Do you like Business Riddles?

Do you like Business Riddles?

Because here we have one and we wonder what would you do if you were us.

We want to take a step back from what we do every day and get some opinions - in general: brainstorm to get different ideas & views.

Apparently the knowledge of the crowd, when averaged, is the best knowledge:

AS FOR AN INTRO...

So we have Solutions for Property Developers where our goal is:

"To enable PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT with FINANCE.

And then de-risk it and increase chances of commercial success with MARKETING & SALES solutions."

I trust - not a bad intro?

Now to the point:

Instead of the usual early-stage business struggle of:

"we build an mvp => to get early users & traction => to fundraise => to develop mvp => ..." (eat - sleep - rave - repeat...):

we already have a range of Solutions, positioning ourselves as A to Z supplier of global, remote Solutions and take a specific approach to business where the main goal is Property Sales

SO HERE WE ARE WITH ITOMA LUX...

First things first - the Strategic Big Picture that we stick to because

EXPERTISE & CONSISTENCY lead to BRAND

BRAND leads to BUSINESS:

OK. Strategy is the first step. Then we have THE Plan:

And finally - comes time for the Implementation so this is what we've been up to:

In the previous life, I used to be a Project Manager so, as MD of Itoma Lux, I tend to look at Business from an organizational perspective of 10 Business areas, PESTLE, SWOT, and other tools to help things get organized & ultimately - strategic, repeatable & scalable.

PROPERTY SOLUTIONS FOR OFFPLAN & ONPLAN PROPERTY SALES, MARKETING & BRAND BUILDING:

We have a range of Property Offplan & Onplan Solutions & select the ones most suitable to customer goals. We always start with the general customer discovery:

And a portfolio for social proof & to present possibilities:

Whenever we start working with the customer - we start with customer discovery to propose the solutions most suitable & aligned to their business goals.

PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT FINANCE

We act here as an Introducer-Broker working with Direct Lenders and other Brokers.

We facilitate international Property Development Finance at competitive rates for experienced Property Developers.

Starting from $5M in Africa and from $2M in the rest of the world through our Lender network.

PROPERTY SALES

As we work directly with Property Developers & Real Estate Agents - we also promote, source, broker & ultimately - build a brand for specific types of Property deals targeting, mostly, cashflow-focused individual Property investors.

The big picture here is though to be not "only a builder of some visualisation" but also actively help & build expertise in selling specific types of Property Deals to align with our brand promise.

There are 2 types of Property Deals we build portfolio & expertise of:

• Guaranteed Rental Yield - mostly for investors focused on contractual, hands-off, guaranteed for a number of years investment deals targeting both (through different deals): institutional & individual investors:
• What is it?

• Sample deal

• Good Payment Plans - mostly for individual, cashflow focused investors:
• What is it?

• Sample deal

Whenever we deal with Property Investors - we start with the specific Investor Discovery & KYC.

And the second side of the coin - we check the Properties against our 50-point checklist - starting from the big picture (e.g. property taxes in country), through all ROI as well as cost elements.

In general - we aim to have everything standardised with a proper onboarding for anyone who is joining us to shorten the learning curve and do it - Professionally.

PROPERTY COMMUNITY:

We believe that building a community is an important step to leverage industry connections and we focus on LinkedIn channel as the best one for Professional B2B:

but we are active also on other social channels.

We organise combined: education with lead generation events on a regular basis. We host usually 3 to 5 public and private events monthly and build events targeting specific Property value chain segments (like Property Developers with mostly Off-plan Sales Solutions, Real Estate Agents & Brokers with On-plan, Architects for Upsells of more Technological Solutions or Investors for Deal overview and presentation of most suitable deals, etc.).

This is all having in mind that the first step in the Sales journey is awareness - hence:

"Education is important."

FROM THE BIG PICTURE OF IMPLEMENTATION TO NITTY-GRITTY...

1. OUR MARKET:

We have a well-defined market for:

• Property Developers to help with Financing of Property Development projects, Marketing Off-plan with a Business Goal to maximise Off-plan Sales and finally Sales with a focus on the International Diaspora
• and Property Development supply chain: e.g. Architects & Property Consultants, Real Estate Agents, Brokers, Portals & Realtors to achieve goals Property Developer goals.

2. OUR SOLUTIONS:

Together with it - we have a range of core, market-proven Proptech solutions for these markets: https://bit.ly/ItomaOurSolutionsMindMap.

