SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders EP 490: GoldenKey $3.4M Raised, 1000 Units Sold By Agents Using New Technology with CEO Tommy Sowers
Nov 26, 2016
22:35
Tommy Sowers, who worked for McKinsey & Company and was the youngest senate confirmed assistant secretary in the Obama administration. On top of this, he is the founder of GoldenKey.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Getting Things Done
- What CEO do you follow? – Yvon Chouinard
- Favorite online tool? — Evernote
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I try to
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "There is no risk and don't wait for it to be easy"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:40 – Nathan introduces Tommy to the show
- 02:01 – GoldenKey is a no-commission real estate network
- 02:30 – Tommy didn't want to commission a real estate agent 2 years ago
- 02:50 – "People hack real estate agents in a lot of different ways"
- 03:49 – GoldenKey's revenue model is a marketplace
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- 03:55 – Consumers pay on the services that they need
- 04:22 – "When you buy or sell your home, the commission rebate will go to you"
- 04:44 – In GoldenKey's platform, the supply are agents
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- 04:50 – Agents offer unbundled services
- 04:56 – From zero, GoldenKey managed to have 1798 agents in 47 states, much higher than Red Fin
- 05:25 – The consumers are the home buyers or sellers
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- 05:30 – GoldenKey currently has 1/3 buyers and 2/3 sellers
- 05:39 – Average of 1900 buyers and sellers
- 05:44 – GoldenKey has currently executed over 900 service transactions
- 06:11 – GoldenKey has saved consumers over $100,000 of commission
- 06:25 – GoldenKey doesn't share the number of monthly transactions publicly
- 07:30 – They get different fees for different types of services
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- 07:45 – "This is not a do-it-yourself real estate and you actually have an agent with you"
- 08:25 – If I buy a property for $500,000, how much would go to GoldenKey?
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- 08:30 – For search services, it is $50 which goes to the agent
- 08:50 – On average the consumers pay $2000 to have agents represent them through the transactions
- 09:07 – "The entire agent commission will be rebated back to you, which is usually 3% of the total transaction"
- 09:30 – Agents choose GoldenKey because they get something rather than nothing at all
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- 09:40 – Agents can still do the traditional real estate commissioning
- 09:58 – "There are a lot of consumers in the USA who don't want to pay commission but need an agent's help"
- 10:31 – There are millions of real estate agents but they won't always have a client
- 11:51 – GoldenKey was founded in April 2015
- 11:58 – 18 full-time employees
- 12:00 – GoldenKey raised $3.4 million in venture capital
- 13:13 – GoldenKey is not a brokerage and CAC is zero
- 13:59 – GoldenKey is not a big technology company so they need money for the appropriate platform
- 14:33 – The product design team is based in San Francisco
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- 14:54 – Others are distributed to other states
- 15:13 – "Rule of thumb is when you don't need to ask for money when you need money"
- 15:35 – GoldenKey spends around $100,000 a month
- 16:14 – GoldenKey joined NFX guild which is for companies building network and network effects
- 17:01 – Connect with Tommy on Twitter and his website
- 19:25 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Rule of thumb is you don't need to ask for money when you need money.
- A LOT of consumers in the USA want an agent's help, but DO NOT want to pay commision.
- There is NO risk. Don't wait for it to be easy—just jump right in!
Resources Mentioned:
- Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.
- Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
- Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
- Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
- Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
- Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
- @Sowers – Tommy's Twitter handle
- GoldenKey.com – Tommy's business website
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives