0:06 Hello and welcome to another episode of Golden Nuggets now if you're hooked on Golden Nuggets which I hope you are by now you'll remember in episode 22 we had Brett Hartley-Wilson the COO of Huspy on the show and we spoke about um their office which looks like Silicon Valley they've called it The Garden and we spoke about the co-founder and CEO of the company the Zuckerberg of the Middle East as I called him Jad Antoun he didn't like it when I called him Zuckerberg I didn't like it at all so I'm going to stop all right but I did say that you move fast and break things is that fair would you say that's a fair representation of your leadership style I think speed is something that we focus a lot on in in Huspy so you can name it however okay what was the last thing you broke I think we're shipping technology today at at an incredible velocity so now we're put features to the market every other day roughly every 48 hours and hopefully we think we're at a pace to ship on on a daily basis so that's something that we optimize for on speed okay um so I'm going to ask your question about kind of the technology side of things um because you are fundamentally a real estate company started as a mortgage company transformed into a real or you developed a real estate side um um what differentiates you from Real Estate you know the traditional real estate company that is Tech enabled versus being a tech startup yeah so just just a quick background and and focus a bit more here on the technology aspect since it's a technology question so initially we started in a mortgage company should get the CTO here yeah as I mentioned we started as a mortgage company initially so initially we we provided technology or a platform to brokerages in in the market mainly mortgage brokerages and and mainly the the technology that we provide to them is either to acquire more more leads or to streamline their operations so everything that we do here is to make sure that they can scale their businesses without hiring a lot of head count and with that we had massive success we scaled the company in a very aggressive way over the past three years and I remember the agents were loving it like finally they had an app where they didn't need to speak to anyone and it was telling giving them updates about their deals progressing effectively that is correct and and now the the technology that we give for the agents which is the second product that we're focusing on developed a lot mainly today we're building it for Spain and hopefully we're br going to bring it to the UAE in the next three to four month but just for you guys to understand a bit more technology that we have uh so in Spain and Europe and this what we're going to roll out here we're completely a technology company so anyone can become an agent with us in Huspy you can be the best agent in the market or you can be a part-time student where you want to make a bit more cash on the side you download the app you put your passport copy you put your bank info so we can pay you um we do kyc in 24 hours training online you're up and running so anyone can be an agent I remember Brett saying that you don't need to have a license to be in Spain exactly so in in Europe we work under the concept of the autonomo which is a freelancer which doesn't exist in in this part of the world here we're going to operate under Visa concept but the same technology will apply to anyone here and the technology that we have is similar basic to anything that we build on mortgages either to to help you acquire more leads or to help you convert more leads so these are the two things that we focus on but you say like you you think that there's okay there's 15,000 licensed agents in Dubai then you've got the taxi driver the this the the the hostess everyone kind of dabbles or knows someone so is is there something that you could tap into here that could you know the same product in Spain could you bring it here to more as a referral rather than acting as an agent something more referral based yeah so we try to think about husp as an infrastructure place so the value that we give for the agents is the infrastructure so either the contracts that we give for developers and to other agencies and all of that and two is is the technology that we give personally I don't like to give the the parallelism between the real estate sector and and other businesses because I think the real estate agent does a lot and and when they close the the transaction and and Etc but fundamentally the way people buy sell or rent their home globally even though that people say it's very different in reality it's not very different in our opinion at least so a typical transaction you go on a portal um the portal is more or less the same so very optimized on search and and and listings and and then transaction goes completely offline and mainly it's either through WhatsApp with going back and forth between the buyer the agent and the seller but also the questions are more or less the same so for example number of bedrooms square meters Etc in Spain you might ask if there's an elevator in the building and in Dubai you might ask if there's a gym in the building right but the fundamentals are the same so it's search coordination on WhatsApp the bureaucracy and then the contract that goes on did you did you go through something that was like damn this is just ridiculous why am I you know did you go through the process yourself and see that something is broken or how did Huspy come about no I actually did not so I I just love a big challenge the sector is very large biggest asset class probably the last sector that really where technology didn't do a big impact yet why do you think that is? So it it it there's a few reasons for that so if you look in general a bit how how technology moved through the years so initially technology started with verticals that we we' like to call high volume low tickets so food delivery ride hailing like the Ubers and the Careems e-commerce payments and all of that right with time you went a bit into medium ticket and medium transactions so for example cars and vacations and all of that and we think that the last sector that's that's already there is the low