.
Experience with tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, HubSpot, Apollo, PitchBook, CoStar, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or similar research platforms is a plus but not required.

What the Intern Will Learn
This position provides unusual exposure to both the real estate investment business and the process of building an early-stage technology company.
The intern will gain firsthand experience with:
• Commercial real estate underwriting
• Private equity and real estate investment firms
• Real estate lending
• AI applications in real estate
• PropTech business models
• Customer acquisition
• Business development
• Competitive analysis
• Startup strategy
• Fundraising strategy
• Product-market fit
• Working directly with an entrepreneur and real estate investor

Working Relationship
The intern will work directly with the company’s founder and will have significant exposure to strategic decisions involving product development, customers, partnerships, and growth.
We are looking for someone who wants to contribute ideas rather than simply execute administrative tasks.

Schedule
Part-time internship, approximately 10–20 hours per week, with flexibility around academic schedules.
New York-based candidates are preferred, although a hybrid arrangement may be considered.