Zolve: A Social Network for Real Estate Agents
Erick Schonfeld
64 comments »
Like many entrepreneurs, Brian Wilson began his tech startup in a garage. Unlike most others, however, his garage was an army depot in Baghdad. There he dreamed up and created Zolve—a social network for real-estate brokers designed to let them swap referrals. The site he built in Baghdad is self-funded, and was coded over the past ten months by an engineering team in India. Tomorrow morning, he is going to open it up to brokers and other real-estate professionals everywhere.
Wilson, a West Point graduate who was called to serve in Iraq in January, 2006, was forced to leave a thriving real-estate business behind in Colorado Springs. Before he left, he had never heard of LinkedIn or Facebook. But he discovered social networking sites during his downtime in Iraq trying to keep a bead on business back home. He also watched as real estate Websites like Zillow, Realty.com, Redfin and HomeGain took center stage. A former real-estate broker, Wilson sees Zolve as a way for his industry to fight the disruption it is experiencing from the Web and the improved access to listing and pricing information that it is creating. “It’s a way for brokers to take back their industry a little bit,” says Wilson. “We don’t have to pay Silicon Valley, and give them information they are just going to sell back to us, when the brokers have the information themselves.”
Here’s how he proposes Zolve will work: Brokers and other real-estate professionals (like title insurance agents, inspectors, etc.) across the country will be able to create profiles on Zolve and connect to their professional peers across the country. By clicking on their “sphere”of influence, they will be able to see every other Zolve member on a Google Map who is connected to them by two degrees of separation. The whole point of the site is to generate referrals between real-estate professionals. A broker can get 25 to 30 percent of a commission if she refers a customer to another broker. This is done all the time within the industry, especially if a potential home buyer is looking outside the first broker’s immediate geographical area of expertise. For example, a broker in San Mateo might sends business to another broker in Denver,and collect a referral fee of a few thousand dollars if the customer ends up buying a property there.
Brokers will be able to establish their real-estate cred by blogging on their profile pages (hopefully, this won’t end up like Active Rain). Each transaction also generates a reputation score similar to eBay’s. (Not only can the brokers vote on each other’s reputations, but so can the home buyers or other customers involved). By automating such referrals, Wilson thinks that he can create a system where real estate professionals can tap into each others’ detailed knowledge of their own markets to counter the Zillows of the world.
Since there is so much money involved, Wilson also thinks he can easily charge brokers a subscription fee to join Zolve—$395 the first year, and $995 thereafter. Typically, one real-estate referral should pay for the subscription. There are 1.3 million real-estate brokers in the country, and Wilson has a list of the top 40,000 he is going after. Already, more than 2,200 have signed up for the beta.
Brokers are so desperate to keep their commissions these days, they might just pony up the subscription fee without a second’s hesitation.
Why would real estate swap or refer their customers to competitors? Do you think it is beneficial sharing such info ? I don’t c a large audience for the site as such.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
Smart idea and good business model , there is a lot for money floating in this industry.
But the question is : out of the 1.3 million agents , how many actually knows the Internet or even have pc?
1- phenom
Its standard practise in this industry to refers a customer and get 30 % commission of the sales , and believe or not , they honer this and don’t usually cheat each other!
phenom… is a person in another area outside of your ‘work zone’ really a competitor?
Sounds like a brilliant concept.
Brian: I’m looking for a good engineering team in India. Who built your site?
Best of luck!
Oh my god… Zolve could hit IPO huge in Iraq.
These guys need to stay in Iraq for life…
Zolve couldn’t put in the U.S.
it would violate GDP & business agreement. I bet these guys could make a lot money for starting startup in Iraq. They could create jobs.
Not bad…
The problem with Zolve.. If he get VC money over here… Zolve IPO stock will drop in U.S but not Iraq. I bet these guys will make IPO soon and built better place for iraqis.
