RESAAS Managing Director James Huang discusses the future of AI, trust, and relationships in real estate at the Korea Conference.
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Show Notes:
In this episode of Mission Matters, host Adam Torres interviews James Huang, Managing Director at RESAAS, live from the Korea Conference. They discuss how AI is reshaping industries like real estate, why trust and relationships remain essential in business, and how innovation is bridging global markets.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today I’m in Marina del Rey, California and I’m at the Korea conference.
I’ve been covering this conference for many years. Big shout out to Jenny and Jim Wong for inviting us out here. And guess who I got on the show next. This has to be my first interview of the conference. We got Jim Wong James Man. Welcome back. Adam, thank you so much, and thank you for covering it for since the, uh, beginning.
Yeah. So I’ve been, I’ll tell you, I’ve been following your journey. You’ve been running around, I’ve been seeing you in different countries, different states. Um, this is our time to catch up and the audience gets to listen. What have you been up to, man? Talk to me. Well, you know, keeping busy since we always say survive to 2025, now it’s gonna be 26.
So ever since COVID, everyone had to remake themselves, rebrand themselves, change, and before it was the Metaverse. But now you can’t really get away from ai, AI innovation. And I know with the Korea conference helping accelerate and bringing awareness to many of the Korean companies this year, we’re gonna have some AI companies where if people take a look.
They’re talking about $1 billion AI companies, like with one person, startup founder. So this is really, and that’s a real thing now. It wasn’t once upon a time, it was like that kind of a dream, but now when you see what people are doing, you’re like, wait a minute, this is gonna continue to happen. Oh, absolutely.
And when you just use it and see it. So one of our friends during a presentation, he asked me some questions like, what are my challenges? He literally prompted. Asked it, put in the questions, built the model, and in 30 minutes he said, of course it’s time putting it in. Sure. But the cost of the tokens really cost a dollar and 10 cents, but it’s time and this would’ve cost me before and many others.
Yeah. Tens of thousands of dollars plus it would’ve took months to complete. Mm. And he did it in 30 minutes. Yeah. I think it’s interesting ’cause it’s just, to me, the people that are, I don’t wanna say getting in, but I’ll say the people that are integrating AI into their day-to-day lives just even become more productive.
They’re winning. I think about like now how much areas that it touches in our, in our business and that mission matters and what it’s allowed us to do. And I, it’s interesting, and I think about other businesses. You’re an expert in real estate, commercial real estate, and you’ve been in the business a long, long time.
What’s exciting you about AI as it relates to real estate? Like what are you seeing? Yeah, so I, I said to a lot of younger generation, don’t be afraid of it. Definitely learn it. Mm-hmm. Uh, if you’re older, actually I’ve had discussions about you have a brand. Yeah. You have a recognition, you have credibility.
Now, many of the things that was holding back the older generation is programming and building it. If you could just communicate to it, now you can build it. So with the credibility, you can now package it. Yeah. Market it and build a company with what you know in your head. So it really is an exciting time for the younger generation, but the older, but you gotta really.
Take the time to learn it, plug into it, surround yourself with other experts and, and really like what we’re doing here at the Korea conference, just dialoguing and discussing. Hmm. So you’ve been with the Korea conference, I believe, since the beginning, right? Yeah, with Jenny and like Ev ever since it started as a, I think it was a holiday party originally, then it grew, grew, grew, or something like that.
Off the top of my head, it’s been a little while since I got the original story, but, um. As it’s progressed year over year, like can you talk about where we’re at maybe this year and the vision for the future? Yeah, so Jenny learned when she went to an Israeli conference about technology in 2009, and she said, wow.
We need this for the career conference where she used to put in holiday events. Yeah, yeah. And people got together and it was really very connected, smart people in the room, having discussions. So she used it as a focal 0.4 years ago to steer with what she, who she knows mm-hmm. To having a purpose of.
Really accelerating, putting awareness on Korean ideas, concepts, fashion, just, just about Korea to really push and the knowledge of helping it identify. And there were so many successes at the Korea conference mm-hmm. With, uh, so many startups that came here. I mean, it’s amazing when you follow up with everyone like yourself, right?
When you see some people you’ve talked a long time ago, it became. Truly amazing. It’s fun to me and it to see everybody come to the room and to, to think about doing businesses in Korea and United States, vice versa, back and forth. And what excites you about, like, let’s talk about the markets going back and forth, like the exchange of ideas and what that means.
Like whether it was the companies that are that, that have been pitching to come into the Korea conference to be able to showcase what they’re up to or the companies that have participated. Like what excites you there? You know, it’s always learning. Um, and when they’re pitching. They’re showing what is kind of the cutting edge.
Mm-hmm. Right. Solving a problem. That’s where people. Create new companies is to solve a problem and it’s really learning of what else people are doing. Uh, maybe globally, geographically industry type, but it is a quick way of learning when you see people pitch. That’s why I do believe when you go through different pitch competitions, whether it’s consumer technology, financial, there’s always something you learn and getting the deck and finding the experts.
