My Time w/ Streeteasy.com CEO Michael Smith

A: I had the pleasure of spending an hour with Streeteasy.com CEO Michael Smith last week to see the man behind the recently launched New York City Real Estate search engine.

First and foremost, Mr. Smith made his position clear:

"We entered this market knowing there would be competition, and we are executing on a clear strategy that will lead to a service that is very different than what we see in the market today. We care about the buyers of New York City real estate who use this site and we are here to stay."

The company is funded and has the minds of some very experienced
internet engineers behind the scenes working to make the most
efficient solution for buyers of New York City real estate as well as
realtors. As far as future web services, all I know is that
Streeteasy's employees are hard at work analyzing the metrics behind
its users' behavior so that new tools can be designed that actually
improve a visitor's experience.

On a refreshing note, they are not building something in the hopes of
being acquired and have very strong feelings on building a product
that works, and works well. Use the site and you will see what I
mean; by the way the BETA site you see now is the result of only 2
1/2 months of programming work (you get the idea of the skill level
of this Streeteasy team).

Streeteasy has already been approached by many small to medium sized
brokerages, and several large brokerages seeking to get their
listings included in the systems database. While they are integrating
many of these, they also know the value of good content and are not
about to let the Joe Shmo's take advantage of their 30+ rules that
were set up for data inclusions. These rules are well thought out and
were put in place to assure that the site's users are getting the
best data possible. The mantra is clear: Good data means a
good product!

The site gets about 15,000-20,000 page views a day from about 1,000+
unique visitors. Mr. Smith did go on to tell me that the number of
first-time visitors a day is shrinking; a good sign that tells him
the number of return visitors is rising! He also went on to tell me
that they already sent over approximately 40,000 referral clicks to
local realtors since their BETA launch!

In regards to the web presence of Trulia.com or the coming of
Zillow.com, Mr. Smith is not worried. Instead he said that he felt
that the presence of strong companies was a very good sign, and that
"consumers will ultimately benefit from the innovation that
comes from competition", and that there would likely be
several different business models which would succeed.

With respect to generating revenue, advertising is expected to be the
main source for now. However, who knows what will come in the coming weeks as Streeteasy's search technology continues to evolve.

UrbanDigs Opinion: Don't underestimate Mr.
Smith and his team at Streeteasy.com. With a passion for changing the
world and solving problems, the CEO of this startup is putting his
all into building something that will greatly enhance a buyer's
experience with New York City real estate and the services
surrounding it. He is focused and determined to get the system
working the way it should be for New York City before expanding to
any other market. He is on the right track.

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