From Selling a Startup to King to Building a Real-Estate Portal. The Journey of a Serial Entrepreneur


Sébastien Marion Kasaz

Sébastien Marion of Kasaz tells us about real estate and the use of artificial intelligence to deliver the most personalized experience.

Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded Kasaz.

Sébastien Marion: I was raised in France near Lyon and left for the UK to continue my Computer Science degree when I was 20 years old. 

I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Kent.

Towards the end of my Ph.D., I started playing with some business ideas with friends of mine, and we eventually founded a couple of companies, one of which we sold to King.com in 2014.

As part of the acquisition, I was sent to Barcelona, where I was shocked by the experience of finding a home. The entire search experience centers around the seller with little consideration for the buyer.

So I decided to create Kasaz to address what I saw as a deficiency in the market.

Kasaz is really the first real-estate portal where the user is at the center of the experience.

We use Artificial Intelligence to deliver the most personalized experience and help home buyers find the home of their dream every time.

How does Kasaz market its product/services online? 

Sébastien Marion: Where our competition charges for publishing, we make it free to publish. We then charge per lead. This reduces the risk of advertising your properties with us: if we don’t deliver, you don’t pay.

This is in line with current practices in the online marketing industry but not so in the more traditional real estate industry.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how did you get through it?

Sébastien Marion: It was tough. We were dependent on external investment at the time, and funding opportunities disappeared from one day to another.

We had to reduce the staff and reduce wages. We decided to “take advantage” of the crisis by giving our customers a very aggressive 6-month free offer, which allowed us to grow quickly.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to manage your online marketing?

Sébastien Marion: We use tools and software.

· Notion

· Google Analytics

· Google ADS

· Criteo

· WordPress and Webflow

· Encharge

· Optinmonster

· Optimize

· Google Drive and Google Spreadsheets

· Miro

· Pitch

Techniques and skills

· Remarketing

· Inbound marketing

· Marketing automation

· SEO and linkbuilding

· Growth hacking

· A/B tests and CRO

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Sébastien Marion: The big elephants in Spain are called Idealista, Fotocasa and Habitaclia.

These portals do not pay enough attention to the experience of the buyer. And we think that by doing this right, we have a chance at taking them on.

Your final thoughts?

Sébastien Marion: Never be afraid of fighting for your ideas. It’s not easy, sometimes it feels impossible, but if you don’t fight for your ideas, you will regret it.

And who knows, your ideas might just end up making the world a better place.

Your website?

https://www.kasaz.com


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