How to digitize a traditional market, what are the biggest challenges and how Flatimo breaks the status quo in property rentals and sales – Nevena Borisova, our operations director, tells in interview with Economy.bg for the Startups in BG section.
- Tell us about your company – what is your main product/service and how did the idea come about?
flatimo is the first online real estate platform in Bulgaria that offers an innovative model for renting and selling homes, through a digitalized process and without a broker. Our service is used by both interested parties – owners who want to rent or sell their property quickly and easily with the lowest commission on the market. We help renters and buyers find a property quickly, stress-free and completely free of charge, guaranteeing them 100% real listings, so that customers can feel the excitement they deserve from the process of finding a new home.
The idea for flatimo was born from our repeated negative personal experience in searching for and renting out a home, supported by our observations of trends in the sector. For years, there has been a historic increase in housing prices, which does not correspond to the increase in living standards; new construction is reaching record levels, and ⅓ of the homes in the capital are uninhabited. In addition, there is a massive decrease in trust in brokerage intermediaries and an increasing time to find a tenant. We have personally encountered a number of vicious practices in the market - from false or inaccurate advertisements to not allowing a client to conclude deals. We additionally confirmed the urgent need in the market for a working alternative by conducting quantitative and qualitative research. We decided to address all the negatives by offering a new business model that relies on the digitalization of the process and the effective management of time and resources in our team, which allows us to offer the lowest fees on the market.
- How long did it take you to go from idea to a working business?
It took us about a year to clarify the idea, verify it with the market, create a working platform, define who exactly our clients are, and build a dedicated team whose members are motivated and competent, while at the same time being experts from outside the brokerage field, because we wanted to minimize the risk of bad practices bringing their experience.
Our daily mission is to make the process more efficient, transparent and innovative, so we are constantly making improvements, taking feedback from the market and customers, and ultimately aiming to bring a dose of excitement and ease to the process of finding a new home or renting out a home.
- What were the biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
We have faced many challenges, starting from forming the team and finding a balance between the needs of the growing company and limited resources. From an operational point of view, the company encountered difficulties with the implementation of innovations and digitalization of processes due to the lack of good practices, techniques and developed software on the Bulgarian market. We found a solution by combining one Bulgarian software with several international ones to optimize the internal processes at flatimo.
Additionally, the public has become accustomed to the process being the same for 35 years, even though they are ultimately not happy with it. Our potential clients have had difficulty understanding the flatimo's business model and we are constantly trying to break the habit. The sales team explains daily that flatimo is not a broker, but a digital platform, explains why it works without commission for tenants/buyers and how it manages to offer the lowest commission to owners. We overcome these challenges through marketing communication, constant improvements to the site, synchronization within the team and the messages that are communicated to customers.
- How did you finance the start-up of your company? Did you encounter any difficulties?
We secured the initial capital through personal funds, and later with external investment. The goal is to be profitable this year.
- Who were your first clients and how did they find out about you?
Like most startups, our first clients were our friends, acquaintances and their contacts – we used our entire personal network to start building awareness of our brand. Having experience in the market and gathering enough feedback, we began actively offering the service, and in parallel we also started with advertising communication, with the clear awareness that we were facing very strong competition and an established way of thinking that would not be easily influenced.
- Who are your main customers and markets at the moment?
Currently, flatimo operates in Sofia and works with any owner of residential real estate (apartments, studios, houses) or looking for tenants and buyers.
- What is your main competitive advantage and how do you think you are better than other similar solutions?
Our services stand out from the competition with several key elements: we offer the most advantageous conditions on the market with a commission for the owner of 40% of the monthly rent or 2% of the sales price and a completely free service for tenants and buyers. The process is fully digitalized, with the possibility of online booking of viewings and signing of contracts, without unnecessary phone calls, without last-minute arrangements for viewings. Knowing that 35% of the ads on the largest real estate platform in Bulgaria are fake or expired, but are kept online for the purpose of collecting data from potential clients, we wanted to ensure that every property in flatimo website is verified by the team. That is why the ads are published with an accurate address, detailed description, quality photos and a video tour, which significantly shortens the path to concluding a deal – currently it takes us an average of 2 inspections to rent a property. One of the main advantages is that we are not brokers, but a team of specialists in their field – everyone takes care of their own step of the process, which breaks the traditional model of working with an individual broker. Last but not least, we give the owners the opportunity to conduct the inspections themselves, which is often preferred, but not a standard in the industry, and we also offer the option for us to do it for them.
- How has your company developed since its inception?
The development of flatimo is a constant process – we learn from the market and our customers, and our platform and messages have undergone several metamorphoses so that they are as understandable and easy to use as possible. Our team has grown, we are becoming more recognizable to people, we are starting to create and develop various partnerships with companies with whom we have common ground and can be mutually beneficial.
- What's next?
We have set ourselves the ambitious goal of digitizing a 30-year-old industry with outdated practices and a traditional system that is not trusted. Initially, we want to build a solid base and trust in Sofia and in the next 2-3 years we foresee expansion in major cities in the country. We also plan to expand the functionalities of our platform - it will be even more intuitive, with more control and convenience for homeowners and exciting updates and features for tenants/buyers.
- Can you share the biggest mistakes that, from today's perspective, you believe you have made from the birth of the idea until today?
We made mistakes in the process of developing the business, mostly related to how we communicated the platform and its benefits to the end user. I believe we have already learned from them and are now much more confident in who our potential customers are and what we need to tell them to gain their trust.
- And what are the most important lessons you learned?
Lesson number one – to constantly seek feedback from the market and our customers, to listen and delve deeply, because we can often think that we offer exactly what they need, but in fact we miss valuable details. Our customers and potential customers are the most important advisor and corrective! Equally important is the team – if we do not have good communication with each other, synchronization and motivation, and if we are not on the same wavelength, even the best idea is doomed to failure.
- What advice would you give to those who are hesitant about starting a business right now?
The universal advice in entrepreneurship is that you can't succeed or achieve anything without taking risks. If you have an idea for a product or service that solves real, pressing problems or is better, more efficient, more optimal than existing ones - act. Charge yourself with patience, perseverance, be ready for 100% dedication and do your math well, so that in the worst case scenario you may just have learned a useful lesson that brought you one step closer to success.
