BENGALURU: All they were looking for was a home to rent, but what the group of 12 engineers from IIT-Bombay found was a blockbuster career path that has catapulted their fledgling venture into one of India's hottest startups.
In 2012, when Advitya Sharma and 11 of his friends hunted for a house on an online realty portal, they were drawn to an advertisement that promised a threebedroom flat in Mumbai's tony suburb of Bandra for a paltry rent of Rs 15,000.
"Only later did we realise that it was a fake posting just to attract tenants," said Sharma, who teamed up with his friends to launch their own portal — Housing-.com — that would carry only listings verified by the company.
That night, the team sat down and made a plan. "We figured real estate needs a platform that can give people valuable, authentic insights to help them make a decision, so we built it," said Rahul Yadav, CEO of Housing.com.
Short of cash and with no job in hand, the youthful team with an average age of 22 years started approaching investors. One of their first investors, former Network18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla, invited all 12 founders to dinner at his home in 2012. "He loved us so much that he immediately committed to invest Rs 1.5 crore in our product and team. That was our first validation," said Sharma.
"My parents had notions that I was getting into the 'dirty and dangerous' business of buying or selling of real estate," said Sharma, whose father is a neurosurgeon based in Jammu.
Thereafter, the company raised $2.5 million from Nexus Venture Partners, of which almost $1 million was used to buy the Housing.com domain name. The purchase remains the costliest domain purchase by any Indian startup ever but the ambition of the company was to build a global brand and the expenditure has proven to be worth it.
Today, Housing.com has a team of 1,500 people across 45 cities. The founding team is based in Mumbai and spends most of its time in office brainstorming and the rest playing football, just outside the office.
"We constantly think about how can we build a product that helps people find a house they'll love," said 25-year-old Sanat Ghosh, a co-founder who heads the technology product team. "And to see so many people use Housing everyday just fuels our energy even more."
This was not their first startup however. At IIT-Bombay, the team had tried to build Exam Baba, a website that would carry scans of exam papers of previous years. "Professors at IITs don't change exam questions drastically. Our team got called to the dean's office and we were made to shut down the website," said Sharma, whose passions include football.
Now each member of that team has an exciting memory to share about their new venture. "Housing was in Mumbai for the first six months and then we just expanded to the top 10 cities in one single shot, once we were clear what was required to be done," said Ravish Naresh, 24, another cofounder.
"We're building this company not for the next 5, 10 years, but for 50, 100 years and we intend to map every city of the country," said Yadav.
Read more at:
Housing.com: IIT-B engineers’ venture now one of India’s hottest startups - Economic Times
In 2012, when Advitya Sharma and 11 of his friends hunted for a house on an online realty portal, they were drawn to an advertisement that promised a threebedroom flat in Mumbai's tony suburb of Bandra for a paltry rent of Rs 15,000.
"Only later did we realise that it was a fake posting just to attract tenants," said Sharma, who teamed up with his friends to launch their own portal — Housing-.com — that would carry only listings verified by the company.
That night, the team sat down and made a plan. "We figured real estate needs a platform that can give people valuable, authentic insights to help them make a decision, so we built it," said Rahul Yadav, CEO of Housing.com.
Short of cash and with no job in hand, the youthful team with an average age of 22 years started approaching investors. One of their first investors, former Network18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla, invited all 12 founders to dinner at his home in 2012. "He loved us so much that he immediately committed to invest Rs 1.5 crore in our product and team. That was our first validation," said Sharma.
"My parents had notions that I was getting into the 'dirty and dangerous' business of buying or selling of real estate," said Sharma, whose father is a neurosurgeon based in Jammu.
Thereafter, the company raised $2.5 million from Nexus Venture Partners, of which almost $1 million was used to buy the Housing.com domain name. The purchase remains the costliest domain purchase by any Indian startup ever but the ambition of the company was to build a global brand and the expenditure has proven to be worth it.
Today, Housing.com has a team of 1,500 people across 45 cities. The founding team is based in Mumbai and spends most of its time in office brainstorming and the rest playing football, just outside the office.
"We constantly think about how can we build a product that helps people find a house they'll love," said 25-year-old Sanat Ghosh, a co-founder who heads the technology product team. "And to see so many people use Housing everyday just fuels our energy even more."
This was not their first startup however. At IIT-Bombay, the team had tried to build Exam Baba, a website that would carry scans of exam papers of previous years. "Professors at IITs don't change exam questions drastically. Our team got called to the dean's office and we were made to shut down the website," said Sharma, whose passions include football.
Now each member of that team has an exciting memory to share about their new venture. "Housing was in Mumbai for the first six months and then we just expanded to the top 10 cities in one single shot, once we were clear what was required to be done," said Ravish Naresh, 24, another cofounder.
"We're building this company not for the next 5, 10 years, but for 50, 100 years and we intend to map every city of the country," said Yadav.
Read more at:
Housing.com: IIT-B engineers’ venture now one of India’s hottest startups - Economic Times