Um, you need engrish ressons dude, not to mention an education in reality and logic. Where do we donate? I hope we dont have the 3-4x comments of yours on this post too. It really brings my day down.
“The site he built in Baghdad is self-funded, and was coded over the past ten months by an *engineering team in India* ”
I was all proud to be American, and support the troops and such, until I saw this little gem.
I bet it’s full of bugs and is hosted on a single server with no mirrors or clustering capabilities.
Maybe the war can be fought by india on behalf of the US. That way nobody loses!
Many Iraqis can’t wait to buy Zolve shares.
You know why I like about Zolve?
Because Iraq, there’s explosion, war, hardship, childrens losing faces, etc… Zolve could help iraqis build new silicon valley and value of IRAQ’s ipo could hit bigger than Youtube. This why I like about it.
It’s great. They start garage in Baghdad.
They are like next google guys in Iraq. I like to say, Brian Wilson… You did great job…
P.S. You better watch out U.S real estate competitors. They want to kick your ass so bad. Zillow want to kill it.
@7. I think you jealous. You want to destory Zolve. If you don’t like Zolve website or engineers.
Well, why don’t you design one… who is stopping you?
@11
Are you just pretending to be an idiot or is really English a second language for you?
@8
You’re right - it is full of bugs
Currently the site just gives a SQL Server error all described in glorious detail via ASP.NET’s standard error page - the very fact they still have that enabled on a live site shows we’re dealing with amateurs here…
Good PR:
Built in Iraq? Outsourced to India?
Bad Idea:
Building a business model where the monetization relies on a $400/ year subscription fee; good luck and farewell.
I think the concept of social networking integrated into the real estate industry is inevitable. However, in an age of FREE Ware and Open Source development this idea is sure to run right into the deadpool. Its not a matter of ‘if’ there will be competition, but ‘how soon’?
THIS IS A SURE FAILURE!!!
Spare us the time and drop this one in the deadpool…
Too bad, the site is down. Indian coders, sigh!!!!!!!
Zolve seems like a great idea but like that ActiveRain site can someone please show me some actual deals being done. In commercial real estate there already are international networks for referal business so this just seems like another opportunity to hear yourself talk.
On a side note, after reading your article about ActiveRain why are so many tech oriented folks so anti agency? Everyone always wants to kill the middle man. I seem to remember that was one the great promises of the internet with regards to consumerism. The reality is that all the internet has accomplished is having created new middlemen. Lets take for example the guys pushing the ads on this very site, they are ad brokers and nothing more. What percentage do they take when they help you create revenue that you could not achieve on your own? I’m quite sure substantially more than 6%. Will the nature of agency change because of the internet, yes, in fact it already has. Will people stop paying a percentage of their asset value to achieve their goals, no.
Also as a side note: I hope this guy has left the Army, because my old Colonel made it very clear to me that US Army Officers are not allowed to have any side businesses…
The site preview looks pretty sweet.
too bad the actual product is bug infested…
Realestate, car salesmen, insurance sales, loansharks, mafia, conmen, whores, predadators of all sizes and stripes love this social crap. Stay away from it!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
In case it wasn’t clear, the site was built in Iraq, but is now based in the U.S. (in Colorado). Wilson is no longer in the army.
Oh no… I don’t think Zolve will get VC fund.
If any of you have met Brian or heard him speak you can’t help but root for him. Brian is a good guy and an entrepreneur like most of us reading this site. The only difference is he didn’t let the challenge of being away from his wife and children or a freaking war stop him from launching his startup. This guy is determined and has an amazing passion for what he is doing. You bet on people and I have no doubt that Brian has the heart and experience to see his team through to a stable site and solid business model.
This site as a paid service will never work.
The site itself looks great. The idea is decent. But to expect any RE agent to pony up that kind of dough for the oppurtunity to get a refferal is crazy. An agent who is not struggling right now and can actually afford it - Is better off spending the cash rewarding his current refferal sources.
