The Ledger
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Gupta: Indian real estate brokers are untrusted and viewed as 'half goons'
“Because, broker pe toh koi trust hini karta hai indiya ke andar. Everybody is shit scared of the broker, and these guys are like, kind of half goons.”
Agarwal: Mass real estate ads fail because shifting houses isn't impulsive
“If I show you right now, if I show you the world's best ad to shift a house, will you shift a house? Because there's a one by 12th chance that if you shift a house every year, one by 12th chance that you will be in that month today. So what is more important i…”
Gupta: NoBroker's 22 million users makes it India's largest real estate platform
“We have like, 2.2 crore customers who have used us. I think, by far the largest.”
Gupta: NoBroker still holds its entire $210M funding round unspent
“The last round what we raised last November on a billion dollar value, that is all lying in our bank. So, two hundred and ten million dollars is what we raised. We have more than two hundred and ten million dollars in our bank.”
Gupta: Building tech in-house is always much cheaper in the long run
“Sometimes it might have taken us a little longer, but building in longer run always becomes much, much, much cheaper.”
Agarwal: Zero Entry Barriers and Cash Deals Degrade Real Estate Brokerage
“Because this field does not have any entry barrier, right? At least for advising a client about taxes, you need to have a degree. You need to perhaps be a CA. You need to be a doctor to give any mental advice, but to give advice about which house you should ta…”
Agarwal: Expanding real estate marketplaces to new cities is a vanity metric
“And we felt that adding more cities is also another vanity metric because it gives you a feeling of aha that you are expanding, you have become a larger company, bigger company. But for a moment, just think about from a customer's point of view. As a customer,…”
Gupta: NoBroker holds 20% to 25% market share in Bangalore
“On core real estate side, in cities like Bangalore, maybe we have 20, 25% market share, but we want to increase it to 60, 70%.”
Gupta: Bangalore rental prices near IT hubs surged 40% to 80% post-COVID
“So if you see the houses, the flats, near to the hubs of IIT, the prices have gone up drastically. To give you the number, it has gone up by anywhere between 40% to 80%.”
Gupta: NoBroker builds proprietary automated boom barriers for society management
“Boom barriers are automatic in the society, and we don't partner with anyone. We have done it ourselves, so that we have the control over the tech.”
Gupta: Maturing a new city market takes 2.5 to 3 years
“Typically ڈھائی سے تین سال لگتا ہے ایک سٹی کو mature ہوکے grow ہوکے decent پیسا کرنے میں sufficient mass build کرنے میں”
Gupta: NoBroker's customer acquisition cost will always remain low
“So our CAC has been extremely low. Historically and going forward also, it will always be low.”
Gupta: NoBroker is the number one real estate platform in India
“I think we have been able to execute well to be the number one player in India now.”
Agarwal: A mob of 70 angry brokers stormed NoBroker's office
“Suddenly one day when we were basically in this house, which I told you earlier that we had rented out, we were working and there were some 80 to a hundred employees that our company was big at that point of time. And suddenly we see some 60, 70 brokers standi…”
Agarwal: Two years on a startup risks only 10% of a career
“See, I have around what, 25 years left to work more, and what if I give only 10 percentage of that? So two years if I give to startup, and if I earn nothing, and even if I blow out the savings which I have, I still have 90 percentage of my career left. So, so …”
Agarwal: NoBroker generates 50-60% of revenue from core real estate
“So our majority of the revenue, 50, 60 percentage of our revenue comes from the core real estate business. Then comes the home services, which basically forms under 30 percentage of the revenue, which is about, right, everything, right, from home loan to insur…”
Agarwal: Housing.com's $90M round scared off three NoBroker investors
“So we were in conversation with three VCs who were, in the end, who were very bullish, and who wanted to basically invest, and we reached the valuation stage, valuation discussion stage with them. But the moment Economic Times printed that news about housing.c…”
Gupta: COVID dropped transactions to zero before a two-day remote pivot
“As COVID came, we saw our everything, all the transactions coming down to zero, moving such big team to their house and enabling them to work from their house. And again, we were like, I'll say lucky or smart enough to ensure that we have the tech in our contr…”
Gupta: NoBroker raised $3M from SAIF Partners (Elevation Capital)
“So we had raised three million from SAP Partners, which is now Elevation.”
Gupta: NoBroker allows NRIs to rent and register Indian properties remotely
“We started ensuring that even NRI doesn't have to fly back to India. Being in US, you can rent your house and get it registered with the government approved rental agreement also.”
Gupta: Every employee worked the day after broker mob attack
“The next day, not even single employee took a leave. Everybody showed up. And I think that was the most defining moment for us.”
Agarwal: NoBroker's three founders shared a single hotel room when fundraising abroad
“We went to Japan, we went to Singapore, we went to South Korea to raise funds and many times it Involve two visits because you need the IEC, then you need one more time and so on. And of course, if you see from a logical point of view, you have couple of crore…”
Agarwal: NoBrokerHood keeps NoBroker top-of-mind with apartment residents year-round
“So no brokerhood came comes naturally to us because this is a business in which you deal directly with the apartment residents who are our eventual customers anyway. And this is a good way for us to connect with the customers who are using us for their rental …”
NoBroker stayed in Mumbai and Bangalore for two years before expanding
“So in Mumbai and Bangalore, I think we were there for almost two years before we expanded to more cities and then we slowly expanded to four or five cities more, but it was very gradual and very thought after.”
Agarwal: NoBroker has surpassed 12M customers and 5M property listings
“So I believe that today, wherever no broker is, and we have more than 1.2 crore customers, we have more than Half a crore property listings posted on no broker site till now.”
NoBroker raised $130M in under a year after $20M in five years
“Suddenly from a twenty million dollars in five years, suddenly one thirty million dollars more in, in next less than one year was something which basically gave us a lot more fuel than we had earlier received.”
Agarwal: 90% to 95% of NoBroker users use the platform for free
“Even today, 1995 percentage of the customers in different categories, we allow for free and the rest basically pay.”
Agarwal: Grabhouse had the exact same model as NoBroker and led by six months
“Grabhouse.com, which was founded by another very good founder they were doing exactly what we were doing and they were ahead ahead of us by, I would say six months with the bigger numbers, well even more famous investors backing them.”
Agarwal: NoBroker raised $20M across its first five years
“We raised three million dollars, then seven million dollars and then 10 more million dollars. So we raised twenty million dollars in the first five years of our journey.”
Agarwal: NoBroker raised $3M in its first funding round in early 2015
“The first check was 18 crores three million dollars and which basically came into two two tranches, one million and then two million. And this basically deal was finalized in early two and 15.”
Gupta: Modern IIT resumes regularly feature founder and CEO experience
“So the way CVs have changed. When we were, what did we write? I mean, becoming a general secretary of hostel, institute, that was a big achievement. It's a great extracurricular activity. On that basis, companies will be shortlisting. You love it. So this was …”