In this episode of Listening with Leaders, host Doug Noll interviews Antonio Castellan, founder of Fortum Digital Services, a Houston‑based company that blends AI, psychology, and digital technology to reshape real‑estate marketing. Antonio recounts how he launched the business straight out of high school in 2017, inspired by his immigrant‑parent upbringing and early work experiences. Fortum focuses on providing virtual tours, custom websites, and AI‑driven marketing tools for real‑estate investment trusts, property‑management firms, and agents, targeting digitally native millennial and Gen‑Z homebuyers. The conversation dives into the company’s AI strategy: predictive trend analysis, chatbots that engage late‑night prospects, and data‑driven advertising, which Antonio frames as an “extension of us” rather than a job‑replacer. He emphasizes listening—paying attention to client emotions and needs—as the core principle that differentiates Fortum from a market he sees as over‑priced and under‑delivering. Antonio shares what drives him each morning: making a difference, honoring his parents, and delivering genuine value, while noting that AI excites him but isn’t the primary motivator. Looking ahead, he hints at new AI features, a forthcoming fintech sister company, and broader industry disruption, though he admits five‑year predictions are difficult. The episode closes with personal anecdotes, including Doug’s jazz violin hobby, and a call to listeners to share and suggest future guests.
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Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Antonio Castellán, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder of a company called Form Digital Services and the website is fortumds.com. I think I got that right. Fortumds.com. Thanks for taking some time out of your day to be with us.
No, absolutely. Thank you for having me.
So Antonio, I interviewed you on Authority Magazine. I was just so taken by your story that I decided that I invite you onto the, onto the podcast. So thank you so much. Give us a little bit of a backstory for those who haven't read the interview.
So it's a bit of a long story. I don't know if you want the short spiel or you want the long—
Give us the Reader's Digest version.
Reader's Digest version is my name is Antonio Castellan. I'm the founder of Fortum Digital Services. We're, we're breaking new ground on the intersection of technology and marketing. My goal is to transform how real estate marketing operations operates, bringing innovative tech-driven solutions to the forefront. That is the elevator pitch. That is how we go, but it's a bit more complicated than that. First, obviously, I'm a son to immigrant parents. I am a brother to only okay individuals. Um, I'm a best friend, forever student of life, mentor. I go by different couple things, but I could go on and on. But, um, lastly, I would say I'm an entrepreneur. I am the founder of 4TOM Digital Services, as I said before. Um, we pride ourselves in being a solutions company First, before a marketing company, we pioneer solutions in AI marketing, psychology, digital solutions. It's a whole thing. But, um, I started this company when I was straight out of high school, around 17 years old.
Wow.
Started it. When was it? In 2017. Yeah, I graduated in 2016. I officially bought the license and everything, all the legal documentation. In 2017. We're going to turn 8 years old in May.
That's kind of unbelievable, isn't it?
It's, it's, it's a remarkable thing to be able to reflect upon this entire story.
Um, so what is it?
It really is.
What is it you think that allowed you as a 17 or 18-year-old to start a business from scratch as an entrepreneur? And make it so successful 8 years later?
I would say all the experiences I've had as a child growing up, jobs, all the different jobs that I've had growing up. Um, I would say all the different, uh, romances I've had, everything, everybody that has influenced me has made an impact so much so that I wanted to make a difference in not only in the world, but make a difference in, in an industry, in technology, in real estate. It's— it really is something special.
How did you decide to go into real estate marketing? That's a— it's a niche, that's for sure. And you're—
no, absolutely it is.
And you're in Houston, so you're dealing with a booming Houston real estate market, I understand.
Yes. No, absolutely. Real estate has always intrigued me. It's— I've— my parents have always taught me about real estate. They've always told me about, uh, how much they bought this house when they were younger, how much, um, just real estate as a whole. They taught me everything that I know, and it's just growing up, I was surrounded by just different experiences and everything has just molded me into the person that I am. And I'm— I really pick a different career, different industry. Everything has just worked out perfectly.
So, so your parents were involved in the real estate industry?
Yes. They got here when they were 18, 19. They established themselves as community members. Um, they came here with absolutely nothing, but now they're functioning members of society. And now they were able to create an environment where I was able to thrive and teach me things and be able to make mistakes. And for that, I'll forever be grateful.
And, and what kind of clients do you work with today?
Primarily we work real estate investment trusts. We work with property management groups and real estate agents. That's what we have the most experience in. That's, that's, that's who we work with.
And when people come to you, what exactly are they asking you to do for them?