Besides activerain.com and realestateinvestor.com already offer the same oppurtunity with no cost and a good base of members.
Not gonna work.
“@8
You’re right - it is full of bugs
”
“Too bad, the site is down. Indian coders, sigh!!!!!!!”
The American and Canadian educational system is 2nd to none, and that’s why you should NEVER EVER, EVER give American, or Canadian jobs to Indians and Chinese. They’re cheap because they suck.
Yugos were cheap because they suck. There is absolutely no difference. Yugoslavians made cars on slave labor, and Indians make code with people who use slave labour. Nobody that detests their position and knows they are getting screwed is going to care enough to do a good job.
Hey guys, you screwed yourself.
Thanks for the feedback all… both good and bad.
We don’t think cost will be a factor in the face of the value that we can deliver to real estate professionals. We are not selling referrals or customers or anything like that… we are building a network of top-tier real estate professionals so they can be found and objectively evaluated by customers and real estate professionals in their markets. It is a transaction-based business platform, not a social network.
On the “bugs,” we are working on the site tonight in anticipation of our launch tomorrow morning which is the reason why you are seeing those database error pages. If you have an interest, please check out the site tomorrow when when we are not putting some finishing touches on the database, and it is launched, assessible and fully online.
Please keep the feedback coming; I learned in the army that steel is forged by fire.
thanks, Brian.
Wow…you see this is amazing. Im sure they wrote about this guy cuz he lives in Baghdad…. We are about to launch Listolia.com, a REAL social networking site that also allows the agents to contact buyers or lenders, or etc…and no cover.
Its a good idea, but social networking in real estate should be cross-platform across buyers, sellers, agents, and lenders, FSBO, not among peers. Monthly fee for this? Insane, we’ll be around $10. Sign up for beta, this is the only way I know how to tell people. (Las Vegas based)
Hats off to Brian for launching a web company while obviously having his hands full. It’s a good idea. Brokers will pony up the cash if they think they’ll make money off it. I know a few brokers and they can be a bit greedy
The hard part is going to get a lot of brokers initially using it. Brokers tend not to be very tech savvy.
The people putting the idea down are just mad because they don’t have a web company or the company they do have sux!!
Sounds like Roy has some sore grapes that he has been spending time working on a site only to find out that another site is going to launch tomorrow and his time might have been wasted!
Actually Tara,
we are nothing like Zolve, so its fine.
We allow anyone to create a profile, from buyers to agents, and focus on many kinds listings (sorry for the general description, you’ll see more very soon).
I think Zolve is just fine, I agree with, its different and filling an area on online real estate, but I agree with #6 and #24.
ok, not really #6
Paying for this service may be a hard sell to the majority of agents. How is this going to be better than the Yellow Pages?
Selling agent-to-agent leads doesn’t seem to fill a void in the real estate industry. Agents simply refer out of state leads in-house to agents in their same franchise, or simply use the yellow pages to find an agent.
Consumer-to-agent leads are much more valuable. But, internet companies who sell these leads have nearly worn out their welcome with most agencies and brokers. You may make some money, but you won’t be winning any awards or making many friends.
However, I do admire the shoe string approach. Best of luck!
@ Brian
I have some good feedback but would not like to post it here. If you are interested, email me at joe_mcmackin[a]hotmail.com.
Most brokers have some kind of Relocation program in place, partnering with out of state brokers.
In this market, you ask yourself, should I close with the out of state referral and give up a portion of my money or do I hold out for my own buyer and keep it all? I sent you a referral…will you ever send me one? etc…
I’m not sure why my trackback didn’t work, but just an fyi - you can read more about Zolve here — http://www.geekestateblog.com/.....essionals/
Chick in the blue on the site is a great SILF - spokesmodel I’d like to ….
Just wanted to say that I’ve known Brian for a few years (he was my broker for my first investment property…saved my ass, too) and he’s a great guy, full of passion and enthusiasm. I was fortunate enough to get to discuss this venture in some depth with Brian over the last few months and I think that if anyone can pull it off, it’s him.
