
42Floors (YC W12) Launches Commercial Real Estate Search Tool - erin_bury
http://betakit.com/2012/03/19/42floors-launches-commercial-real-estate-search-tool
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vaksel
good idea, but I think this is an industry where you don't win with
technology...but with connections in the industry...and it doesn't look like
the team has that.

and the investors are mostly tech guys, not real estate guys...which means
there is no inside track into getting a meeting with heads of "big office
corp"

so they'll most likely hit adoption issues outside of the bay area.

plus there are a dozen sites doing that, and besides the fancy UI, there is no
real advantage over the other sites. And speaking of UI, that site is too
javascript extensive....takes way too long to load

also the $/sqft per year seems a bit useless...at the very least should
provide how much it'd actually cost per month.

finally the SEO on the site is terrible...you are trying to rank for "find
office space" that gets 170 searches per month, when you should be trying to
rank for "office space for rent" which gets 4400 searches per month...also
lease should be somewhere in the title, since that's also getting searched
for.

don't get me wrong, chances are they'll have some limited success in the Bay
Area based on the YC referalls alone. But they'll have to deal with a major
chicken and egg problem elsewhere...and as you can see, the search volume is
pretty low, so they'll need to go offline to actually reach their target
customer.

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brm
$/sqft per year makes more sense when you take into account that most
corporate budgets aren't monthly (this isn't an apartment rental) and that
most commercial lease terms are several years long

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vaksel
fine then calculate yearly cost...showing 2 completely different spaces with
the same price doesn't really make much sense. That'd be in addition to the
square foot rate

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wtvanhest
If Freedman sees this, I'd like to get his opinion on what they are doing
better than the two incumbents: Loopnet.com and CoStar.com

Personally I find both sites irritating, so I'm sure there is an opening here,
but I'd love to hear what he thinks it is.

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thoughtpeddler
Ah yes, I answer this question in my coverage for VentureBeat here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3724343>

Click through to the link, ctrl/cmd+F "loopnet" / "costar" ... see what he
thinks.

The article also mentions: this is not for commercial property, just leasable
spaces, which is another differentiator between those giants.

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suking
You can find leasable spaces on loop for sure.

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thoughtpeddler
Absolutely. Of course, not all the listings have good data and photos, and
there's a subscription model to list, which 42F doesn't have. But it's also
about being a startup for startups (at least at this point), and playing off
whatever advantage that affords. Obviously LoopNet can't play that angle.

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JoeToday
Nobody's heard of Rofo.com? They're already doing this pretty well AND have
the exclusive LinkedIn real estate app. I used to work there and it IS all
about connections in the commercial real estate industry. Commercial brokers
are still very entrenched and protective of their listings. The only value
they have left is 'inside information' and they know they need to protect it.

Do some keyword research too, like the other dude said, mucho importante.

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mcdowall
I submitted an eerily similar application to YC in Summer 11' though it was
focused on storage as well as office space. Best of luck, its a market thats
ripe for some disruption. If you want my domains let me know, I won't be using
them.

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kenrikm
Great idea, I have noticed that office space is hard to find though the
standard outlets (realtor.com, zillow) however I wanted to see what was
available in Mountain View and Palo Alto but it seems it only works in San
Francisco at the moment? Keep up the good work guys/gals there is defiantly a
market for this.

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jaf12duke
Actually, it's available throughout the Bay Area. Bay Area today, the world
tomorrow...

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scarmig
Available, maybe, but the East Bay is definitely a bit sparse.

Nice looking site, though!

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dazbradbury
Nice and simple UI, I like it! Congrats on launching, looks like you're on the
road to success.

As a founder of a similar business (residential rather than commercial), and
YC interviewee in the same round as you, I would be interested how you plan to
tackle the problem you state on your blog:

    
    
        I did my best to search myself online and it's almost impossible. 
        It is incredible. Craigslist is almost totally filled with spaces 
        that are off the market, put up by brokers simply trying to get 
        you to call (it's called a flytrap).
    

We applied with our solution in the same round as you, so just interested how
you guys are going to tackle the problem? It appears you're not doing anything
at the moment, but I'm sure you have some ideas in the pipeline...

Congrats once again!

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steveklbnf
Overall, I dig the site and like the map-centric interface. I like the sqft
cost per year, and recognize that an awesome thing to calculate and filter on.

I'd really like to be able to "click into" the actual Streetview to be able to
rotate around on a listing page. It looks like the auto-grabbed images aren't
always the most useful representation. Also -- I immediately found the two
Google Maps images on the listing page to be kind of an eye sore with each
having the Google logo and trademark.

Best of luck to ya'll, the site is off to a pretty awesome start.

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silentscope
Been reading his blog for a while and was wondering what he was up to. I'm
wondering if they have plans for any social features--couchsurfing for
startups. It'd be tricky as hell due to NDAs, but with referrals acting as the
vetting it could create a whole new level of startup community.

Not knowing the logistics, maybe that's just too sticky an idea. Either way,
it looks damn useful, especially with that in-house photographers part. CL
photos are SKETCH.

~~~
ry0ohki
If you are looking for couchsurfing for startups, there are already quite a
few people on it... <http://www.quora.com/Is-there-an-Airbnb-for-office-space>

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sixQuarks
I never heard of this site betakit.com before. Does anyone know of any similar
sites? I'm trying to break away from TechCrunch

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_sentient
As a designer, I LOVE your interface.

The only thing I'd do differently is allow users to zoom in/out on the map
using the mouse scroll. I know this is default behavior on most map products,
so when I went to zoom and my scroll button did nothing ... it was a little
counter-intuitive.

That's a very minor issue however, and this is a great product overall.

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starrhorne
Congrats on the launch. This space is definitely seeing a lot of interesting
activity. Rofo's in SF, and we just launched in Portland (
<http://www.officespace.com/Portland-OR> ).

Best of luck. You guys definitely have a nice interface.

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jchrisa
Interesting to note that they are going for a web-site first strategy. I've
been waiting for things like this (basic data entry, search, etc) to move to a
mobile first strategy. At least for this use case, we aren't there yet.

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kloncks
Curious: why the name 42Floors?

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cpursley
Dude, read the article.

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prawn
Skimmed the article 2-3 times and must've missed something obvious or maybe
obtuse.

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robwgibbons
##things = terribly unoriginal name