volume high high ticket go going a bit focusing a bit more on the technology that needs to be built in real estate is that even though that the opportunity is very large the question real estate is what do you build in in that sector because a lot of the companies out there are either build something that in our opinion is not very scalable uh so meaning that technology streamlines a bit here and there the operations so very difficult for you to go and build a large business over multiple countries and and all of that and two a lot of the models don't have a lot of impact so either have to be balance sheet heavy and and and all of that so you spend a lot of time uh thinking about what needs to be built and we think today in Spain we have a differentiated model that we're going to go and hopefully uh move into a new market too so and break things there hopefully uh but mainly the value proposition that we give in Europe is we're paying three times more commission to the agent so significantly higher we're giving the best technology in Spain today so meaning a super app you can do that because you've got less overheads because exactly so just for you to visualize it a bit for us to have a big market share in Spain we probably need 30 40 people on on payroll okay on that so your your capex and infrastructure is incredibly small compared to a typical agency um um that that's a bit older so we can deliver a lot of the value back uh to our our stakeholders so you're definitely Tech first then people and that's the difference between a typical real estate company is it has the people first they have a problem or they need to you know something done a bit more efficiently so let's go in and fix the CRM or let's get some tech and added on here plug in this plug in that but you're starting as technology and then the people come for sure and and and today the focus a bit is uh on the real estate side was was mainly a bit more on Europe and and specifically Spain uh we're hoping to bring the technology here in the next uh two two to three months so hopefully we're going to make a significant impact uh in the in the UAE Market as well okay let's talk about money because you've raised a lot you've secured well last time I checked it was $37 million funding from some big names like I mean I was I was a proptech co-founder and the names of your investors it's like you know if you had a wish list of oh who would we want to invest in our startup you've got Fifth Wall ,you've got um Sequoia, Venture Souq who the others yeah how did you get how did you yeah the question the question is how did you raise we're right it's $37 million right that's the disclosed amount down down we raised significantly higher than than 37 million so we raised couple of after that that both of them are are not disclosed so we're just going to focus on building the company rather than putting amounts out there okay and what what was the pitch like how did you convince them what was the problem that you've pledge to solve yeah so and how big is that problem yeah so answering how big is the opportunity real estate is fairly easy right it's just the asset class itself answer the question the question in in this space is around the model rather than than the market and and the industry so if if you look a bit on on the model that we play in today we have a model that delivers a clear value proposition for our user and in the state in the state it's uh either the real estate agent or the mortgage broker which is the core of everything that we do and the value prop for them is basically the same so better technology and higher commission than than anyone else so the value prop was was incredibly clear and again in Europe we're completely techn company and so forth and we're moving into this direction today in in in the UAE regarding investor themselves they want to see something that that scales so again we don't need a lot of overhead and head count for you to build a large business and two we're playing a high margin business with low Opex so you can have um a p&l or a profit margin that's um fairly on on the high side without sacrificing any value creation uh for your stakeholder and and it help that you come from an investment background rather than a real estate background I do come from an investment background yes tell us about your your career path up until yeah so initially I I studed in the US so I actually studed in San Francisco and I took a job there leading growth for for technology company and then post that I moved to Dubai and I did work in Investments as as you mentioned mainly in Investments focusing on technology company so the fund where I used to work with back some of the large companies in in the region did you do a bit of shark work like were you the shark effectively no not not really so we we did very diligent work both on the size of the opportunity the product quality and and the team behind uh the business and these are uh or the fund where I used to work with is uh back some of the large companies and in technology in the Middle East like Kitopi, PropertyFinder fresha and others and so was it you kind of working behind the scenes on that that made you think I can do this like was is that how Huspy came around you like this is there's a gap here or how did it come about exactly so I I I would say part of it is is that so Venture teaches you how to think big dissect markets and and all of that so I think a big part of of uh what we did was or what we're doing here in Huspy is from from my learning and adventure but also the US was was a big part of of that so San Francisco which is probably the city that's the most active in technology teaches you to dream big a lot of the aggression the speed that we operate under move fast and breaking things I was saying exactly exactly yeah and and this became one of the the core things that we breathe in the company so as you might know we're very optimized on speed on taking some risks and Etc and I I think if you want to go and build a large business over a period of 5 to 10 years then you have to operate in in that matter and how did the name come around Huspy yeah so Huspy we we wanted the we wanted the name that uh that actually