The PPW Podcast

On this week's episode, Joe Hanna from Fusion 4 Ventures joins Simon Baker and Harvey Hancock to discuss all things scaling and exiting. With multiple exits under their belts, Simon and Joe get into basics, wrong turns, and pragmatism, among other topics. Please note there are some audio issues in this episode - but the conversation was good enough to warrant publishing the conversation anyway...

Harvey and Simon jump onto an emergency podcast to discuss (gossip about) the emerging news story that Australia's REA Group is considering a $4.4 billion buyout of British real estate portal Rightmove. 0:00 intros 0:45 diving into the rumour 4:00 Why is REA Group being opportunistic? 6:27 Hostile vs Friendly takeovers 8:40 Can REA afford a deal this big? 12:07 Does this deal make sense for bo...

Ed and Simon and joined by Bernardo Cordero, co-founder of Clau (formerly Flat.mx). A lot has changed since Bernardo and his co-founder Victor Noguera founded Flat.mx as a do-it-all PropTech in 2019. The company has moved away from iBuying and from being a brokerage and has rebranded as Clau looking to take on the real estate portal market. Bernardo talks about why Flat pivoted away from iBuying d...

One of the most surprising acquisitions in recent years was announced last week: PropertyGuru Group, the market leading real estate portal in Singapore, is set to be taken private just two years after going public. The buyer, EQT, is a successful PE firm that has a track record of "swelling and selling" assets—so what is its play in Singapore? Join Edmund Keith, Simon Baker and Harvey Ha...

Is it a good time to raise funds as a PropTech? Mike Plichta is Proptech professional, advisor and investment manager, which makes him one of the best people in the world to answer this question. Join Harvey Hancock and Simon Baker for a wide-ranging conversation covering today's investment landscape, the difference between the startup that fails and the one that succeeds, and Mike and Simon&#...

It's the story that continues to generate the most headlines in our industry but behind all the noise, is CoStar starting to win against Zillow, Realtor.com and Rightmove? Ed and Simon discuss some of the figures from CoStar's latest quarterly report in their broader context and ask whether there may be an ulterior motive behind the group's move into residential real estate...

Ed and Simon are joined by Hannah Parker, CPO at Addland (formerly of Zoopla and Property Finder) to discuss data on real estate portals. As a portal specializing in land, Addland has way more data than other portals in the market and is positioning itself as a research portal for home buyers. If all that information is out there, shouldn't the likes of Rightmove strive to put more of it in fr...

Does it make sense for banks or FinTech players to operate real estate marketplaces? Jorge Combe is the CEO of DD360, a company with a unique business model. Having started out as a B2B development loan specialist it has since moved into B2C mortgages and has built its own very sophisticated marketplace on top. In this episode, Ed and Simon ask why a FinTech business would go to the trouble of bui...

Inspired by a PropTech & Portal Watch presentation by Malcolm Myers, Simon and Ed discuss some of the threats to real estate portals that have come along over the years... Web-based horizontals Global verticals Search engines Social networks iBuyers Virtual brokerages Some are just buzzwords, others seemed more threatening. None of them have seriously challenged big name marketplaces. So are p...

The Online Marketplaces news team has to look through a lot of different real estate marketplace businesses and we often get naked if we've seen any interesting ones. Ed and Harvey try to impress Simon Baker with two companies that they think have gone a little under the radar: Tsukuruba in Japan and DomClick in Russia...

Ed and Simon are joined by Rubrikk Group CEO, Adil Osmani to talk about the future of real estate classified aggregators. These businesses sit above portals and pass them traffic but they have been in the news for the wrong reasons recently. Is time up for the aggregator-to-portal CPC business model?

On this week’s podcast, Harvey Hancock and Simon Baker speak to Stefan Gunnarsson, CEO at PropTexx. From which photos get the most attention, to the importance of flexible pricing—and chewing glass—enjoy! 0:00 Intros and Proptexx in context 3:20 Proptexx’s widget and functionality 7:00 What can Proptexx do and not do? 11:00 Data collection and usage 14:10 Challenges, and minimising lag times 18:20...

