Riding the AI Wave: How York’s fastest growing startup SellStatic plans to disrupt the Real Estate industry

Imam Khalid, a fourth-year double major in computer science and business, is the founder and CEO of Sellstatic, a startup focused on leveraging AI in reimagining marketing in the real estate industry to scale profits.

Who is Imam? The formation of Sellstatic and his story.

Imam's inspiration for Sellstatic came from a combination of his own interest in technology and his father's long career in real estate. "Since a young age, I'd been seeing my dad leave early mornings and sometimes on late-night calls," Imam says. Witnessing his father's workload firsthand sparked Imam's curiosity about the challenges realtors face.

Sellstatic aims to be a realtor's best friend by automating these time-consuming marketing tasks. Imam envisions an AI-powered platform that provides realtors with an "AI dashboard" to handle lead generation, ad creation, and optimization. "We want this to be a platform where real estate agents are able to come on, be onboarded, and actually work and have basically an AI dashboard that's able to do all their marketing for them," Imam says.

AI just a passing fad?

When Imam was asked about the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in the real estate industry, his response was a blend of cautious optimism and grounded realism. Drawing from a recent podcast episode of "My First Million," Imam shared insights that have been ringing in his mind ever since. The host, Sam Parr, noted a striking trend at tech conferences like Collision: a sea of slick logos and the ubiquitous buzzword, "AI."

This aversion to the AI hype is not just about branding; it’s about trust.He sees AI much like the early days of YouTube. "Think about the first wave of YouTubers," Imam explained. "The pioneers who started when the platform launched, they stuck through the pain, kept creating content, and now they’re the Casey Neistats and Mr. Beasts of the world. They were persistent, and now they dominate a saturated market."

Wantreprenuers vs Entrepreneurs

Imam coined the term wantrepreneurs. As the name suggests, a wantrepreneur aspires to own their own business and become an entrepreneur however its all talk and no action. But a real entrepreneur? “There's very few that will take that leap and actually become entrepreneurs,”Imam. Imam's early days were marked by this very leap. Leading an entrepreneurship organisation at York University gave him a taste of what it meant to manage and inspire, but it was running his own startup that revealed the true essence of entrepreneurship. "When you’re solely dependent on yourself, when your team looks to you for direction, and your livelihood depends on what you do today and tomorrow—that’s when you realise the weight of it."

Why students are the next big thing

There is no better time to experiment and take on entrepreneurial opportunities than when you are a student. When you are a student people believe in you, that is your superpower. "If you have an idea that excites you, do something about it now. The investment you make in yourself and your skills is priceless. I’ve learned that no one can take away your skills. They’re with you for life. You can take away my money, my company, my laptop—but you can’t take away what I’ve learned."

Credits: Aminah Anjum.