doesn't have a meaning so we wanted the company to be so large that it becomes a verb so for example if you say Google it today it's like search for it so Huspy today hopefully one day you say Huspy it so huspy okay so let's say I'm searching for a property oh what are you up to "I'm just huspying" is that the kind of exactly so that's one of the ambition that we will have so hopefully 10 15 years from today it becomes a verb and two we wanted to compete on seo something that is a bit more tactical and on the details something that you don't have to pay millions of dollars for you to go and be able to compete on Advertising with online channels okay you like me you couldn't get the huspy.com could you initially no but now we have huspy.com you got it yeah we got we got how much did you have to pay we got it two years and a half ago was it some guy some kid in Germany or something that was just sitting on this domain or no actually we bought it so we bought it from from someone not for a large amount but initially we operated with Huspy.io for four five months um so this is why some of our emails are still on that .io and but we're all of our websites are either on huspy.com which is the Dubai entity or .es which is the Spanish entity okay and you're not the kind of you're not really out there this is your first podcast you're not really the kind of PR and interview type so I'm very honored to have you on the show I am honored and it took a while to get this we were supposed to we were supposed to do this three months ago but you are such a busy guy but finally got you in a window while you're in Dubai um tell I want to know kind of as a as a Founder very successful company work life balance how are you do you even manage it have you just decided for the next 10 years I'm going hard on this or what's your yeah so first of all internally and and we don't feel the size of Huspy so we still have the same chip of on our shoulder as if it's day one so uh we're still a tiny company in my head before we get to four or five markets multiple products um and hopefully lead the sector in Europe in the Middle East then this is probably the day that we say okay we have something that's working um so and it becomes a verb and it becomes a verb uh that's that's for sure one two uh regarding work life balance uh everyone has a rhythm I can operate with the long hours little sleep without sacrificing happiness so every time I balance things out it makes me less happy actually so I think for the foreseeable fature I'm very committed to to long hours high intensity speed and I actually involved it so I love crafting the the quality of the product the distribution dissecting markets new products and Etc so I think it's a you're obsessed with the with the work I love it there is that kind of pressure as like Oh I'm a I'm a founder or I'm a I'm
an entrepreneur I should be waking up at 5:
16:31 00 a.m. or I should be very disciplined and going to the gym every day like do you have these kind of obsessions with routines or like I'm trying to get into the DNA of Jad like no my routine changes a lot so I I can focus I I I come to the office a bit early just because I'm I'm in meetings the whole day and I live late sometimes I work out in the morning sometimes I wake up I work out at night sometimes I don't work out um but for me the most important thing is to get five six hours of sleep good coffee up and running so that's your no maybe in 4 five years I I'll need a bit more time to to rest and all of that but at the stage of my career I think I'm good you're all go what about like things like breath work and meditation and all of this not you okay right so did you have any mentors or significant figures as you were either you know in your education or going through your career before you founded Huspy yeah so there's a few people that that left the a mark in my in my career business wise so I have my my father actually built a built a significant business from from nothing but taking big risk so moved from Lebanon into Central Asia post uh the USSR fell down in 1997 and a lot of the risk and speed and aggression I think is coming from him so people say that I'm fracture of my father my brother is is is a very different so also as a business and soon um very product obsessed likes to play high margin business more calculated Etc so I took also a bit on on on on that side and uh also I tell the people is like everyone has to craft their own story so with us our DNA and this something that we we focus out a lot on in I think it became cultural we like to play in big markets big markets big disruption let's go so this becomes very interesting where did you grow up for us I grew up in Beirut Lebanon okay and your dad was in yes my my father was in Central Asia and used to go back and forth so you didn't go there I used to actually go and visit them almost every summer okay all right nice and now you're living in half in Spain half here or mostly Dubai this year it's going to be half and half so six month roughly in Dubai and hopefully six month in Spain dominantly Madrid okay I hear you live in City Walk correct I used to live in City Walk too I was one of the first residents in City Walk from 2017 and then I left in just after covid I left or just before covid why did you choose City Walk? I love CityWalk and and for me it's it's the perfect fit so 5 minutes from the office 5 minutes from the beach it has a community where you you get some aspect of the the quality of of Europe or the the walking getting coffee going around people like I I talk about City Walk but I never actually see people walking around City Walk I'm probably the only one exactly so I pick up my coffee in the morning I come back home go to the gym come exactly and it's great location so also you're very close to DIFC very close to office very close to the water and all of that see I kind of I I chose CityWalk originally because of the low ress because I'm I don't have a fear of heights I have a fear of fire so I thought better be on the safe side living City Walk nice you know maximum six floors and then you know my confidence grew the longer I've been in Dubai and then last year I moved into Index Tower