Edmund Keith interviews Simon Baker about running a real estate portal. They discuss the first steps a CEO should take, the importance of defending and extending market leadership, and the focus on pricing and adding new products and services. They also explore the role of operational expenses and the need to free up resources rather than just cutting costs. The conversation touches on the signifi...

Ed and Simon are joined by Pietro Pellizzari, CEO of Wikicasa, to talk about the unique challenges and opportunities in the Italian real estate market. Discussion points include The state of the Italian market and the challenges and opportunities. The state of real estate portal competition. What makes Wikicasa different from its competitors Idealista and Immobiliare. The challenges of being an ag...

In part two of our interview with Dhruv Agarwala, we discuss a much-needed topic: health and wellbeing. Dhruv is the ideal interviewee—his personal and professional journey involved losing over 70 kilos in just two years, without any surgery, supplements or coaching; he did it all organically, by himself. How did he do it? How has it impacted his work? Find out all this, and more, on this episode...

Dhruv Agarwala, CEO at REA India, joins Simon and Harvey for an in-depth conversation about the opportunities and challenges of operating a "not quite" market leader in one of the most hotly contested markets in the world. From the structure of sales teams to real-time strategizing about the future of the company (and the Indian market as a whole), this is an unmissable episode that acts...

Simon and Harvey get together to go through the early days of a PropTech startup. 0:00 intros and PropTech Startup Day 3:50 Takeaways from the first PropTech Startup Day 6:15 Who is invited? 7:33 What makes a valid Startup? 11:00 What's makes a valid Entrepreneur? 16:00 The Assumption of Perfection 19:40 Strategic Priorities in the early days 22:00 My first investment 24:15 Valuing my business...

Greg Bader, CEO at Rent.com.au, Australia's leading rentals platform, joins Simon and Harvey for a wide-ranging conversation including the housing shortage in Australia, building a market-leading product, the challenge of being a small fish in a big pond, and his vision for the future of the company. 00:00 Introduction and Overview of rent.com.au 02:19 Changing Perceptions of Renting in Austra...

Simon and Harvey take a quick dip into the Quarterly Financial results released in the past month, including big names like Square Yards, Hemnet, Opendoor, Zillow, and the Baltics Classifieds Groups.

Mike van der Heijden, founder at Portal Ventures, joins this week's podcast to discuss all things SEO, search, and artificial intelligence. From product-led strategies to LLMs advising you on haircuts, here's an outline of this week's episode: 0:00 intros and Barcelona updates 03:07 Portal Ventures and AI vs SEO 11:28 Google's Algorithm Updates and Their Effects on Businesses 20:28...

Graham Paterson, CEO at Jitty, joins Harvey and Simon for a fascinating conversation about one of the world's first AI-powered real estate portals. Some great ideas thrown around this one, including two debates! How can you get listings with AI? Untangling language. A debate about Search. A teaser for Jitty's latest product update—"Collections"—and Simon's bold predictions fo...

Simon and Harvey get together for a quick rundown of this week's biggest story—CoStar Group's acquisition of tech and data giant Matterport. But at $800 Million in cash and a further $800 Million in CoStar stock, has Andy Florance paid over the odds for a company that is spending $2 for every $1 it makes? 00:00 - Intros 00:50 - Macro level rundown 05:00 - Matterport losses are a challenge...

Expect conversations about monetization models across markets, whether AI is the real deal for agencies, crying over Rightmove, cobwebs in the closet and—if you stick around until the end—an announcement about the European conference this autumn! 00:00 - Introduction 01:47 - Acquiring businesses, fast 05:37 - CoStar Vs Europe 17:35 - Major changes in the industry 19:12 - AI as an inevitability 30:...

Ed and Simon are joined by former REA Group man James Gray to talk about lessons learned from the days of explosive growth of the Aussie market leader. They highlight the importance of content, consumers, and generating leads in creating a successful marketplace. They also discuss the evolution of the industry, from the early days of helping agents get online to the current focus on vendor leads....

Ed and Simon are joined by Georg Chmiel, co-founder and chair of Juwai IQI, discusses the end-to-end digital transaction model. Georg highlights the importance of technology platforms in the real estate industry and the advantages they bring, such as transparency, volume, and higher quality of service. Chmiel also shares insights from his experience at REA Group and LJ Hooker, emphasizing the sign...