Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
Omar Dahroug, Properbird: We are Lukas Rose, Jörg Claussen and I, Omar Dahroug, and together we want to bring transparency to the real estate market. To this end, we have created the Proptech-Startup Properbird founded.
The inspiration behind Properbird is an episode from the Freakonomics series about real estate agents. Properbird solves the proven incentive problem that exists between real estate agents and property sellers.
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Omar Dahroug: Selling a home is one of the biggest financial decisions in life. Therefore, most sellers seek support from a real estate agent to tap into their expertise, network, and market experience. But this is where the problem arises that real estate sellers have previously faced when searching for an agent: When choosing an agent, real estate sellers have traditionally had to rely on their gut feeling and third-party recommendations. The result was usually an emotional and subjective decision.
As already mentioned, Properbird solves the incentive problem. While real estate agents have the incentive to maximize their transaction volume (i.e., commission volume), real estate sellers, on the other hand, have the incentive to maximize the price of the property. As a real estate seller, you also face the problem of not being able to see "behind the scenes" of the agent's work, making it very difficult to assess the agent's performance before a sales order.
That's exactly what we want to change! Properbird helps every real estate seller across Germany find the best agent for them. We crawl up-to-date transaction data from agents and, for the first time, bring objective brokerage performance into the decision-making process. This allows anyone on our platform to see, for example, how individual agents' asking prices compare to an objective market price, or how the agent compares to the regional average in terms of sales speed and effort.
Properbird evaluates brokers based on their past transaction data
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Omar Dahroug: Of course, there are several online brokerage platforms for real estate agents—as there are for everything else. However, we primarily differentiate ourselves on two levels.
At the first and most important level comes our objective evaluation methodBecause we prioritize real estate sellers, we evaluate all agents exclusively based on their past transaction data. To evaluate agents, we apply three metrics: sales price, speed of sale, and effort required to sell. Therefore, our results are only influenced by the agent's observed performance. Furthermore, Properbird's consistent, data-driven evaluation ensures a fair comparison between individual agents.
Second, there's the unparalleled service we offer property sellers on our platform. Traditional, two-sided platforms need to onboard both sides of the platform to offer value to users. In contrast, at Properbird, we've managed to circumvent this chicken-and-egg problem. Because we crawl transaction data from leading real estate platforms across Germany daily, we can collect the required data from every agent without the need for registration. This means that you, as a property seller, can be confident that Properbird covers the entire real estate market in Germany. We launched Properbird in June 2021 with more than 15,000 active agents in Germany. This makes Properbird unique; no other brokerage platform lets you find every active agent in Germany.
Properbird: “There is much more supply than demand in this market”
Munich Startup: What have been your three biggest challenges so far?
Omar Dahroug: Properbird is a very marketing-driven business, and therefore two challenges are closely linked to it.
The first and biggest challenge is getting real estate sellers onto our platform at the right time. In this market, there's far more supply than demand. Furthermore, our competitors usually have deep pockets and can afford to run expensive Google Ads campaigns. Therefore, we're currently experimenting with other channels we can use to attract potentially qualified real estate sellers to our platforms and convince them of our service.
The second major challenge arises from the fact that the majority of real estate sellers are unaware of the existence of the aforementioned incentive problem. Since the process of selling a home is something that is experienced only once or at most twice in a lifetime, people are inattentive to the fact that different agents can provide very different services. For us, this means that we are offering a solution to a problem that doesn't even exist for users. So, we want to first make users aware of the existence of the problem.
Third, like any other early-stage startup, we face the challenge of finding the right talent and incentivizing them accordingly. You can convince your employees either with money or with reputation (i.e., the company's reputation). As a young startup, you have neither money nor reputation. That's why we, as a founding team, have worked hard to build an inspiring corporate culture that helps us bring the right talent on board.
“We are established in the market and financially independent”
Munich Startup: How are things going?
Omar Dahroug: We have two independent business models. First, Properbird finances itself by being paid for customer acquisition as a brokerage platform between sellers and brokers. Furthermore, in cooperation with CHIP, Germany's largest technology and consumer portal, we awarded the CHIP "Top Broker" award to the 25 percent of the best brokers in Germany based on our broker rankings. So, we are established in the market and financially independent. Now it's all about growth.
Munich Startup: How do you rate Munich as a startup location?
Omar Dahroug, ProperBird: I'm originally from Cairo, where I attended the German School and came to Munich to study at the Technical University. Back then, I never imagined that I would start a startup here.
A lot of support through funding programs
Our founding team is a mix of Manage&More and CDTM alumni. Such support programs offer enormous value. You receive incredible support from such networks. By support, I mean connections to potential strategic partners as well as to talented individuals who join the team. Beyond the program, you also receive continued support in the form of electives that help us launch the company. Last semester, for example, we had the opportunity to participate in two electives. The first was "VC Funding" with Michi Wax and Hanno Renner. The second was "Effective Organization Building" with the four Stylight founders: Anselm Bauer, Benjamin Günther, Max-Josef Meier, and Sebastian Schuon.
Additionally, starting a business as a TUM student was made easier for me personally because I wrote my master's thesis as part of the new TUM Entrepreneurial Masterclass program. This fantastic initiative allows students to dedicate their master's thesis to their passion. Accordingly, I invested the last six months of my studies full-time in Properbird.
Munich Startup: Quick exit or long breath?
Omar Dahroug: Currently, Properbird is the project I dedicate all my time to, and that's not going to change anytime soon. However, that doesn't mean I'll stay with my first startup forever. When the time is right, I want to return to Cairo and get active there. Egypt has great potential for startups, and I'll be happy to be able to use and apply everything I've learned here in Munich.