and then last week there was a fire and five floors below me and you have no idea how painful it is to go down 50 floors of stairs let alone go up going down my calf muscles were Rock so I'm actually now strongly considering moving back into City Walk because I can't go through that again yeah the same story happened to me when I used to live in the DIFC so I used to live in Maize Tower and there was a fire and I I can feel the leg pain yeah the next day calf muscles because it's just being stretched and stretched and I felt like the stairs were never ending luckily nobody was hurt everything was fine but um yeah it's a bit of a a kind of reminder okay career advice lots of people listen listening watching are either thinking about getting into real estate or just started and I want to try and understand the industry as best as possible so what would your advice be to people thinking about getting in the industry and just starting their Journey yeah um first of all I have a lot of respect for real estate agent I I think the optics of what it takes to be a real estate agent and reality are different typically what happens in the sector is people look at it from the outside and they see is that okay the economics are very appealing if you close one transaction a month which is should be fairly easy to do you can make a lot of money and then you come in and you understand how difficult is either to source a property or to close a client and and this is fairly because the service is more or less the same unless you are working in a niche or in a company that provides actual technology and and all of that so one you have to rely a lot on self motivation etc and two which is the most important thing you have to find a company at empowers you to grow yourself and and for us in Huspy the way we'd like to think if you're a very successful agent our job is to make you grow much faster than than if you grow on your own and two if you're new person entering to the market then our job is to make you productive and hopefully become the future of the industry um and of of tomorrow so that's the way and I think about and and actually interestingly we had to clear out a lot of your people from The Garden to shoot this episode and I was actually surprised to find to see how many people were actually sitting together talking to it's not like a typical real estate company everyone's separate they're kind of in the pods and making calls by themselves and you know but I really felt that sense of collaboration um how has The Garden contributed to the performance or the productivity of your your agents yeah so we invested a lot of a lot of resources in The Garden we wanted The Garden to be the center of technology in the ecosystem right so we do a lot of talks either inhouse or out or out for the external world so we invite a lot of people to come and spend time here also if you don't work in Huspy you want to come and work from here you're more than welcome sorry did you just say free office space exactly you can come free coffee this on exactly we've got this on camera now okay yes so that's one two I think collaboration if done in the right way because diversity sometimes can play a bit against you if if you don't build a homogeneous team if you manage to crack it then then you can build magic so so let's talk about that because then you do have especially in in Dubai nationalities will club together and move around in clusters so is that something that you've noticed here or is there a bit more diversity yeah so in in Huspy we have both diversity on nationality level but also on a background level so we have a lot of people that come from the industry so either people work in real estate and mortgages and etc and but also people who come from a technology backgrounds so software engineers product managers product designers uh data engineers and and etc which you wouldn't mix with if you in a typical real real estate company exactly so the challenge initially was a bit more complex that's why what we do in the company is we have an incredibly solid onboarding process that we focus a lot on but also as a person who works in the company you're both incentivized on individual level and also on a company level either by a stock compensation so majority of people are owners in in Huspy so we all work into a common goal and and there for the ship sales in a bit of of a smoother way Okay cool so want to know from you what's next for Huspy yeah so in in the in the short term we're focusing mainly on our real estate business units mainly in in in Dubai and in Spain so Dubai we're growing massively so we launched the new business six seven month ago we're hiring aggressively we're going to bring the best technology in our opinion this sector and hopefully this going to generate a platform where people can come to either enter the market or grow their business exponentially with us over the next period of of time in Spain we're today in Madrid we're going to launch four or five new series this year uh so hopefully the likes of which ones hopefully the likes of uh we're focusing initially on on tier 2 Series in in Spain mainly the likes of Malaga, Valencia and at the end we're going to close with Barcelona which is the second largest city in in in Spain and hopefully post we finish both so both focusing on the UAE and on on Spain then the goal is to launch two new markets one of them is going to be in the Middle East and one of them is going to be in Europe so hopefully we'll close with four markets sometimes by sometime by the end of the year did you learn Spanish yet? I've been taking courses for four months so I'm halfway there you can get by in a restaurant perhaps exactly I speak French so French is very close to to Spanish I I can understand 70 80% of of what's out there and maybe I can speak 30 40% but we're fully committed for Spain and hopefully teaching or learning English is is one additional point to show our commitment so you were recently featured in Gulf Business as one of the most influential real estate players players in the GCC real estate leaders in the GCC hence you're on the Golden Nuggets leaders season I'm sure you're equally proud to be on both tell us how