

Show HN: Our non-sexy start-up that's growing 10% a week - dazbradbury
http://www.openrent.co.uk/properties-to-rent/london-united-kingdom?term=London%2C%20United%20Kingdom&lngn=-0.127683100000013&latn=51.5073346&within=24

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dazbradbury
Hey HN! Thanks for the upvotes.

I just wanted to share the fact we've been growing at over 10% a week for a
while now!

All our listings are created directly by landlords, and our aim is to slowly
try and improve the rental market across the UK.

Any questions - fire away!

~~~
bravura
I'm curious what the competition is like in the space of the UK rental market.
Craiglist? etc.

Why do you think you are growing so rapidly?

~~~
dazbradbury
We're offering something to landlords that isn't currently available in the UK
for a reasonable price. We do most of what an agent does, but our costs are
minimal because we've automated as much as possible.

Our growth appears to be coming through helping on rental communities that
already exist on-line, and being recommended by a lot of their users, as well
as our own users being incentivised to share. (You get free listings that
way).

Hopefully it will continue, as our aim ultimately is to what letting agents
haven't been able to, reduce costs, streamline the process, and create a safe
rental community.

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dvo
Non-sexy is the new sexy. Good job, guys. If you don't mind sharing, I have a
few questions. How long after your public release did you start seeing steady
growth? What do you think has been your most successful means of driving
traffic?

~~~
dazbradbury
After launch - it was about 3-4 months before we started growing at all. There
was definitely a hard gruel at the start to get noticed and gain trust, and
that's not say it's gotten easier!

We then introduced referrals, and that's probably the reason for our steady
growth. The more users we have, the more we grow, whereas marketing can only
ever do so much and your just optimising your user acquisition cost all the
time.

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daralthus
Nice pics. Are you sending out your own photographer like airbnb or people
just make great photos them self in the uk?

~~~
dazbradbury
Nope, we'd love to do that, but we're bootstrapped and the finances just don't
work right now. We're hoping landlords can provide good enough photos and work
with them, and we help a little bit by using Streetview if they have no photos
of their own.

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sk5t
Out of curiosity, is the London rental market infested with bait-and-switch,
phantom offerings, etc., like the ones in NYC and Shanghai?

~~~
dazbradbury
Yes! Agents love that tactic, and that's one thing we're combating against. If
our property says it's live, it's available to Rent Now - that's a big win
with our system.

~~~
18pfsmt
I live in the US and know nothing of the UK property market, but could you
talk a bit about _how_ you combat against this? Sorry if this is a trade
secret, or otherwise 'non-discussable.'

~~~
dazbradbury
It's not a secret - we simply don't let agents list with us!

On top of that, our properties are available to "Rent Now", this means tenants
can rent the property through OpenRent. Whilst not all of our landlords use
this feature, for any that do, we immediately know the property is let as we
have the holding deposit.

You can see more on our info pages for landlords [1] and tenants [2].

[1] - <http://www.openrent.co.uk/advertise-rental-property>

[2] - [http://www.openrent.co.uk/find-property-to-rent-from-
private...](http://www.openrent.co.uk/find-property-to-rent-from-private-
landlords)

~~~
18pfsmt
Very nice, thanks. Brokers/ agents have been a source of opacity in numerous
markets, and while they have a place, I really like your approach (and
thoroughness).

Good luck.

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bencoder
I'm planning to move back to London in January after a year abroad. I've been
watching this since it was posted here a couple months ago and I'm really
looking forward to using it to find my next rental.

Just wanted to say thanks, it looks great!

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mike_ivanov
I'm just wondering.. Did you consider offering a white-label version of your
engine?

~~~
dazbradbury
What aspects of it exactly would you be referring to? And do you mean for
agents to use?

~~~
mike_ivanov
I can see different scenarios here, like a group of landlords running a
cooperative listing site, agent - yes, agents... And probably a local real
estate board or something alike. In either case, there is a party who wants to
run a listings site and they need an engine (probably SaaS) to make it
possible. I'm just speculating of course.

~~~
dazbradbury
It's definitely something worth considering, but for the most part, agents
currently have software they use to manage their listings and push to portals.
Many agents don't require websites, as the portals to the lead generation, and
they just do everything offline as their margins are so high.

Having said that, it would be one avenue of attack / pivot if our new listing
growth died, hopefully though, that won't happen. We think we can serve
landlords better ourselves than be the platform for others to continue doing a
bad job!

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jdevonport
Wow, really love it, nice simple, functional design.

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mike_ivanov
This is how rental listings should look like.

