21–30 of 49 posts
Why, just why would anyone do that? I understand wanting to give 50%.. 70-80% even, but all of it? Does that seem crazy only to me or is there a hidden motive to it somewhere?!
Presumably he is still an employee, so will have some ownership. Why shouldn't the people who are the company have real ownership as well? Why should the CEO retain the most ownership?
That depends on where the company is since its inception.
> Yadav had reportedly written a resignation letter on April 30 to the board and investors and questioning their "intellectual capability" and giving them a one-week deadline to "help in the transition". However, on May 5, he withdrew the resignation and apologised for his outbursts. I call unstable. This CEO isn't maverick, world-changing bastard. He is simply unstable. Moreover, there are huge questions about quali…
I actually think their UX is the best UI I have seen from an Indian website/app. When it first came out, the UI was way way ahead of anything from CommonFloor, MagicBricks, 99 Acres etc. That in turn put pressure on other real estate sites to improve the UX. You can see the transition by going through past archives of these sites. Interestingly - thier UX when it first launched allowed you to specify a radius on a Ma…
I'm also fond of their branding somehow, and their aggressive campaigning, their staying away from TV, and them not forcing me to download their apps.
But that all falls short when the website fails 11 times just while I'm trying to put up a listing.
Housing.com is dot-com-bubble era extravagant startup with no good forseeable business model. In their initial rounds, they spend $1M ( 40% of funding ) to get the fancy domain and phone number. Its almost as if they are doing exactly opposite of Sam Altman's every advice - low burn rate, focus on product, hire slowly, build and iterate. One of my friend who works there told me that they are working simultaneously on…
Sam Altman's advice is for early stage startups working on small seed rounds, not for companies getting 2.5MM, then 18MM, then 90MM USD in funding. I don't know if you have ever raised, but you have to justify to investors how you will spend money. They most definitely told their investors that they will use their money for fancy domain and given the Indian market, they were probably okay with it. No investor would g…
So its just about getting a stake? Currently, Housing.com won't survive a day if VCs pulled the plug. If the stake becomes worthless, what is the point of investing?
>16 projects does not sound very high given over 2000 employees.
Most of their employees are photographers and not engineers. The problem is not on working on so many things but working at them all at once, with no focus at all which seem pointless since they don't really have a gold-laying hen working for them, yet. Making a loss ~50 Cr is not cool [1].
> Property listing startup with no business model? Are you kidding me?
The business model on which sites like Sulekha and CommonFloor operate is to urge the user to give out his contact details which they can sell to their clients. Essentially, spamming and even that is incredible low-margin model. Would Housing.com go that way?
[1]: http://www.livemint.com/r/LiveMint/Period1/2015/04/06/Photos...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually think their UX is the best UI I have seen from an Indian website/app. When it first came out, the UI was way way ahead of anything from CommonFloor, MagicBricks, 99 Acres etc. That in turn put pressure on other real estate sites to improve the UX. You can see the transition by going through past archives of these sites. Interestingly - thier UX when it first launched allowed you to specify a radius on a Ma…
Their UI is good, not their UX. Bugs simply destroy the experience. I'm also fond of their branding somehow, and their aggressive campaigning, their staying away from TV, and them not forcing me to download their apps. But that all falls short when the website fails 11 times just while I'm trying to put up a listing.
In my experience, Housing has: a) The best UI and UX b) The best customer service in terms of tele-service, the agent coming over and taking photos, etc. c) The best response - on the other sites, even when I clicked and uploaded my apartment photos, the response rate on Housing was the best. d) Interesting add-on features such as 'lease agreement' maker and so on (which I only used to draft my own agreement with my tenant)
As regards 'aggressive campaigning', so many other companies are burning more expensive television moolah (e.g. Car Trade, Car Dekho, YepMe, Practo and more). And yet, this company interestingly attracts more than its fair share of criticism of aggressive campaigning - possibly thanks to some of media houses that also run property portals :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sam Altman's advice is for early stage startups working on small seed rounds, not for companies getting 2.5MM, then 18MM, then 90MM USD in funding. I don't know if you have ever raised, but you have to justify to investors how you will spend money. They most definitely told their investors that they will use their money for fancy domain and given the Indian market, they were probably okay with it. No investor would g…
> No investor would give you tens of millions and expect you to sit on it eating ramen increasing your runway to 4 decades. The idea is to use the damn cash to grow faster. So its just about getting a stake? Currently, Housing.com won't survive a day if VCs pulled the plug. If the stake becomes worthless, what is the point of investing? >16 projects does not sound very high given over 2000 employees. Most of their em…
There are a whole lot of things they can start monetizing. Sure, I am not going to buy an apartment based on slice view, but based on my experience with Housing as regards getting tenants and prospective buyers, I would gladly pay them for the service :)
https://housing.com/in Unfortunately 'Our Brand Story' video on their homepage, made 0 sense to me. Its probably me though.
https://housing.com/in Unfortunately 'Our Brand Story' video on their homepage, made 0 sense to me. Its probably me though.
> Yadav had reportedly written a resignation letter on April 30 to the board and investors and questioning their "intellectual capability" and giving them a one-week deadline to "help in the transition". However, on May 5, he withdrew the resignation and apologised for his outbursts. I call unstable. This CEO isn't maverick, world-changing bastard. He is simply unstable. Moreover, there are huge questions about quali…
It's amazing just how much they iterate. I haven't come across a single bug to date. If anything, it's their inventory I am not satisfied with.
