Underdog Founders - John builds ProprHome to create digital trust
What is the secret sauce to create trust between humans?
John grew up playing rugby in Dublin, dreaming of traveling around the world.
When he landed a job in sales after finishing business school, it was a solid fit that played to his extroverted personality and fast smile.
3 years out of college, John was Dubious - he could Dublout from Dublin and Dubai instead.
(I’m so sorry for that)
Dubai was and is a city with its share of inequalities, but full of opportunity and capital to make (some) dreams happen. John wanted to break into real estate and find financial freedom for himself and his family.
As a natural English speaker with a background in sales, how hard could it be?
“You don’t know the culture, you don’t have industry connections, why would we hire you?” - that type of hard.
Yet John wanted to prove to himself he could adapt and close deals, no matter what.
Once, he challenged a doubting client in a parking lot, and literally got in front of the car as they were about to leave - all for a chance to break into the industry.
That moment turned into 8 years in real estate, with a move to Hong-Kong in between, and went on to give John the perfect background to build ProprHome.
(John and his wife in Hong-Kong. John has since moved to Portugal and now lives in Sintra)
The idea formed slowly in the back of his mind, as he saw real estate agents spend up to 80% of their time trying to build trust with potential clients, and only 20% engaged in actually selling homes.
If every agent had a digital record of all the homes they ever sold, and customers could check every bid placed on a home that they’re interested in, leaps of faith would no longer be necessary - trust could be innate from day zero.
This is John’s vision for ProprHome.
However, vision statements tend to go out the door when life gets real.
Raising a grant from Ripple Labs (XRP) to start building his dream platform was a big win, until covid hits, and shakes up the real global estate market.
Then Russia invades Ukraine, where John’s entire development team was busy building and living a normal life.
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Throughout all this, John and his team keep their heads down and get it done, building a platform through a pandemic and frequent war-driven power cuts.
Portugal is ProprHome’s first test market.
A whooping 6,000 real estate agents signed up to be on the platform in its first 3 months. Many call it an overdue upgrade for the profession.
They also secured partnerships with Vodafone and Tranquilidade (insurance), taking paperwork out of home setup services with 1-click setup forms.
All because John didn’t take no for an answer in a parking lot, then a pandemic, and then a war.
Rock on Mr. McCoy.
If you’re looking for a home in Portugal, they recently published a guide to help expats move to Portugal and navigate the local landscape.
Underdog Founders 11 - John McCoy, ProprHome
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Be kind to strangers,
J