EBN names Ziggu "Entrepreneur of the month"
“Ziggu is the first company that bridges the gap between homebuyers and real estate professionals”
Article on EBN.eu
Ziggu – Transforming one digital brick at a time
Buying a new home can be quite stressful. Having to make one of the major life decisions whilst dealing with real estate agents, property developers and administrative issues can be a real challenge. While working in the real estate industry as a property developer, Yannick Bontinckx, Ziggu’s CEO, noticed how unnecessary complex this process is for both homebuyers and real estate professionals and decided to tackle it.
Ziggu is the first company that bridges the gap between homebuyers and real estate professionals by offering property developers digital tools to manage the complexity of tracking and updating homebuyers during construction, but above all to better inform and engage those homebuyers at the same time. Officially established in March 2017, the startup is hosted by EBN Member Technoport SA, and is the winner of the Growth category at the EBN Congress pitching competition.
Problem
Yannick, working as a property developer upon graduation, noticed how many aspects of the real estate industry were outdated and not comparable with technological developments in other industries. Not only his work as a property developer was inefficient due to the lack of digital tools to manage the workload more efficiently, but also the growing distrust in the industry made customer service difficult.
Working with Vincent, Pieter and David, Yannick started digging deeply into the core of the rather negative reputation the real estate industry was faced with by interviewing hundreds of homebuyers. They went door-to-door interviewing 400 homebuyers in Belgium. They discovered there is a high level of distrust towards the real estate industry, mainly due to the shortage of information in the process. In fact, in 2016, 42% of the Belgians expressed little or no confidence in the sector, [1] which was in line with Ziggu’s findings. Ziggu’s team presented these results to property developers who were eager to find out what homebuyers think about their business and how they can better serve their customers by using Ziggu’s insight into the customer market and the right tools needed for the job.
Solution
With Ziggu and their products Ziggu Engage and Ziggu Construction View, real estate professionals can easily communicate with homebuyers making sure to meet their needs in building their dream home.
Homebuyers can voice their questions and preferences while getting promptly informed about their home’s construction and all the legal and administrative issues required. At the same time, Ziggu helps real estate professionals manage their work and varied customers ‘expectations more efficiently by providing advanced project management tools.
“In a way we are Uber Eats/Deliveroo for the real estate industry. Before, when ordering your food, you were just waiting, not knowing when it would arrive, and the process was not digitised at all. The same was, and still is, with homes – “ordering your home” you often have a feeling of being left in the dark, not knowing what’s happening during construction and no way to track all information on an online environment.”, said Yannick Bontinckx.