Kudos to Brian for building this and I wish him the best, but as a licensed real estate broker, I have to be honest, you’d have to pay ME to use it.
The amount of junk that is unleashed in the real estate industry is impressive. More so the complete lack of understanding when it comes to innovation. Outside of the box thought comes when you know whats happening inside.
The real estate tech industry is a major junk yard of poor strategy, bad execution and a complete lack of utility. Please, someone sell a house before trying to sell me.
The great thing about building a suscription-based membership site rather than an advertising-driven based free site is that we don’t feel the same pressure to be right for everyone.
Today, we are launching with over 2,000 members which to us translates to critical mass since they are from all across the country. Looking ahead, if Zolve is right for just 1% of the approximate 2.5 million real estate professionals in the U.S. today, then we will have a very productive, powerful network.
I think many real estate professionals feel overwhelmed by the amout of internet options that are being pitched to them for their time and dollar. I am a working real estate broker, so I understand that. We are really trying to be a solution to this problem by providing the real estate professionals with their own network and platform to propulgate their online brands directly.
Based on the succcess we had pre-registering top agents around the country in the last 3 weeks with just a concept and a phone call, I think we will be able to build a strong network with the core group that this is built for: top-performing real estate professionals across the country.
thanks,
Brian, http://www.zolve.com
When is this site really going to launch?
PS: hope the poor English as a second language grammar reflected on the current page (”The site would be launched in the next few minutes.”) isn’t carried over when the site really does launch…
Just hope all the broker profiles are not fake!
This Melissa Wilson picture is actually from Melissa Theuriau (a French TV anchor)…
Brian -
Questions:
1) how many of your 2,000 members and pre-registered “top agents” are paying members?
2) With so many free “networking” type sites out there, how do you justify to the average agent why they should plop down $400, $1000, $whatever to join an unproven venture?
I can find an agent to refer to in Google, a multitude of designation directories, ActiveRain, Trulia, or brokerage directories. All of which cost me nothing. Why would I pay for this service?
Sorry, I just don’t get it.
“Just hope all the broker profiles are not fake!
This Melissa Wilson picture is actually from Melissa Theuriau (a French TV anchor)…”
Wow, with 2,000 members you’d think they would have to fake one…. Hmmmmm….
At least they faked it with a hottie.
“you’d think they would have to fake one”
Opps, “would NOT have to fake one”.
Wonder if they got the French hottie’s permission to use her likeness?
Somehow I suspect not. So they are jumping out of the gate performing copyright violations…………..
Besides having a good “story” behind this, Brian has a very solid idea. If Zolve can build critical mass, and it seems well on the way, then this becomes a way for agents to make more money for themselves while provided value to their customers. And since Brian is really leveraging the low-cost, rapid development capabilities available to entrepreneurs these days, he can afford to experiment with new ideas, adapt, & evolve.
I too know Brian, and echo #23 above by saying if anyone can do it, Brian can. And the feedback I’ve gotten in the industry on his idea has been very positive. Glad to see the spirit is still alive even in the embattled real estate industry!
When we launch, anyone or any other agent can contact another for free and set up their own referral and relationship.
Its something that should be free and is usually offered through the agents company.
Yes, and besides the hottie Melissa Theuriau, the other girl we can see on the screenshot is Vanessa Hessler, the girl from the Alice ADSL advertising (Alice = Telecom Italia)
“And the feedback I’ve gotten in the industry on his idea has been very positive.”
You must have a different feedback loop than I’ve seen. Some very prominent real estate blogs are panning the concept.
I bet the Indian programming team is scrambling. It’s past noon on the east coast on launch day and still nothing….
Hi, it’s David from Zillow,
Brian - as you know, I think Zolve’s got potential.
