http://bhopu.com

Parul Bindra
Brand Manager
Vinfotech

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 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 …

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.

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.

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.

best of luck

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.

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?

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….

Its something that should be free and is usually offered through the agents company.

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!

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…………..

Wow, with 2,000 members you’d think they would have to fake one…. Hmmmmm….

At least they faked it with a hottie.

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.

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…

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

Ci sono poche cose che posso essere definite ordinarie nella storia che culmina, oggi, nel debutto di Zolve, “a Social Network for Real Estate Agents”. L’idea è di per sé fortemente innovativa persino per il mercato immobiliare americano: crea…

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.