Jesús Encinar from Idealista.com

Yesterday’s “Managing the tech start-up” class was about Idealista.com, which is the most famous real estate web site in Spain.

Jesús Encinar founded Idealista.com in January 2000. Actually, when I looked for my apartment in Madrid after arriving, I used to browse this web site and contact landlord through it. Therefore, I am familiar with this company.

Before his launching Idealista.com, most people looking for apartment got the information through newspaper which is plain text-base and has no picture.

When he decided to launch Idealist.com, there were a plenty of competitors (25 websites in Spain ) and internet technology was still on a learning curve( It was before Google came in ). His approach to build initial database was unique and to the point. His team walked around 10,000km in Spain, cold called more than 25,000 calls, and asked agency to get advertisement in idealista.com. It seems to be excessive amount of time, but he did it.

He started this business in small (Initially focused on Madrid) and then expanded other areas in Spain, such as Barcelona and Valencia.

Now, Idealista.com is expanding its business internationally – Portugal and Italy. In Italy, it has around 45 employees and is still competing with local players and has reached break-even point. In Portugal, it has only call center and no employees.

To create web site in initial phase, he ordered Andersen consulting to design IT architecture & system, but he was not satisfied their work. Then, he decided to rework it and created today’s idealista.com. He taught us that it is important to give away something if it does not match to our requirement. (The courage to abandon is important.)

In addition, he recommended that having simple web site is important: simple is best. It should be easy for customers to navigate and get required information. Standing the customers point of view and designing web site is extremely important.

I sympathized with his homespun approach… Though thinking about some business strategy on a desk is important, his homespun behavior is the most important skills as great entrepreneur.