Your pitch in this interview, however, surprises me. Is that truly a direct quote about selling information back to brokers? Seriously, who and/or what are you talking about here? And do you really believe that home buyers don’t need to be informed just because “real estate professionals can tap into each others’ detailed knowledge.” Those two issues have nothing to do with each other - that statement makes no sense.
Seriously, Zolve is a great product - why the hot air?
Wow, a company actually trying to charge from day one! I don’t believe it.
Hmm, let’s see…..$395 to join. As a real estate broker, I must say you gotta be kidding me. The problem is once you have 1-3 top-ranking brokers in the database in each market, you’re tapped out. You can’t have 50 people in each market.
Plus, as soon as LinkedIn improves their “service provider” section (they already have one for real estate), you’ll have even more trouble.
Let’s see how many of those members are still around 31 days from now.
You can’t expect somebody to pay $395 for this. Maybe $25 per month, but $395 up front?
Anyhow, you might make money, but it’s no blockbuster. Not trying to hate, but as a broker, I think you need to redefine the business model.
I just love the “trying not to hate…but”. As a successful broker, I have no trouble putting my money where I see value. Seems like a bunch of you are making judgement on what us succesful realtors are going to do with our money. Keep farming neighborhoods, I am sure you will have more success that way.
Great idea…. low cost for startup… might need to change your business model. But if you dont try… you dont get to find out!
best of luck
Why all the hating …
In the U.S a web 2.0 site can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build while in India it can cost maybe tens of thousands . This is why people get millions in VC money to build a Web 2.0 site . You have to start somewhere . If the concept is good you will be able to get money from investors but one can’t just decide that they won’t build a site because they don’t want to outsource to India .
Even if the concept does not work as some of you are suggesting he will come out of the experience richer with knowledge .
I respect the fact that Brian has single handedly made the effort to try something . If he had Millions of Dollars of VC money . He could hire Microsoft to build the site ..
Brian stick with your dreams and don’t let Naysayers detract you .
I love hearing success stories like these. Its seems like my whole family is involved in real estate in one way or another.
I don’t think waiting around for Linked-In to add another feature is a actually a threat to Zolve. (after-all Linked-In is more of a social web-site and Zolve is attempting to be a tool with actual ROI)
But I see two glaring problems with Brian’s service.
1. Because Zolve is concentrated on one industry, members will be cannibalizing their own opportunities, especially if its members are proactive and aggressive (which most successful real estate agents are).
2. $1,000 a year! This is outrageous when services like http://www.referralkey.com offer similar features for 1/10th the price and allow you to invite complimentary(not competitive) associates to your circle.
David,
Thanks for your comments. I want to clarify that my quote about Silicon Valley companies selling information back to brokers was really taking a historical view of the development of online real estate, i.e., non-real estate focused companies.
You’re right, informed home buyers and well-connected real estate professionals are separate issues. I believe that sites like Zolve and sites like Zillow are complimentary, as we are tapping into a huge market opportunity and serving different audiences. Our industry has a ton of inefficiency and if we’re going to make a difference, we need to work together. If anything, our approaches complement one another.
Thanks again for clarifying this.
P.S. I strongly disagree with some of the comments that denigrate programmers and web developers from India. When are we going to get past this cultural elitism in our society that if it is not American or European, then it must be cheap and substandard?
I am convinced from first-hand experience that the team at http://www.vinfotech.com under the leadership of Akshay Jain is not just the best you can get for your money… they are the best that you can get, period. If I could afford Microsoft, I would take that money and still hire Akshay.
Well said, Brian.
I love the stories of the bootstrappers like Brian to have the “reZolve” to live his dream instead of simply dreaming about it. I think the idea is good but the business model has an “egg before the chicken” problem. Addressing the problem early (with hopefully feedback / ideas from other readers here) will allow him to make changes quickly.
In my humble opinion agents are not going to sign up unless they see there is actual referrals being made amongst it’s members but yet there can’t be referrals without members.
