1. How did CommonFloor evolve from being an Apartment Community Management Solution to India’s fastest growing real estate platform which enables its users to buy, sell, and rent residential properties online?

Lalit Mangal, Co-Founder and CTO, CommonFloor.com
Vikas Malpani, Co-Founder, CommonFloor.com and Head of CommonFloor Groups
Sumit Jain, Co-founder and CEO, CommonFloor.com

The initial thought was to develop a platform that could bring together people who live in gated communities and provide them an open forum to share their queries, concerns, views, as well provide solutions to others. We also had to keep the product flexible enough to accommodate different priorities of different communities while still ensuring a good user experience for all. We went around promoting the portal from community to community and almost door to door. The real confidence came when the communities that adopted us in the beginning started to see real value in our product, appreciated our efforts and even partnered with us in improving it.

In the initial years, we noticed a lot of home owners had started using our platform to post listings. We realized that it would add much more value to the owners if we opened this information to people outside the gated communities. We started project listing on our site. When we noticed that the traffic on our website increased, we started verifying the listed properties. Soon we were recognized as the best place for genuine listings and started seeing a lot of traction from those looking to buy/sell or rent a house. Today, we are one of the largest real estate portals in the country in terms of unique visitors as per comScore.

The key difference that we have brought to the online real estate market is – while everyone looked at it from a classifieds perspective, we looked at it from a community perspective. Unlike other realty portals a person is buying/selling a house, we are a complete home portal. We engage with our users right from the time they are looking for a home, to when they move in, start living there, and eventually, to when they want to sell it.

2. How has CommonFloor used technology innovatively to solve its customer’s pain points and reach out to new users?

Lalit Mangal: As a new-age online realty player, we understand the need to simplify the property decision- making process. Our sole aim is to empower the consumer with tools that make the property buying process hassle-free and free from any fear. We are constantly working to equip our users with the right knowledge and innovative tools to help them trust us and make us their go-to site.

CommonFloor gives property seekers the largest repository of verified property listings, which includes 5 lakh properties and over 1 lakh residential projects across 200 cities in India. It also uses innovative filter options to shortlist a property based on a specific location, need, and price range.

We are heavily investing in products and technology that will further enhance customer experience. We realized the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) early in our growth; we knew VR can take online property search to the next level.

Property search is a time-consuming task. We visualized a day when busy professionals and their families can inspect dozens of homes first with their VR Headset from their homes and shortlist a select few, allowing them more time for relaxing on weekends rather than hopping from one project site to another. Our product CommonFloor Retina was built with this thought. It enables consumers to take a virtual tour of properties they would like to view, review, and assess anywhere and anytime. They no longer need to physically visit each site to take an informed decision.

We introduced Live-in Tours – and Locality Virtual Tours, two ground-breaking innovative tools which changed the way we sell real estate online. Live-in Tours allows customers to get a complete perspective of rental, resale, and new properties from anywhere, at any point of time. With CommonFloor’s Locality Virtual Tour, seekers can take a virtual walk through of the vicinity of any locality selected by user and around any property the user is exploring. With this, they can not only select the right house, but also the right neighborhood, thereby saving up to 90% of their time.

3. In the near future, how will technology further disrupt the real estate industry and how is CommonFloor contributing to this?

Vikas Malpani: In our pursuit to solve problems for home buyers and real estate developers, and to go beyond marketing & sales to play the role of a technology partner, CommonFloor has introduced a new business division – CommonFloor Insignia. This strategic division offers a bouquet of innovative technology based products targeted to create stunning visualizations and improve sales efficiency for Real Estate Developers & Builders.

CommonFloor Insignia’s offerings help developers create a unique selling proposition in the market by providing better visual experience of their properties and projects which can enhance their visibility and positioning in the market. It allows them to showcase their project in a unique manner by adding a touch of futuristic technology. The products in the visualization category range from virtual reality tour to first-person walk through of a project online (web & mobile). Typically it takes 12 months, 72 hours of search and 300km of travel to finalize a property, but with CommonFloor, we are aiming at reducing this search period to half a day.

4. What were the main challenges faced by CommonFloor and how did you overcome them?

Sumit Jain: When you are starting off, there are a set of challenges that need to be taken care of. Creating a brand from the scratch is a time-consuming process. Sustaining it and nurturing it is a different challenge altogether. Of course, another challenge is to get like-minded and passionate employees. I am proud to inform you that, today, we have built a great team of over 1000 employees and our constant endeavor is to get the best of talent to work with us.

5. What advice would you like to give others who are starting to either build an online business ground up or taking their brick and mortar businesses online?

Sumit Jain: Self-belief, perseverance, and passion are the three most important things for any entrepreneur, with an add-on of creativity and integrity. As long as an entrepreneur is successful in solving any issue faced by a customer and works with perseverance and passion to keep going despite the challenges,make the cut.

6. List of Funding Received and Acquisitions so far.

Lalit Mangal, Vikas Malpani, Sumit Jain: We have raised six rounds of funding so far:

We have acquired Bakfy and Flat.to in the last one year. Flat to was closed recently and a new chat-based solution model called Flatchat was created. We have invested $2.5 million in Flatchat.

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