Our Most Popular Solutions for Off-Plan (Primary Market) Property Sales:

And here - for On-Plan Property Sales (Secondary Market):

Here are all our Solutions nicely presented in a brochure that then we customise to fit customer Business Goals & specific geography:

Whenever we start working with the customer - we start with the specific Property / Land Developer or Real Estate Agent / Broker Discovery that is part of any quotation.

We aim to look at it from the perspective of the target customer group rather than Technology - for us it is all about finding new ways for Sales journey with use of various solutions. How we get there - depends on the customer business goals, budget, etc.

3. OUR "FUTURE STAR" SOLUTION:

Here is our "game-changer" (this I believe would be the main or only point of the usual, early-stage technology business while we have the full range of solutions that lead to this one to be "A to Z") - saleable MVP of the solution "to present not only the Property but also matching it with the local area around it for the Luxury living while providing business intelligence for Property Business Development"... that "one of these beautiful days" we will build into SaaS Proptech with a number of USPs based on our Business Model Canvas: https://bit.ly/ItomaInteractiveSelectorTool

4. OUR GEO-FOCUS:

We focus on large (>30Mil), emerging markets with relatively high population growth over the next 5 years (>5%) and GDP per capita growth (>25%) over the same period while cost of Money (base interest rate) is much higher than in "the West".

This means that strategically bringing investment from the West to these countries - we fill a large gap, providing still better rates than locally in any of these countries (providing that Forex risk is properly addressed) while being able to provide better ROI for investors (while risk is mitigated by the predicted high growth per capita "pumping" Property Development & importantly - collateral prices).

We have local representation in the first five countries: India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and looking for similar in the next five: Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia & Indonesia as large, developing countries.

On top of that we have some representations & "ties" with UK, Poland & USA as large, developed markets.

Strategically though, all of our Solutions are:

• global
• remote
• digital
• and can be delivered anywhere in the world without the need for the physical site presence / visit / ideal for Off-plan / Pre-Sales

(where we have representatives, some network, B2B Sales outreach automation & good content... https://lux.itoma.co.uk/welcome)

5. OUR SOLUTION DELIVERY:

A standardized approach to deliver repeatable results: https://bit.ly/ItomaOurSolutionsApproach

6. TEAM & RECRUITMENT:

Sales & business development team on 4 continents ("global, remote solutions" as USP) and a technical team with experience from being in R&D team from large Property Developers in similar areas as we currently develop, build & deliver. More in the pipeline: https://bit.ly/ItomaRecruitmentSales2

Along with it comes a proper training, onboarding & knowledge database with all our materials to speed up onboarding and create a repeatable approach.

7. OUR PROPERTY DEALS:

Clear strategy for Property Trading & Brokering - to be associated as a brand with Off-plan Properties / Pre-Sales with developer-guaranteed rental yield (min. 8%+ net for at least 3 years across geographies, e.g. https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6726404750302089216/) and secondly - deals with good payment terms e.g. 1% monthly so the rental of the Property could cover the cost of the payment (e.g. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/irotom_goodpaymentplan-residentialproperty-dubai-activity-6727142019073896448-yaoN).

That helps us both: leverage relationships with Developers as well as generate extra cashflow.

8. OUR COMMUNITY:

Education. Education. Education.

People & businesses don't adopt what they don't understand so we aim to educate & generate leads through education events in multiple topics:

9. "...AND ANYTHING ELSE":

Plus a couple more to add like: A long-term strategy. Social channels with good content & "maturity" to build an expert position: https://bit.ly/ItomaLinkedIn with over 1,000 subscribers to build and then utilise the community. Portfolio to provide social proof: https://bit.ly/ItomaYouTube. We just launched our own Public Relations campaign where we are listed on multiple syndicates with high Domain Authority like this one: https://www.wicz.com/story/42406215/uk-dubai-new-york-3d-architectural-visualisation-rendering-services-launched Etc.

10. "...A DETAIL":

Just a detail... Cash is yet a limiting factor (got EIS status though for investors). What would be the game without a challenge?

11. OUR "WHY?"

And why do we love Property & Technology (or Proptech for short)? High ticket market with high emotional attachment and relatively low entry point (comparing to e.g. general industry - not many people own a factory but almost everyone - a Property!) for both: B2B & B2C (usually the biggest spend in any person's lifetime) as well as many opportunities & indirect channels to leverage (oh yeah... we aim to leverage).

Plus scalability of the digital technology that can be delivered anywhere in the world without the need to visit the Property, even before the Property is built.

So - that's the state of the game.

I wonder:

"Should we move The Queen to B8 for a check or The Tower to C2 to defend The King?" (Whatever this means to you!)

How would you play our game to grow, grow & grow?

(PS And if you have good ideas or some answers - please speak with us)