The value proposition of your site is “referrals” at a discounted upfront flat annual fee vs. a large post-closing percentage cost. The content of the site is centered on “referrals” but your “referral” content must be user-generated by members who must invest time and money upfront by posting their referrals… so again, no members = no referrals = little or no growth.
I think you need to solve the problem with social proof of referral activity to gain a following or you will burn your budget on marketing and sales. You already have the platform, now you just need the content.
So here is my idea to you. I would consider removing your world image and placing a nice chart on the home page that displays the number of active “referrals” pending exchange amongst your active members. If you have 2K signed up currently, then in theory assuming each has one active home listing with a seller who is moving, there should at least 200 possible referrals to post assuming 10% of home sellers are moving out of area. Show proof to the agents that there is value (actual referrals) in investing time / money and the agents will adopt.
This “egg before the chicken” problem is a very common issue with alot of startups (having been down that path myself before) which causes many to fail. Those that solve these issues quickly have success.
As an example, I think Zillow did an excellent job because they came out with a product / content - “zestimates” that everyone wanted to check because of curiosity. This content is one of a kind and auto-generated. This caused all the eyeballs to go there and talk about it because there was plenty of “content” to satisfy everybody and it was different… this built momentum quickly. Then using this momentum they were able to tap into the UGC movement.
Brian, I wish you luck in your endeavor.
I’m very curious to see how many brokers and agents are actually going to be willing to put up their marketing dollars without seeing any kind of track record. What may be more interesting is to see how many actually renew after the first year.
I hope it is very successful, but I’m personally going to watch from the sidelines until I see some results. I’m always willing to pay a referral fee for a referral, but will never again consider buying ‘leads’ or paying a subscription or membership fee for an unproven model.
Best of luck Brian! BTW - I’m glad that you are back from Iraq, out of bed and back singing those great Beach Boys tunes …
Greetings.
I think that Zolve has potential for the residential world – based on the basic concept of bringing people together. You can never go wrong with that.
That is exactly what we did within the commercial real estate space with http://www.mydealbook.com.
MyDealBook is an information directory for real estate professionals, their companies and their projects (which we call deals).
It is simple. You build a personal profile then one for your company (later others can join and share this association with you). Next you post the project experience to showcase it to the community. This is just the basic info about the deal – nothing private.
Then other members which worked on that team (ie. Developer, Architect, engineer, lender, etc) join the deal and you develop this community around the deal associations.
This accomplishes two goals:
1. It helps put your profile onto our interactive network so you can develop new business opportunities by showcasing yourself.
2. The info that you share becomes part of a larger set of data in the marketplace – the sum is greater than its parts.
Commercial real estate is broken into 3 groups:
1. Existing inventory sits in idle fragmented tax databases in local jurisdictions.
2. Transactional inventory exists on Loopnet/Costar. They match the buyer with seller during the point in the life of the deal where it trades hands.
3. New Supply. There is a huge missing segment of data on the “what’s to come”. And this is what MyDealBook is trying to solve. There is currently no place from which to get this information.
In addition to business development or marketplace information, MyDealBook offers a Customer Relationship Management tool in its Rolodex. It also has a powerful collaboration platform where members can post files (up to 100 MB each and unlimited storage) on send messages to invited team members.
I was a real estate developer prior to building this application, so it was born from real life frustration. I’ll be the first to admit that our site is not perfect and ironed out. But our concept is simply to bring people together and try to solve many of the challenges of commercial real estate.
I welcome your comments and would value your feedback.
Sincerely,
Mark Schacknies
Founder and CEO
MyDealBook.com
–
http://www.mydealbook.com/markschacknies
I might have not got an opportunity to interview Brian on the launch of his new website, but im glad i got to speak to the programmers and designers behind the scene.
This is to a lot of poeple who think Zolve is just another real estate website, you have to visit the site to make out the difference it carries from a lot others on web today.
For more read my blog on
http://bhopu.com
Parul Bindra
Brand Manager
Vinfotech