Yeah, because it’s tough out there to raise capital because so many people are doing it. And we’re even saying now with ai, everyone could do it because now you can have what you have in your idea of being programmed and all these different concepts. So watching somebody compete in the most fierce market is entrepreneurship.
Mm-hmm. Raising capital, putting money in. Mm-hmm. Constantly evolving your craft. Yeah, is amazing. And, and that’s where you learn and you find other experts to connect with. Yeah. So we’ve talked a lot about, you know, tech, ai, what’s going on, of course, the Korea conference. I wanna wanna get into the old school just a little bit here.
Some of the, what, what we would call back in the day is soft skills of rebuilding relationships, of keeping close contacts, of keeping your word, um, for the, let’s say. I don’t feel like we talk about that enough as we get caught up in the AI spot. Um, I know that that’s one of the things that you’ve been a mentor for me on for many years is building relationships, building strong connection and bonds.
Could you talk on that, that concept a little bit here? ’cause that’s what I know you for. Yes. And that’s probably one of still the most important thing. Technology can help you be more efficient, effective, but trust. Mm. Integrity, relationship. You can’t, and a lot of people now with the fakes. Yeah. And now you have to post whether AI touched any part of it, whether it rewrote it.
Mm. Whether using avatars, but the relationship if they go, Adam, I know you. Yeah. So when you tell. Me someone to talk to. That’s important because that’s the relationship and trust. So I think right now, currently, that still is in play. The relationship, the trust, the friendships, uh, really now even, I always say for the younger generations with getting a job.
Mm-hmm. If I said Adam. Here’s somebody I know. I know. They would be a good fit. Yeah. You’ll probably look at the resume, of course, than getting thousands of resumes. Oh my gosh. For mission matters. Yeah. I mean, right. Everyone wants to work, they see the brand, but how do you go through? And unless you have that personal relationship, you can reach out.
So right now, personal relationships is probably one of those AI proofs. Mm-hmm. But of course, you guys still have to put in the hard work, building your brand, bringing your credibility, and being authentic. Right. Yeah. And showing who you really are as a person. Keeping true to that. ’cause we’ve seen now with social media, things can get exposed very quickly.
Oh yeah. If you don’t do things right, yeah. That’s a given. Yeah. And I look at the, that, that concept though, and I, I tell people this all the time, I’m like, yeah, well, I, I, I get that. Even, even in a one person company, let’s say there’s gonna be somebody at some point you’re talking to, whether it’s unique capital.
To expand, even if it is a one person company. Maybe it’s infrastructure, maybe it’s some, like at some point in the supply chain, you’re gonna have to talk to people. And at the end of the day, like those relationships, those strong relationships, that’s what’s gonna let you scale. That’s what’s gonna let you, um, continue to grow.
And then ultimately that’s what’s gonna let you build something that maybe lasts. That maybe last I, I would say a hundred percent because you can build a company and that’s just a technology, that’s a idea. You just don’t need staff A lot of times. Yeah. But you interact with other companies, other people.
Mm-hmm. So you’re still not in a silo. It’s, yes. You created this company that could be as automated as much as possible, but there’s other support teams, groups, yeah. That may not be automated, that doesn’t at this point integrate. Mm-hmm. That you do need a relationship and good communication skills too.
Build the bond. Yeah. So you, you, it’s still in play, like mm-hmm. What you were saying, the people skills, the soft skills. So important right now. Yeah. So we’re in, uh, September, 2025, let’s say we’re heading to the end of the year. Um, what, what’s next in the agenda for you? Like what’s next? What do you got on the schedule?
Well, for me, uh, it’s probably see a lot of traveling. Yeah. Some, some international traveling abroad to Dubai, Asia. Uh, some big partnerships we’re putting together. Mm-hmm. And it really is. You need the people, which you have to go a lot of time, fly and meet the person. Yeah. Uh, and through friendships, but we’re using the technology and AI to connect.
So when we meet, when we talk, when we build friendship and trust, things can go a lot quicker and scale. Yeah. So that’s the exciting things where we say, uh, a lot of the old timers, they’re not outta the game yet because your relationships, interpersonal skills, your network Yeah. Is in play. And for the younger, they just have to learn this new world that everyone’s in and not really shy away.
Mm-hmm. A little bit of traveling before year’s end. Exciting times, exciting times. Last thing I want to do, Jim, uh, if somebody wants to follow you on social media otherwise, or connect with you and your team, how do they do it? Yes. You could reach out to me at James Wong. On LinkedIn, J-A-M-E-S-H-U-A-N-G.
And hopefully I pop up pretty good. I’ve been trying to work on the social media, thank you to mission gutters, uh, building that up. So I’d love to connect with everyone to talk about real estate, technology, entrepreneur, finance. Mm-hmm. I’m kind of a deal junkie like you. Yeah. Awesome. And for everybody, everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes, so you can just click on the links and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Jim, I see you for coming to the show, man.
