5 ms·

If you're going to tackle something in the area of real estate for your MVP, I'd advise being careful not to create something that is a two sided market place.

If you're going to tackle something in the area of real estate for your MVP, I'd advise being careful not to create something that is a two sided market place. So if the app requires people to list property, but as well as users to view the properties etc then it's something that will be hard to gauge any traction on quickly as you'll need both sides to be rapidly signing up. Developing a product that is focused on either the seller or the buyer would improves your chances considerably for validating an MVP.

mrborgen 12y ago
I was thinking about a 'Yelp for rental apartments', where people can rate their experience with various landlords. Hopefully it could make bad landlords provide a better service. But as you point out, it's such a huge task to reach critical mass on something like that.
- a5seo 12y ago
  I know this market really really well. There have been attempts at this, but unsuccessful. http://consumerist.com/2006/01/26/trembickycom-the-bad-landlord-story-site/ http://consumerist.com/2006/01/26/trembickycom-the-bad-landl...
  - mrborgen 12y ago
    Yeah, Swapt too tried something similar, but seems like they are doing a pivot, or at least re-launching. http://www.swapt.com/ http://www.swapt.com/ If you know this market well, I'd be very interested in getting in touch with you, for possible input on future project I might be involved in within this space.
    - a5seo 12y ago
      hah, those guys just hired people to write reviews. Their "users" had hundreds of reviews each, and almost all were freelance writers. I wonder if they told investors they were "growth hacking." The reality is that it's pretty unlikely to get traction with a review site unless you have a very cheap source of traffic (like an existing rental site). A review site is just a two-sided marketplace, as the first commenter pointed out.
      - ericjonwolfe 11y ago
        Hey there - I'm the founder of Swapt. As a5seo pointed out, we did pay certain users for reviews (much like Yelp in its early days) and offer other incentives (e.g. donations to local charities). Our average cost per review was around $1-3 when you factored in all the incentives (note that +50% of our reviews came from unpaid reviewers). The average number of reviews per user was 8 - much less than the "hundreds" claimed above. There were a few users that wrote +100 reviews, but they all worked in real estate (e.g. agents/brokers). The major problem with "apartment reviews" is that the average person has only lived in 3-4 places and doesn't typically want to write about places they've visited, which significantly limits the # of potential reviews per user. As a rule of them, only ~1% of users contribute content, so you really need that 1% to contribute a lot of content. This works for Yelp because that 1% can contribute hundreds or thousands of reviews (e.g. they may try a new restaurant every week). But this isn't the case for housing given the low turnover. Brokers can write significantly more reviews but some users found their reviews to be biased (e.g. only giving positive reviews to apartment communities that they represent). The brokers were also very motivated by money, so unless you have an established audience that will help them secure new business, it's a tough sell. Overall, I learned quite a bit from the experience and definitely think there are numerous ways that startups could bring greater transparency to the rental market. But if you're trying to do "apartment reviews," just understand that this will likely take you many years and many VCs are unwilling to be that patient. If you want to know anything else about my experience with Swapt, just ask or hit me up on LinkedIn. Best of luck.
- supercoder 12y ago
  Yeah and unlike restaurants, people aren't potentially renting a new place 3 times a day. So I'd guess it would be a struggle to even start collecting content. Plus, something like that has varying use depending on where you live and the rental market. In Melbourne, Australia the supply is low so there is a lot of competition for rentals. Most people wouldn't care too much about the experience of the last guy, nor do they really have the luxury of choosing, they just want a place quickly.
- davemel37 12y ago
  unfortunately, Tenants are disincentivized to complain about their landlords.
cssmoo 12y ago
That's pretty good advice and not how I'd considered that sort of thing before. Thanks for posting.
burger_moon 12y ago
Never really looked at it like that before. That applies to an unrelated project I'm working on that is built like that. It would make sense to focus on one side to gain traction then open up the other side to feed it once it has a user base.

mrborgen 12y ago

I was thinking about a 'Yelp for rental apartments', where people can rate their experience with various landlords. Hopefully it could make bad landlords provide a better service. But as you point out, it's such a huge task to reach critical mass on something like that.

a5seo 12y ago
I know this market really really well. There have been attempts at this, but unsuccessful. http://consumerist.com/2006/01/26/trembickycom-the-bad-landlord-story-site/ http://consumerist.com/2006/01/26/trembickycom-the-bad-landl...
- mrborgen 12y ago
  Yeah, Swapt too tried something similar, but seems like they are doing a pivot, or at least re-launching. http://www.swapt.com/ http://www.swapt.com/ If you know this market well, I'd be very interested in getting in touch with you, for possible input on future project I might be involved in within this space.
  - a5seo 12y ago
    hah, those guys just hired people to write reviews. Their "users" had hundreds of reviews each, and almost all were freelance writers. I wonder if they told investors they were "growth hacking." The reality is that it's pretty unlikely to get traction with a review site unless you have a very cheap source of traffic (like an existing rental site). A review site is just a two-sided marketplace, as the first commenter pointed out.
    - ericjonwolfe 11y ago
      Hey there - I'm the founder of Swapt. As a5seo pointed out, we did pay certain users for reviews (much like Yelp in its early days) and offer other incentives (e.g. donations to local charities). Our average cost per review was around $1-3 when you factored in all the incentives (note that +50% of our reviews came from unpaid reviewers). The average number of reviews per user was 8 - much less than the "hundreds" claimed above. There were a few users that wrote +100 reviews, but they all worked in real estate (e.g. agents/brokers). The major problem with "apartment reviews" is that the average person has only lived in 3-4 places and doesn't typically want to write about places they've visited, which significantly limits the # of potential reviews per user. As a rule of them, only ~1% of users contribute content, so you really need that 1% to contribute a lot of content. This works for Yelp because that 1% can contribute hundreds or thousands of reviews (e.g. they may try a new restaurant every week). But this isn't the case for housing given the low turnover. Brokers can write significantly more reviews but some users found their reviews to be biased (e.g. only giving positive reviews to apartment communities that they represent). The brokers were also very motivated by money, so unless you have an established audience that will help them secure new business, it's a tough sell. Overall, I learned quite a bit from the experience and definitely think there are numerous ways that startups could bring greater transparency to the rental market. But if you're trying to do "apartment reviews," just understand that this will likely take you many years and many VCs are unwilling to be that patient. If you want to know anything else about my experience with Swapt, just ask or hit me up on LinkedIn. Best of luck.
supercoder 12y ago
Yeah and unlike restaurants, people aren't potentially renting a new place 3 times a day. So I'd guess it would be a struggle to even start collecting content. Plus, something like that has varying use depending on where you live and the rental market. In Melbourne, Australia the supply is low so there is a lot of competition for rentals. Most people wouldn't care too much about the experience of the last guy, nor do they really have the luxury of choosing, they just want a place quickly.
davemel37 12y ago
unfortunately, Tenants are disincentivized to complain about their landlords.

cssmoo 12y ago

That's pretty good advice and not how I'd considered that sort of thing before. Thanks for posting.

burger_moon 12y ago

Never really looked at it like that before. That applies to an unrelated project I'm working on that is built like that. It would make sense to focus on one side to gain traction then open up the other side to feed it once it has a user base.