Well, it could range everywhere from I'm starting this business where I want to help individuals find their dream home. Everywhere from that to, I have an established business where I'm struggling, especially with this COVID, um, this past year COVID has impacted these businesses so much, right, where a lot of these people are not— they're not going in they're now— they don't want that physical contact, so they would have to branch over to new technologies, virtual tours and things of the such. So these established businesses, they're wanting to bring back that precedence. They're looking to build back their businesses and expand.
So I take it that real estate, for example, a real estate agent or broker who has a home to sell would come to you and say, help me create a virtual tour, a website, a place that people can come where they don't have to get in their car and drive. They can actually see the house online. And then you guys create the platform for that to happen.
That's exactly, absolutely what it is. It's the people that are awake at 2 AM, 3 AM that can't go to sleep. They're looking for houses, and that's absolutely what it is. And they're— and some agencies, some brokers, they don't have that, and we help them transition into the new age, Gen Zers or the millennials that, uh, that utilize those, those.
And so, okay, so you're targeting, uh, millennial and maybe pretty soon Gen X buyers who are very digital, and they're on their phones or on their tablets, and they're thrilled to be able to take a virtual tour of a house and make a decision whether or not there's something they want to pursue.
Yes, that is absolutely what it is, because this new coming generation, everything is online, everything is social media, everything, all the experiences has to come back online. And a lot of the decisions that are made of whether a house is sold is whether they can see it in person, whether they can see it online, and things of the sort.
Right. That's right. And, and the other thing that, that I noticed in the, in the, in our interview was that you, you figured out a way to adapt the current AI technology. Tell us a little bit about that.
I don't, I don't know how familiar you are with AI, it's—
I'm familiar with ChatGPT. That's about the extent.
That's, that's a popular one. AI is going to be revolutionary. Whether you want to adapt to it or not, AI is going to be in a crucial, a crucial kind of mechanism, a crucial step for you. And a lot of people are not taking advantage of it and it's not going away. So the way we've kind of integrated it into the way we offer our services to clients is we're creating and pioneering a solution, many different solutions. We have many companies branching off, but AI specifically, we're creating our version of a crystal ball. We're able to predict where it's gonna go, what audience may want to purchase. Our version of a crystal ball is able to predict these trends and where it's going. And that's not the only way that we're using AI. We're using— utilizing chatbots. We're utilizing data-driven insights. There's so many ways that we're using AI, but I cannot emphasize AI enough because AI is going to be absolutely massive in the coming years. It's already massive. There's already conversations that it's too powerful, that it's going to take over jobs, that we should maybe put a halt to it until we can get a grasp.
There's a lot of discussion around that. So absolutely, I think what, I think what you're saying is that right now, the, how you're able to capitalize on AI is to use it to capture trends that other people aren't seeing yet, which informs your marketing strategy.
That's right.
Or the real property, the properties that you're being asked to stay online. And that's right. And stage them in a way that catches the wind of the, of the trend before other people are aware of it.
That's right.
It gives you a competitive, competitive advantage over everybody else.
That's absolutely what it is. We use it with advertising, with what audience would trend towards that. We use it with chatbots that talk with the people that are up at 3 AM, 2 AM. We use it in every which way possible because it is, it truly is the future of where we're going. And the way we think about it is AI will not replace certain jobs. We're not. Perfect in every— we don't know every kind of industry, how it's going to go, but we believe it to be AI as an extension of us. It's able to predict certain things where we might not catch it. So we use it as an extension of us, not in which we can replace ourselves, but in which how we can better help people as humans.
Got it. So absolutely, think about all of this and you, and you look out into the future as a fairly young entrepreneur. What is it that gets you really excited, that gets you up out of bed in the morning?
That's— I feel like there's two different questions. One gets me out of the bed in the morning. What gets me out of the bed in the morning is many things. AI is probably not one of them. But my family wanting to disrupt the industry, wanting to make a change, wanting to provide genuine value to our customers, clients, and them alike gets me out of the bed in the morning. AI probably does not, but wanting to make a difference absolutely does. Wanting to make my parents proud absolutely does. And, you know, things of the like that gets me out of bed in the morning. But what excites me in the future is a fantastic— probably the plans that we have, the industry kind of breakers that we're pioneering and our technologies, I would say, gets me out of the morning, gets me out of bed in the morning because we have such tremendous goals that we have so many different ideas of where we want to take this, so many things that we want to incorporate. It's, it's, it's something special. I would say it gets me out of bed in the morning. Yes.
So, so where, where does the creative energy come from? It sounds like you have a team that you work with.
Just as in his crazy head, I would say everything. It's a whole cluster of ideas that I've grown kind of into, what I've learned, where I think things are heading. All of it kind of just bounces off into my head and creates these kind of ideas where I want to take these things, technologies that I want to introduce, and things of the sort.
