Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 3)

SM: When you launched, what was your thesis regarding your ability to solve the various problems you identified?

PF: Initially we were very focused on the consumer side. That was our perspective, and we felt it was the primary problem which needed to be solved. We approached the challenge from two key perspectives. First, a phenomenal user experience. Switching costs on the Internet are very low. It is a Google versus Alta Vista comparison. If there is a better product, Internet users will simply switch. That is why our first axis was to develop a phenomenal user experience.

The second piece was content, information and transparency. We really wanted to have as much content as possible to empower consumers to make better decisions. We try to present as much content as we can to allow consumers to do a ton of research about the real estate transaction, neighborhoods, schools and anything else.

SM: Did you get funded right away?

PF: In the early concept stages, the funding was done via an angel round. We had folks like Ron Conway, Kevin Hartz and other angels. We raised venture capital later on.

SM: How much did you raise in your angel round, and what did that allow you to do?

PF: We raised $2.5 million. It allowed us to get proof of concept out. We developed the underlying search technology, the user interface, and establish early relationships with the industry. We launched with five people. The first version of the site cost less than $50,000.

It was a stark contrast to when we launched LastMinute.com. We raised a similar amount of money, but that site cost 10 times as much. The economics in 1998 were ten times higher than they are now. Everything has gotten cheaper and open source software really helps.

SM: Let’s drill down on those early days. Your thesis was that you would provide the richest content about the real estate buying process. What were the sources of data that you were putting in front of the consumer?

PF: Primarily it was listing information. The primary need for consumers was showing information about properties for sale in an easy to navigate way. The second piece was telling them about properties which were sold in their area. It has evolved significantly since then.

SM: How were you finding the listings that you were showing your users?

PF: In the early days we were crawling, and that enabled us to get a critical mass of listings. As the business evolved we stopped crawling and started submitting feeds into the site. There are so many brokers who submit content to us directly that we do not need to go out.

In the early days, when you tried to ask a broker to submit a feed they had no idea what I was talking about. Crawling was a good way to seed but the data quality was not as good. Crawling data is dirty data. Flipping the model and getting the data straight from the brokers was key.

SM: How long did it take you to flip that model?

PF: About a year, perhaps 18 months. One of the interesting things about 2005 is that properties were on the market for a couple of weeks, and then they were sold. Now properties are on the market for hundreds of days before they are sold.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint
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