Hi {{first_name | default: there}},
Today, I’m launching my new personal newsletter called The Follow Through.
It’s where I’ll share what I’m learning while building Luxury Presence, so you can take the ideas that work and skip the mistakes I've already made.
Ten years ago, Luxury Presence was just an idea on a whiteboard in a windowless room in LA. Today, we’re over 500 people serving 18,000 customers.
This newsletter is a look behind the scenes of that journey: the lessons, the stories, and what we’re building now.
The phrase comes from basketball (my career prior to tech startups). When you shoot, the motion of your arm after the ball leaves your hand is called the follow-through. It’s what gives your shot a chance. You can have great ambitions, great intentions, and great ideas—but without follow-through, none of it really matters.
Kicking off 2026 with $37M in new funding
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind.
We kicked off the year by announcing a $37M funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and launching PresenceCRM, our AI-native CRM for real estate agents. Watch our full announcement video here.
We also held our leadership offsite and company kickoff in Austin at our new office. It's always one of the most energizing weeks of the year for me. 40 leaders in one room, debating strategy, pressure-testing ideas, and leaving aligned on where we're going.
We celebrated 2025, a year where we grew annual recurring revenue to $90 million, up nearly 50% year-over-year. This growth was driven by major improvements in customer retention and the launch of several industry-first AI products.
Looking ahead to 2026, our ambition is bigger: we're no longer just a website company or a set of marketing tools. We're building everything real estate agents need to grow, in one place.
We're hiring for 10+ roles in Austin and remotely across sales, customer success, and AI operations. Mark MacDonald, our VP of People, has a favorite saying: "Great people know great people." If that's you, send them my way.
The planning ritual that keeps me focused
Every quarter, I spend a couple of hours on something most founders skip. I write down what matters, not just in business, but in life.
I call it my Personal One-Page Plan (OPP). It has been one of the most important rituals I've built in ten years of running this company. The OPP includes:
Purpose: Why you do what you do
Values: What matters most to you
BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal): Your moonshot
Five-Year Vision: Who you want to become across five themes
One-Year Goals: Specific habits you want to build and things you want to accomplish
Quarterly Goals: What you'll actually do in the next 90 days to move toward those bigger goals
This process forces me to reflect. I'm usually focused on what's next, so this is the one moment I stop and look at what already happened. It creates a space for gratitude and accountability. Business is one of the five themes, but family and friends come first. This system helps me notice when I'm hitting work goals but neglecting other parts of my life. Here’s what it looks like:
If you want the template, reply to this email and I’ll share it with you.
Up next: What’s actually working with AI
We went all-in on AI a couple of years ago. It's changed how we build products, how we operate, and what we can accomplish with the same team. Some of it has been transformative; some of it hasn’t worked at all.
Next month, I'll share the specific tools we're using, what's driving real results, and where the hype is still ahead of reality.
Know someone who'd enjoy this? Forward it their way. And if you ended up on my list by accident, feel free to unsubscribe below.
Thanks for reading. I’ll keep it useful.
Malte