that came about yeah so first of all we're very grateful to to to to to be on on the a big big part of it is is the reflection of the success of the company and the success of the team so as you know we're we're still fairly new company so we're three years and a half old some people think we're 10 years old we're just about 3 years um and today in the UAE specifically on mortgages we roughly have 25% of the residential market so one out of three to four mortgages we facilitate today in Huspy so we have significant size over there and and all other business units that we launch either the real estate business in the UAE or our businesses in Spain are growing at the rapid rate so roughly we're growing 10 to 15% week on week so roughly the business is G take doubling every single month but uh I play a role in the company it's a reflection of a hard work of 250 people putting their heart and soul for for the company and so you you started in 2020 so after covid where the market's kind of you know reasonable to say that it's just been going up and up and up yes um how ready are you for the eventual down down down yeah so I I think we we're we're the most ready whenever so as as you know real estate cyclical right so today in Dubai we have a bull run in Europe maybe the markets are are a bit calmer the the the great thing when you have a technology company is you you don't sit on overhead right so our costs are much lower than any any typical agency or mortgage company so again in Spain we think we need 30 40 people for you to go and and and build a business over there so even if the market crunch and bear in mind that the market size is very large and we have a differentiated offering that we still think that we can build a massively profitable business given that we do have a massive cost structure on on the business okay and what's your view on the future of the proptech industry because that's that's a word we haven't said yet and you're you know you've you've probably raised one of the biggest proptech rounds in the region so let's talk about proptech what's your vision what's your your predictions for the future of the proptech industry yes so we're today we're probably the leading proptech company or one of the leading proptech companies in in the Middle Eastern Europe also in terms of size and and and distribution I think the size of the opportunity is too big that you're going to see more venture dollars going in and more companies coming in specifically if you have a model that comes out of winners so we expect in in in Huspy to get competition and in the business that we do either on the mortgage side or the real estate side or any business un that we're going to go in the future but the Market's so big uh that there's enough to go around exactly uh the advantage that we have maybe a bit is we're well capitalized as a company we have a differentiated product and we've been in the industry for a while so we had a lot of learnings ups downs and successes and failures so we have that advantage uh and the last big one for me that you cannot put or quantify it is the culture of speed that that we have I think this is a massive advantage that we have today in company I told you moving fast and breaking things exactly that's yourself exactly okay now I've kind of developed quite a tradition now with all my guests where I my company is um my mission is to make people or help people get started get noticed get results and get referred that's my kind of four um missions so I want to get your words of wisdom for each of those don't worry I'll repeat it for you so um words of wisdom or your golden nuggets for someone who wants to get started in the real estate industry self motivation okay and get noticed I think you need to find a company or a platform that gives you the tools for for you to do that and this is a combination of technology marketing but a clear path for you to grow inside the company okay getting results I think on getting results my answer will be the same as what I just mentioned on on the second point so a company that provides you with all the tools for you to be able to succeed and getting referred so this is a bit more touchy feely how as a an agent you can get referred yeah so the the thesis that we have in the company in in in Huspy is we want to be we want to have the real estate agent and the mortgage broker at the center of us transaction and and why we think so is at the end of the day the agent to a large extent is the brand themselves so when you provide a good service by by function you get a referral and and the way we think about the building the company is you you are the brand but behind you there's a big infrastructure that can help you move the the needle and not to go again the same words which is the technology the network yeah and the tools for you to be able to succeed and hopefully if you come and and join hospit then if you're getting a lot of referrals then ideally we want you to make exponentially more referrals just by function of you and working with us that's a really good point actually because you've touched on there's so many people let's say from the consumer's angle that's buying or renting they come across so many people throughout the journey from anywhere from the agent to the removals guy to the I don't know the person at the de account or whatever it so many people in that process but the only ones you really remember whether they're good or bad was the mortgage representative or the agent 100% even if if you look at it from a simple aspect if you get one of your friends who are moving to Dubai and they tell you hey Silvia I want to rent a house or buy a house you would send them on WhatsApp the name of the agent not the not the name of the agency so it start with with the basics that's why a core thesis that we have in the company is to empower the real estate agent and and the mortgage broker by making more money with higher commissions and better technology all right well that's a wrap from The Garden from Huspy and with Jad thank you so much and I wish you all the best of luck thank you Jad thank you Silvia really enjoyed being here the exclusive podcast episode with Jad done thank you done.
