How BatchData's Chief Growth Officer built enterprise-grade tools in hours, not months
Three impressive enterprise solutions collectively save his company tens of thousands of dollars annually.
$62,000+
annual savings
$30
to create prototype
1 hour
to create a working mvp
$62,000+
annual savings
$30
to create prototype
1 hour
to create a working mvp
"I tried other app builders…they were a lot more rigid… to figure out databases and how it's going to look.
Replit gets you from 0-1 in breakneck speed…
If I went to my developer and said, make this, it would probably take him a week of his time. I did it in an hour or two."
Preston Zeller
Chief Growth Officer, BatchData
Overview
Preston Zeller, Chief Growth Officer of BatchData, exemplifies how business leaders can leverage Replit to build enterprise-grade solutions that would traditionally require significant development resources and budget. Over the course of several months, Preston created three impressive applications that collectively save his company tens of thousands of dollars annually:
- A full-featured CPQ system with authentication, role-based permissions, custom product SKUs, and automated approval workflows — functionality that would easily cost $50,000+/year if purchased from vendors like Salesforce or Conga.
- A social listening platform that replaces $12,000+/year enterprise solutions for just $30 in build costs
- Professional real estate calculators that would have taken his developer a week to build, completed in 1-2 hours
But Preston's journey to these remarkable results began with familiar operational challenges that were slowing down BatchData's innovation.
The challenge
BatchData, a real estate data and technology company in the PropTech space, faced several operational challenges. As Chief Growth Officer overseeing sales, marketing, and revenue operations, Preston Zeller identified three critical pain points:
Complex quote generation: Their sales team was struggling with an antiquated quoting process for custom API products and data delivery. "Our sales guys are often really stuck in looking at this huge data dictionary, deciphering what they might need," Preston explained. "There has to be a better way."
Developer resource constraints: With limited development resources, Preston needed a way to build solutions without distracting his technical team from core product work.
Choosing Replit
Preston had experimented with other app builders but found them too rigid. "It needed to be more malleable versus like, OK, I need a database and then I need to figure out how it's going to look."
Replit stood out for several key reasons:
- Full-stack simplicity: "The full stack and deploy feature, database feature, and all that kind of being wrapped into one, which is a missing component of some of the other ones"
- Speed to market: "Speed and efficiency is of high value. If I can create something that is guided by a good idea and refine it in a shorter period of time, why not?"
- Development flexibility: The ability to iterate quickly without complex integrations or lengthy development cycles
Building with Replit
Preston built three major applications that transformed Batch Data's operations:
1. Enterprise CPQ (Configure Price Quote) system
A fully-featured quote generation platform with:
- Complex product configuration for tiered subscription packages
- Multi-stage approval workflows with Slack notifications
- Client management and user permissions
- Custom pricing logic for bulk data and per-record pricing
- Professional PDF quote generation with company branding
2. Real estate investment calculators suite
A collection of professional-grade calculators including DSCR, fix-and-flip, and ROI calculators with PDF export functionality, tooltips for technical terms, and color-coded results based on performance brackets.
3. Social Pulse — AI-powered social listening tool
A comprehensive social monitoring system that tracks competitor mentions across Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter, with intelligent filtering by subreddit and keyword targeting. The tool pushes notifications directly to Slack and includes sentiment analysis.
Value realized
The impact is substantial:
💰 Massive cost savings
- CPQ system: $250 total build cost vs $50,000+/year enterprise solutions = $50K+ annual savings
- Social listening: $30/month vs $1,000+/month enterprise tools = $12K+ annual savings
⚡ Dramatic time savings
- Sales team efficiency: Streamlined quote generation eliminates hours of manual work per quote
- Real estate calculators: Built in 1—2 hours vs 1 week of developer time
🎯 Get more value with exactly what you need
"Building these tools in Replit allows for flexibility to work specifically for our organization while not overpaying for features we'll never use due to being locked in by vendors' rigid pricing and packaging." Preston built exactly what his team needed without paying for enterprise bloat.
🚀 Competitive advantage
The social listening tool enables proactive competitor engagement, while the CPQ system provides professional quotes that close deals faster.
Looking forward
Preston sees Replit as enabling a fundamental shift in how organizations operate: "Everyone within organizations are either going to be overseeing technology chains that are working on their own, or you're going to be involved in creating and innovating those technologies."
For BatchData, Replit has become the go-to platform for rapid innovation, allowing them to build custom solutions that give them a competitive edge while keeping costs minimal and iteration cycles fast.