In our latest Meet the Real Estate Tech Entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Jason White of Blocksy.

Without wasting anymore time, here’s a bit more about Jason…

What do you do?

I’m the Founder and CEO of Blocksy, the largest independent real estate portal in New York City and a much nicer, fresher, and more innovative site for finding homes to buy and apartments to rent in New York City. Blocksy was founded on the belief that there is huge room to innovate, both in terms of the consumer experience in searching real estate, as well as the marketing and other support services used by agents, brokers and brokerages in the eco system. After just over a year, we’ve now bootstrapped to 1 million users and have relationships with the majority of large and small brokerages in New York City.

Why do you do what you do?

First, because I’ve lived in more apartments over my past 10 years in New York City than most people I know, and am deeply familiar with how painful it is to find a place to live. Today’s real estate sites are utilitarian at best and no one has figured out how to make the experience simpler, friendlier, and perhaps even joyful for consumers and professionals.

Second, because I’m a product-obsessed entrepreneur and increasingly strive to focus on ventures that address big hairy problems. Developing Blocksy into a better real estate portal that dramatically improves the search experience and more effectively services real estate professionals is not an easy task. In fact in many cases, those two objectives are at odds. Thus finding a holistic, integrated product that satisfies both groups and generates revenue requires a great deal of creativity, which is a challenge that gets me going each and every morning.

What are you most excited about right now?

The extraordinarily warm reception that Blocksy has received lately in New York, both by house hunters and real estate professionals. We’re increasingly hearing that our efforts have struck a chord with consumers, and that our first set of innovative site features are resonating with agents.

These are all free and include Blocksy Tours, a better way for agents to share listings, Blocksy PowerShare, a new way for agents to generate leads, and Blocksy Reports, which provide useful comps and other data for every borough and neighborhood in New York City. In fact we now get regular inbound calls from agents and brokerages about these features and inquiring about other syndication and marketing opportunities on Blocksy – all of which is quite different from the early days when we were out on sales beat doing dog and ponies for anyone who would listen.

What’s next for you?

Product product product. Our roadmap is jam packed with features that have tested through the roof in agent and user discussions, but which don’t exist anywhere on the web today. We’re racing hard to get these developed and shipped and to earn our reputation as the most creative, useful and delightful real estate portal on the web. Follow us at @goblocksy to be the first to know when these things come online.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I’m a huge advocate for entrepreneurship. I’ve been an entrepreneur for over 20 years, having started up a slew of companies both online and off. Some have been more successful than others, but one thing they’ve all had in common is complete newness at every turn – in terms of challenges, requirements, and overall industry. Nothing can prepare someone for the entrepreneurial journey better than jumping in and doing it. And there’s very little as rewarding over the long term, as taking control of your life, learning, and seeing your vision come to pass. Thus, I seize every opportunity to help active or would-be entrepreneurs and I speak whenever possible at events and gatherings on the subject.

Thanks to Jason for sharing his motivations and current projects. If you’re interested in connecting further, you can find him on Oh Hey World and LinkedIn.

For those who want to learn more, Blocksy was recently covered by Inman with a startup spotlight video:

We’ll be featuring other real estate tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks. If you are an entrepreneur in the real estate vertical (past or present), and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “real estate tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld).