We’ve Acquired InvestorFuse. Together, We’ll Help Real Estate Investors and Hybrid Agents Close More Deals and Gain More Freedom

We have some fun news: Carrot has acquired InvestorFuse, a powerful lead management and follow-up CRM trusted by hundreds of top real estate investors and hybrid agents nationwide.

We are going to cover…

If you’ve heard of InvestorFuse or tried it in the past, this is the start of a new era for InvestorFuse, and we couldn’t be more excited.

In 2014, we founded Carrot to do one thing better than anyone else in the world… to help real estate investors stop losing leads and deals from an under-performing website (while crafting such an amazing customer experience, it sets the standard for the entire industry).

At the time, real estate investors and agents often looked at their website as a “nice to have” rather than a “critical to have.”

Countless “all-in-one” tools included websites as afterthoughts. You could launch free or cheap sites through companies like Wix and the legacy website builders in the real estate space focused on giving you 30 designs to choose from rather than putting the best performing tool in your hands from the start.

Since then, our single focus has been on performance. Helping our members launch and scale the fastest loading, best ranking, and highest converting websites for motivated sellers, cash buyers, tenants, and more. We’ve helped our members generate more inbound online motivated seller leads than any other single platform in the world.

But, over the years, we’ve had countless Carrot members ask us, “When is Carrot building a CRM? I’d love for all of my tools to be in one spot”.

It’s crazy tempting to build more new shiny objects, but what has contributed to our success has been that singular focus on going deep for our members rather than wide.

Converting more leads into deals in a competitive market

In early 2020, as we mapped out our 3-year vision, the topic of lead follow-up and management kept popping up in conversations. As markets became even more competitive, I’d be on phone calls with top investors and agents from around the nation, and a common theme kept coming up. “I’m getting lots of leads, but my close ratio has decreased slightly.”

It didn’t matter how motivated the leads they were getting through their Carrot sites were if they weren’t managing those leads “post opt-in” very well. I’d find leaky bucket after leaky bucket in our member’s follow-up practices and countless lost deals from disorganized lead management systems.

The more we peeled back the onion of the shifting market, the more it became critical for investors and agents to get leads and finally focus on tightening their systems to stop the leaky bucket of lost deals and revenue.

One lost deal from bad follow-up or clunky lead management can cost you $10k, $20k, $50k, or more. Not to mention your lost time working with systems not created from the ground up with investors and agents in mind.

Our decision to buy InvestorFuse

Going into 2021, we debated whether to “build or buy” our members’ a lead management/follow-up function. After digging deep into our vision and mission, we became convinced that we were only getting started building the best online marketing tool for those looking to attract the most motivated real estate leads online. And taking away from the resources required for those efforts would be harmful in the long run for our members.

So we set out to find a software company that aligned with our values, had an existing customer base already using both systems, and had a great team. They’d need a vision and singular focus to solve the problem of lead management and follow-up for real estate investors and agents.

In early 2021 I gave InvestorFuse founder Dan Schwartz a call to inquire about our interest. I knew InvestorFuse had built a fantastic reputation in its early years but had a rough “InvestorFuse 2.0” launch in 2020 that took some wind out of its sails.

During our call, I learned they’d just rolled out InvestorFuse 3.0 to the market. As we hung up that day, I said… “Man, our cultures, visions, and missions align so well. If you guys can prove InvestorFuse 3.0 is an amazing product that clients love over the next few months, we can build something extraordinary together.”

Fast forward to early 2022. InvestorFuse 3.0 client satisfaction was at an all-time high, and the team under new CEO John Whitfield was clicking. So we decided to close the deal… making InvestorFuse our first acquisition (hopefully more to come.)

Finally, complete end-to-end data. From website visitors to closed deal

Our first step is to unify the data from end to end to help build more intelligent applications that benefit all our members across both platforms to attract and convert more leads and deals online. Keep an eye out in 2023 for innovations you’ve never seen before.

How does this acquisition affect you?

In all the good ways! It starts with unlocking some amazing solutions for you as a real estate investor or hybrid agent, all under the Carrot umbrella.

Top investors like Beau Hollis, Keith Sant, Max Maxwell, Nick Perry, and Tyler Ford all use InvestorFuse… and we’re excited to continue building the best possible platforms that focus on being the best of class in what we do.

If you’re already an InvestorFuse member, we’re excited to welcome you into the Carrot community. You’ve already seen new features, dozens of fixes, and additional investments hit your accounts in the past 6 months.

It’s only the beginning. Here’s a sample of features the InvestorFuse team has rolled out in the past few quarters…

• SmrtPhone + InvestorFuse integration
• A powerful “Resurfacing” feature to bring back and convert “dead leads”
• Transactions beta (you’ll be able to handle the dispositions side of the business coming soon!)
• … and dozens and dozens of improvements to the software across the board

I can’t say what’s coming over the coming months, but I can speak to keep your eyes out because our most significant innovations are on the horizon.

If you’re a Carrot member (but not an InvestorFuse member), this acquisition only strengthens the resources we’ll have to serve you. We’ve already started working with the InvestorFuse crew on some of our content and training efforts.

We’ve also been collaborating on tests and data deep-dives to discover new ways to help members on both platforms win more leads and deals. We’ll continue to find more ways to make upgrading into InvestorFuse easier and lower cost as a bundle.

If you’re already a member of both InvestorFuse and Carrot, amazing! We just rolled out our new direct Carrot + InvestorFuse integration inside of Carrot. It eliminates the need to use Zapier to send your leads from Carrot to InvestorFuse, saving you money and eliminating an extra step in the process.

Next, we’re looking for the best way for you to access both applications from one login. We’ll be improving the cohesiveness of the user interfaces in 2023 to make the experience seamless and amazing.

Bundle Carrot + InvestorFuse and save (get a live demo)

For everyone, we’re experimenting with the best ways to reward active members of both systems. If you’re on the Carrot Advanced Marketer Plan, you can add InvestorFuse under the Pro or Premium Plan and save on both subscriptions.

Carrot member and want to demo InvestorFuse? If you’re not an InvestorFuse member and want a live demo to see what it can do for you, hop on a call with our Product Specialists.

Set up a live call with a Product Specialist here

Already on both platforms and want to save? Upgrade to the Carrot Advanced Marketer Plan inside your Carrot account AND to Pro or Premium on InvestorFuse to qualify for the 10% discount bundle. You could save up to $730/yr by bundling both platforms*. Reach out to Carrot support with a request to “bundle and save,” and we’ll take care of the billing updates behind the scenes.

*The bundled rate applies to your base account subscription for each platform and cannot be applied to add-ons or text message credits. If you downgrade or cancel one of the platforms, your subscriptions will revert to their normal prices.

The beginning of the next chapter

Acquisitions, if not done right, can affect the customer experience negatively, and trust me, this is something we’re going to make sure doesn’t happen. We’ve been working hard to integrate the two companies, share best practices, and amplify the best of both companies. We’re excited to build towards our shared vision of helping you build a business of freedom and impact… now from lead… to closed deal.

Thank you so much for supporting Carrot over the years, and I honestly couldn’t be more excited about the years ahead. We are excited for you, the industry, and the positive impact, we can all make together.