One thing that isn't very clear from the writeup: we went through a LONG trough of sorrow before finding our current pivot. That's a story for another day...
It looks like you guys currently own the SERPs. Congrats on that. There is no way to do that without a ton of patience persistence, and not pivoting far.
I used your service 2 years ago to find my current apartment (I found it without a broker, and sight unseen). It worked great for me, and I am glad to see you guys are doing well.
But since this last pivot, year over year growth is ~10x! You guys are an example of sticking around long enough and trying enough things that one's finally catching good traction. Congrats Lee, well deserved :)
Good timing, I'm just now beginning my apartment search in Manhattan and will be checking out your site.
It's really great to see an HN article with an emphasis on the importance of domain expertise. As someone who has worked in the real estate industry for years, managing ~1,000 units, personally owning rental property, having a real estate license and partially completing a M.S. in Real Estate, I can say with confidence that there is plenty of room for disruption in the industry.
After teaching myself front-end development and the LAMP stack, lack of domain expertise in programming is probably my biggest concern as I prepare to launch my next startup (even after a successful exit from my prior venture).
Thanks for the article and the insight, Lee. I'm planning on building something for real estate as well and have some target users working with me but I probably might not have enough insight on the pains of the process. I'm tempted to go your route and get a broker license as well.
I spent 5 years in commercial real estate brokerage (multifamily) and closed some signifigant deals. What you are building is radically different that what I am working on, but they are both in the real estate space. I'd be happy to talk to you sometime about it. My email is my HN name at Gmail.
I used your service 2 years ago to find my current apartment (I found it without a broker, and sight unseen). It worked great for me, and I am glad to see you guys are doing well.