Ben Kinney’s Zillow Killer
I read the article on Inman that Ben Kinney is coming out with a Zillow killer. Blossor.
As I read through the positive comments from hundreds of Realtors, I could see that Zillow is not very popular in the Realtor community.
It seems anything that could kill Zillow is a good thing to these agents.
However, as I read through the entire article, some points jumped out at me.
Kinney said he wants the total savings through Blossor to be greater than any commission refund from Redfin.
Kinney also said Blossor will provide traditional brokerage services. Kinney has proven he can train agents to get listings, so his agents are going to be very tough to compete with.
So now I am left wondering why hundreds of agents are so excited about this?
If you work for Ben Kinney, I can see this is very exciting, but if you do not, you could be facing a competitor that offers more rebates than Redfin, is as large as Zillow in the search engines, and gives leads to their well-trained in-house agents–unlike Zillow who distributes all leads.
In addition, unlike Zillow that has some stale data, Blossor will have direct access to ALL the MLS data in the areas they open in, and they will try to conquer natural-language search along with gamifying the user experience.
This could be one tough competitor, much tougher than Zillow and Trulia.
For a monthly fee agents can get listed on Blossor, but I am concerned that many of the best leads will go to their in-house team.
What do you think?
Is this the best thing to happen to Real Estate in a while, or is this going to be one tough competitor that we all have to focus on outsmarting to keep getting our share of the pie?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 06:56h, 08 JulyTough competitor, sure. But certainly not tougher than zillow or trulia. I take it Blossor is self funded? Or maybe a bit of money from Ben’s friend. Regardless, there is simply no way Ben can afford to throw as many resources at this as z/t short of raising several million and hiring a in house technology team.
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 11:09h, 08 JulyIt will take them some time to scale to the size of Zillow, but when they enter a market I see them as a tougher competitor because agents never have to compete directly with Zillow for a listing, but they will have to with Blossor.
I believe right now they are self-funded and talking to VCs about raising money.
I think you are right, they don’t have the resources yet of the big sites, but I think they will have enough resources to hire a good in-house technology team. They might use the same one that created Brivity for Ben.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 11:14h, 08 July“They might use the same one that created Brivity for Ben.”
The implies they are outsourcing to a dev firm. Sure, getting a basic version up, that’s fine… but long term, to win, they cannot outsource technology. IMHO of course.
They’ll end up like this: https://geekestateblog.com/sandicor-launches-a-consumer-site-i-dont-get-it/
benkinney
Posted at 18:01h, 08 JulyHey Drew and Bryn. I appreciate the comments and the blog post. Any press is good press in my world 🙂
I wanted to chime in and share some things about my project that didn’t make it into the article.
Redfin rebates real estate agent commissions back to consumers. The article sounded like I wanted to compete with Redfin in this arena.
Please let me clarify. When a consumer joins Blossor they earn Blossor bucks for doing searches, sharing properties, enhancing our data, inviting others, picking an agent, etc.
Those Blossor bucks can be spent in the Blossor store for savings on the things homeowners already purchase and use – for instance: savings on utilities like getting a free install and a free month of cable. Also this could include savings off their loan costs, discounts on inspections, moving and storage, home furnishings, decor, repairs, services, etc
We have no interest or plans to offer a discount on real estate commissions. Rather we want to spread the savings across the thousands of vendors that are looking to access renters, remodelers, builders, new home owners, and home sellers.
We believe the total savings from all discounts and rebates to be greater than any commission any real estate brokerage could ever rebate. Blossor DOESN’T offer rebates on agent commissions.
Second point you made was having to compete against my agents. (Although I appreciate the compliment) Blossor is open to all real estate agents from all brokerages. It was designed to protect real estate agents. See below:
If a consumer is already working with an agent and they register on Blossor they can select to only communicate with their own agent. Their personal information will never be shared with another agent or mortgage professional.
Blossor goal is to protect users and not treat them like leads. If a consumer selects no agent their information is still not shared with real estate agents or loan officers.
Of course if the user does not have an agent and they have a question or request a showing they can select one from the directory. The directory is made up of agents from thousands of brokerages.
If an agent has a profile on Blossor they can claim any consumers that they have a relationship with currently or in the past and no other agent will be shown to that consumer unless they manually disconnect from that agent.
Drew: Your right no outsourcing can compete with a inhouse team. Brivity was built inhouse and Blossor is too. We have 28 developers, designers, project managers, and support staff currently full time on the payroll.
Also smart comment about needing more money. We aren’t claiming to be the ones to kill Zillow or Trulia. I actually appreciate both of those companies. And I make lots of money off their leads.
We want to compete on wall street and make a valuable company. I would say that Blossor is what happens when pinterest and Houzz get accurate real estate data and are both forced to work for Foursquare, groupon, Facebook, and Google.
We want to be fun, safe, and respectful to the industry. I would be happy to give either or both of you a private demo. I would love a correction on this blog post if you believe what I have to say.
Probably see you both at Inman connect 🙂
Ben Kinney
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 09:57h, 09 JulyBen, thanks for clarifying the savings are through Blossor bucks. I should have mentioned that. I can see how someone reading this could assume it is a commission rebate.
That being said, I think from a competitive standpoint, it does not matter to the consumer or a competing agents where the rebate is coming from.
All that matters is they get a big Blossor bucks rebate, and a rebate that is greater than any commission rebate, is a nice advantage for consumers, and tough competition for agents.
I would like to see a demo of Blossor and learn more about your plans. I would be happy to clarify the rebates are via Blossor bucks and anything else that needs to be changed in my Blog post, assuming Drew has a way to edit it.
Thanks for your comments!
Sam DeBord
Posted at 08:18h, 09 JulyI got a chance to meet a couple of Ben’s dev guys and he has a serious team. Some investor used the term “Zillow killer” and now nobody can stop using it. It really doesn’t seem like it fits, but it’s catchy.
Ben’s an agent who understands his agents’ value. I’m glad to hear this isn’t some discount commission model. It’s just a great new product looking for a very different monetization model than the other portals.
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 10:13h, 09 JulySam, I agree, “Zillow Killer” is catchy. While it won’t be easy, I think it could fit.
Think about a better search experience, data that is updated hourly direct from the MLS and is always accurate, some very serious Blossor bucks rebates for using their service and for sharing it, and not treating each consumer as a lead.
Combine that with good SEO, a large ad budget, and a lot of users might switch from Zillow and/or their favorite local Website to Blossor.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 10:18h, 09 July“data that is updated hourly direct from the MLS and is always accurate”
There are literally thousands of websites that have that advantage over the portals. It’s not enough of a differentiator by itself.
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 11:07h, 09 JulyYou are right, most IDX and VOW sites offer that, but that along with everything else mentioned could really shake up the industry.
The Blossor bucks is a big advantage, even if everything else is similar. As a consumer, why not use a Website that is paying you big bucks to use them.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 11:10h, 09 JulyThe big question with startups is always…how do people find this to know that it’s better than the alternatives?
benkinney
Posted at 18:51h, 09 July🙂 I appreciate the dialogue and Sam my friend thanks for support. I can’t put my whole business plan on writing but drew wisely pointed out we have many battles ahead of us. I am not ignorant of the challenges of competing with national players. I didn’t pick the zillow killer title but it sure got some clicks :). I would say we are not a replacement just an alternative. Time will tell 🙂
I do appreciate all of you guys for your brains, results, and experience.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 14:50h, 10 JulyGood luck.
See you in SF next week, perhaps.