The Munich startup Everreal has digitalized apartment leasing. The founders have digitalized and automated the entire process. Their customers are very satisfied because it reduces the workload by 80%, said CEO Nessim Djerboua. He answered our seven questions.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
We — Nessim Djerboua (36, MBA) and Liviu Ignat (35, graduate computer scientist) – met at our previous workplace, the Silicon Valley unicorn AppDirect. After nearly five years at AppDirect and successfully establishing its business in Europe, I decided it was high time to tackle the digitalization of the real estate market.
Everreal has created digital leasing, including marketing, contracts and property handover
That’s exactly what we’re working on: Everreal is the platform for digital leasing of the future. We bring together all of the relevant data, processes and stakeholders: Landlords, meaning housing companies, property managers or real estate agents, are able to digitally manage the entire leasing procedure – from terminating a lease, to marketing or even property handover. Prospective tenants are digitally guided through the leasing process.
2. But that’s already been done!
Not to this extent and not with this degree of automation. We cover the entire leasing procedure as just one service provider – including marketing, contract generation and the digital handover of a property. Every week, our customers let us know that Everreal has made their daily tasks easier and more enjoyable. That’s something we’re naturally very pleased to hear. With Everreal, our customers can reduce their workload by 60-80%. Those numbers speak for themselves.
The real estate industry doesn’t feel very pressured to take part in digital transformation
3. What was your biggest challenge so far?
Our biggest challenge was and still is motivating an industry to change that is still very sluggish in part. That means moving from paper and manual processes to digital solutions that free up time for more important things. The real estate industry as a whole is very well off economically, so companies feel less pressured to take part in digital transformation. But we’re slowly gaining momentum.
4. Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: How is business going?
We’ve been live on the market since early 2018. In the last twelve months, we’ve managed to gain and impress renowned customers in the real estate industry with our product in real-life conditions. Our customers include large companies such as MEAG (the asset manager for Munich Re and Ergo) and Foncia Deutschland (one of Germany’s largest housing companies), but also smaller-scale property managers and real estate agents.
In total, our customers manage approximately 150,000 apartments across Germany. In a customer survey we conducted in late 2018, our “net promoter score” was 9, which is a very high customer satisfaction rating. That clearly shows that Everreal provides significant added value.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
From a startup and real estate point of view, Munich is an exciting city. We both chose Munich as our home and lived outside of Germany for many years. The high quality of living in Munich as well as excellent universities make it an ideal city for us.
The path to becoming a unicorn? Top secret!
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we be seeing you at an Epic Fail Night soon?
How Everreal will become a unicorn is top secret. But our vision for the Everreal platform and the enormous need for efficiency and new business models in the real estate industry have major unicorn potential. What motivates us, however, is to make every kind of real estate transaction possible in just a few minutes and as simple as shopping on Amazon.
7. Beer or Prosecco?
That definitely isn’t a question of principle for us, but depends more on the moment.