Real estate agents know the maxim “location, location, location,” and a Little Rock tech startup is giving agents the perfect place to get their listings found online.
Launched in 2017, Listing Village offers agents an individualized website and mapping system where each property listing points back to the agent rather than sites like Zillow. Agents subscribe for a monthly fee.
Listing Village is founder and president Matthew Young’s second company. Previously, Young started Desk Agent, a programming and consulting firm.
Born into a long line of Realtors, Young saw an opportunity to help agents claim their online real estate and began working on the Listing Village concept three years ago.
Simple Is Best
While Desk Agent was profitable, Young and his team liked the scaleability and growth potential of focusing on one problem and one market.
Buoyed by market research and consulting from the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center, they forged ahead with Listing Village, taking part in the Pre-Accelerator program at The Venture Center.
“If we’re doing all these other things and not focusing, we’ll never grow and can get seriously bogged down,” Young said. “(ASBTDC) put my head in the right place.
“I’ve watched startups go under because they try to build the ‘everything’ system. Customers don’t buy the ‘best,’ they buy the one they understand. Build a good product that does one thing well. Keep it simple.”
The simple approach appears to be working. Listing Village’s sales have grown 823 percent this year.
Now serving the Tulsa-to-Nashville corridor, the platform keeps adding listings for additional areas, with plans to expand nationwide in 2019.
The company is taking part in the Y Combinator Startup School with hopes of getting a coveted spot in Y Combinator’s accelerator and this fall received $100,000 from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s Technology Development Program.
Big Picture, Big Goals
The non-dilutive TDP money was attractive, but he put off applying due to a fear of “daunting red tape,” said Daniel Schroeder, the company’s chief operating officer. “I kept thinking, ‘I’ll get to that later.’” ASBTDC’s Martial Trigeaud walked Schroeder and Young through the requirements and advantages. “He said, ‘It’s easy.’”
Schroeder said the customer insights and guidance from the ASBTDC put the fledgling company on the road to success.
“What ASBTDC has done for us has freed us to do what we’re good at. To step back and see the big picture, that has been enormously helpful.
“You helped us set good goals and do the things to make us a good investment,” said Schroeder.
“Y’all built a relationship with us. That’s what we want to do with our Realtors, so they can do the same with their home buyers.”
Love Little Rock
Young and Schroeder are both Little Rock natives who believe the city is a great spot to grow a startup. The company’s offices are in the Simmons Tower downtown.
Young quit a stable government job to start DeskAgent, then decided to “dive off the cliff one more time” with Listing Village. Little Rock has “a lot of interest and a lot of experience” in the tech space, he said.
Remarking on the soaring cost of living in California tech hubs, Schroeder cited the San Francisco Bay area, where the poverty threshold is now $117,400.
“You can hire brilliant people in Arkansas who can help you build a world-class company, and with our cost of living, $117,000 will go a lot farther,” said Schroeder. “It’s just going to take some home runs to put us on the map.”