Interesting. This show is called Listening with Leaders because I, I, um, teach people how to listen, listen others into existence, a very deep form of listening. And I'm just curious, in your journey, how important has listening been to your success?
Listening is everything. The way that we structure our company, though, our principle of Fortune Digital Services is that we provide genuine value. We want to be the difference in a diluted marketing industry. I feel as if many have came into the industry coming to make a quick buck. To where people are overpricing on what they're underdelivering. So the way I see it is that I want to provide genuine value, and that involves listening and genuinely paying attention to what our clients want, to what their customers want, to their mission, to their values, everything in between. It's all listening. Listening is just paying attention what a client wants, what a client needs, not just in what they're saying but in their emotions. Do they want to be great? Things of the sorts. Exactly that.
Yeah. And do you ever run across people that don't listen so well?
People take listening to a kind of a— what's the word? They don't want to listen. They want to reply. They don't want to really pay attention.
They're more interested in hearing themselves speak than what you—
No, absolutely. There's a quote. That, uh, that comes to mind. It's, uh, who said it? Stephen, I believe. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply.
Yeah.
They, they just want to hear, they just want to hear their own voices. They want to voice their, their own thoughts.
You know, what I, what I see in that is that most people have a deep need to be heard. That is being unfulfilled. And so they do what they can.
That's right.
To try to get that need fulfilled, which means they are not able to listen to other people. It's—
that's a long, very complicated subject, but that, that's exactly what it is. People want to be validated. They want to be heard. They want to be great. I feel everybody wants— has an inherent need to be great.
That's right. And people have an inherent need to be validated and, and listened to in a very deep way. That's why I call it listening other people into existence. And unfortunately, we're not taught how to do that. Um, and it's like the skill itself is counterintuitive and, and counter normative. So you really have a coach teach you how to do it, which is kind of— which is what I do. That's the, that's the gap that I fill. Absolutely. My word.
Um, yes.
So, uh, where do you see yourself going in the next 5 years? What do you— where do you see yourself in, say, this is the beginning of 2024, 2029.
Here we are, 2029. Wow.
You got to think out 5 years. Long time. What do you—
what is the picture?
Where you going to be?
Fantastic question. 5 years. In the next year, I can tell you, but 5 years, wow. In the next year, I can confidently tell you we are introducing new AI strategies, advancements, and technology that we're offering to our customers, clients, and the like. But 5 years. I can't even, I wouldn't be able to tell you 5 years.
You can't even wrap your head around it because it takes—
no, absolutely not. 5 years, so many things so fast that it's impossible to predict. Absolutely. But we're always—
I won't put you on the spot then.
No, thank you very much. I appreciate that. But 5 years, let me think about it. In the next year, I do hope to introduce a couple things. The new technologies that we're offering to our customers are cool. We're looking to open another company and as a sister to Fortune Digital Services as a financial technology company that kind of bridges the gap between a couple different things. I won't bore you with the details, but that's the plan that we have. So many different plans. So many goals where we want to take this company, where we want to kind of break the industry. We want to introduce different, uh, technologies to different industries. We have so many different goals in 5 years. And here I imagine ourselves so many in different industries.
I will be, I will be really excited to see where you go in 5 years. I think it's going to be a pretty amazing journey for you.
No, I will keep you updated.
Okay.
It truly is going to be something special, right? You can mark my words on that.
Absolutely. One more question. Let you go. What is— what, Antonio, what is one thing about yourself that we would never know unless you revealed it to us?
Oh man, you put it in my own spot. You said you weren't going to do this. One thing.
It could be anything.
About, about myself or the company or the clients that we have?
Something personal.
Something personal is—
fantastic question.
You know, you caught me off guard.
What do you think about it? I'll tell you, I'm a jazz violinist. You would never know.
No, really?
Yeah.
Wow, jazz violin. How long have you been doing it?
I've been—
I'm stalling.
Fiddle for 40 years. I've been playing jazz violin for about 15 years.
You must really enjoy doing it. So I'm really just stalling too for my answer, but I will say something that nobody would know. It's probably your plants. It's probably our plans. Um, nobody, family probably included, that nobody knows where we're going. I don't even know where we're going. The sky is the limit. I, I look forward to it.
You're super excited about it.
Absolutely. You— I could go on, on and on about AI.
Super excited and really motivated, and you, it makes you, you feel, you feel a lot of joy and happiness.
Absolutely. It, it really is what gets me out of bed in the morning to make a difference, to make my parents proud, to make all of these things happen. Absolutely. Yes, you got it on there.
Well, we've come to the end of our talk. Thank you so much for your time today, Antonio. I told you we'd go.
No, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to, to seeing the podcast.
Absolutely. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media, just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up really Your ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.
