Commercial real estate startup - seeking feedback
I am working on a web-based tool to help entrepreneurs make better commercial real estate investments. 

We combine demographic details, competitor analysis and local economics to analyze the viability of a new business or location. 

The big retailers (walgreens, mcdonalds, etc.) have the resources to build complex ROI analysis for each new location. We want to bring those tools to mom and pop.

We would love to hear any feedback on the concept positive and negative. We are building our beta now (Chicago-based) and interested to hear from experts in the field. This is a complex market and we are open to criticism as we build. 

Some information I am seeking:

* The lifecycle of a commercial real estate transaction... 
* What data sources do you/your clients use? 
* Do clients have an interest in the economics of potential locations/blocks/neighborhoods?
* If yes, what areas are they most interested in?
* How much analysis is gathered on nearby competitive businesses or supplementary businesses?

Thanks
[{"id": "cfsr1ph", "text": "link to more details, or what exactly are you expecting from this post?", "replies": [{"id": "cft8rov", "text": "I should have been a little clearer in my post. I edited the original post to provide more details. Basically, I am looking to understand how data is currently being used in the industry and what purpose it is serving.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cfsx61d", "text": "What sort of resources do big retailers have that would be good for real estate investment decision making?", "replies": [{"id": "cft8boi", "text": "Many big retailers have entire real estate departments. I have heard people refer to McDonald's as a real estate company because it is their biggest asset.", "replies": [{"id": "cft8gwf", "text": "I should also add that the larger companies have more resources to hire the more traditional site location consultants.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cft0gu4", "text": "I work in CRE in Chicago. I'd be happy to help. PM me. ", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cft87ju", "text": "I am also a CRE broker in Chicago. Happy to give some feedback if you can provide more details. Are you aiming for a CoStar meets Argus type of service? What is going to differentiate?", "replies": [{"id": "cft8inh", "text": "Our goal is to bring much of this information downstream in the market. It is similar to the information CoStar provides, but attempting to present it in a simple web format like zillow and trulia do with their neighborhood data. \n\nWe are using city data on crimes, transportation and building permits to build real-time profiles of different neighborhoods. On top of that we are adding the Census demographic data and some competitive analysis using Google Places/Yelp.\n\nI am trying to explore the gaps in the current process and better understand the life-cycle of a customer. ", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cftl0gr", "text": "This could be awesome.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cg0vfpg", "text": "This sounds extremely complicated for all the different property types out there. I definitely wish you luck though. I'm a commercial appraiser, feel free to PM me if you have a specific question.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]