Bootstrap a product that helps people find apartments

Clarifying questions

1. What kind of 'product' are we looking for?-- tech-based web/mobile app

2. When does it mean by 'find'?-- renting or buying ?

3. Are we targeting a specific user segment? --age group, income, unmarried or married, immigrants, citizens?

4. Which region are we targeting-- developing, under-developing, developed ?

5. What kind of problems they are currently facing?

6. What are the solutions available in the market? (competitor study/business analysis)

7. What are the sizes of apartments?-- 1/2/3/4 BHK

8. Define 'apartments'?-- side-by-side, built upon one another dwelling units?

9. What are the Govt. rules & regulations in that region?

10. Who will be the user persona using the product?

11. Which all services are we thinking to provide specifically?

12. What are the assets available for bootstrapping?

Assumptions (w/ solution)

1. Mobile app

2. Buying apartments

3. Age group- 20-30y, <30y, married/unmarried with country's citizenship

4. Developed country like- USA

5. Problems currently being faced:

• -No proper listings of apartments on sale or to be sold
• -Crunch of time for sellers and buyers to look for potential customer
• -Crunch of money, who can't pay upfront but can get loans
• -No commitment from local agents
• -Lack of commitment b/w buyer & seller
• -Inability to negotiate terms & conditions
• -Challenges in verifying the property docs and user identities
• -Problems in approval of loans
• -Insecure payment transfers

6. Considering current solutions in the market don't solve all the above problems.

7. Apartments of 4 classes- 1/2 BHK for 20-30 yo , 3/4 BHK for <30 yo

8. Dwelling unit, built on one another & side-by-side is an apartment

9. Govt. rules and regulations:

• -Any person, citizen of the country above 18 years can buy/sell property
• -Apartments have to be registered w/ Development Authority(DA)
• -Tax to be paid on all the transactions

10. User personas:

• -individual buyer
• -individual seller and townships
• -Seller's agent and buyer's agent
• -Development Authority
• -Bank

11. Services covered(Solution):

• -Onboarding- Buyer, seller, agent, bank, development authority
• -Listings- Individual seller or townships can list their apartment(s)
• -Search- buyer can search apartments by region, size, price
• -Network- agent-agent, buyer-seller, seller-agent, buyer-agent
• -Validate & Verify- apartment docs, buyer/seller IDs
• -Request loan- buyer raise, bank verify, bank approve/reject
• -Commit deal- Apartment in escrow for few weeks/months
• -Payments- loan, cheque, DD, Net Banking (w/ tax, loan interest)

12. Assets for bootstrapping- assuming, INR 10 million

Challenges

1. Too many investors can create a deadlock

2. Showing relevant listings to buyers

3. Fraud detection

4. Money investment, since it is bootstrapped

5. Legal matters

6. Convincing sellers to onboard (initially)

Metrics

1. # of sellers/townships listed?

2. # of buyers enquired or searched?

3. # of agents onboarded

4. Avg. time from enquiry till the deal is done

5. # of users used the product/services end-to-end

6. Relevance of listings being showed

7. # of banks onboarded or loans approved/rejected