Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn in Online Real Estate: Auction.com CEO Jeff Frieden (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Given the numbers you’ve quoted in terms of houses sold, it seems to me that you should be ready to go public at this point. Is that part of the thinking? Why or why not? What’s going on from an exit point of view? Jake Seid: Our goal is to build a big company.

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Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn in Online Real Estate: Auction.com CEO Jeff Frieden (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Are the real estate agents part of this marketplace or are you working with buyers and sellers, and the brokers are out of the picture? Jeff Frieden: The brokers are in the picture. Sramana Mitra: The people who are actually handling the transactions are still the brokers. Jeff Frieden: We go directly to

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Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn in Online Real Estate: Auction.com CEO Jeff Frieden (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The entity that you sold to private equity was still REDC? Jeff Frieden: That’s right. Sramana Mitra: You bought the Auction.com domain name and rebranded your original entity as Auction.com? Jeff Frieden: Correct. Sramana Mitra: It seems you’re doing hybrid auctions but you’ve expanded from residential distressed properties to commercial distressed properties.

Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn in Online Real Estate: Auction.com CEO Jeff Frieden (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You were still focusing only on real estate? Jeff Frieden: Only on real estate. Then the market crashed in 2007. We were able to pivot very quickly to help out institutions like large banks that had a tsunami of foreclosures coming in when the market blew up. In 2007, we held our first

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Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn in Online Real Estate: Auction.com CEO Jeff Frieden (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You bought these parcels of land and you ran this auction. What was the outcome of the auction? Jeff Frieden: We made a million dollars in one day. Sramana Mitra: Oh, wow! Terrific! Jeff Frieden: There were thousands of people there betting competitively on this land. It was the 1987 to 1988 timeframe.

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Aiming to Dominate Real Estate Brokerage: Robert Reffkin, CEO of Urban Compass (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: I think that’s only partially true because the level at which valuations are going out of control right now is way beyond the kind of rational justification that you presented. Robert Reffkin: Uber has raised $40 billion. You can say that’s a huge valuation. If a majority of cars in the country are

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Aiming to Dominate Real Estate Brokerage: Robert Reffkin, CEO of Urban Compass (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You said you raised a lot of money. What’s the total amount of financing you raised? Robert Reffkin: $73 million. Sramana Mitra: Why have you raised so much money? What have you done with that money? Robert Reffkin: We raised $73 million because we wanted to hire the best people we possibly could.

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Aiming to Dominate Real Estate Brokerage: Robert Reffkin, CEO of Urban Compass (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in the strategic story? Robert Reffkin: While searching for the most valuable products and services to this business, we surveyed our clients and asked them what they cared most about. They cared most about helping them answer questions like what’s the right price for a home and how do you

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