Nestoria celebrates ...

It's been just about three years since Nestoria.co.uk first stepped on the property search scene. Since then, the company seems to have gone from strength to strength, now operating in four European countries, as well as creating the experimental Lukku Labs, bringing innovative ideas such as Where can I live Nestoholic, and UK Property Vision.
CEO Ed Freyfogle was gracious to answer a few questions we put to him.

1) What do you see as the greatest accomplishment for Nestoria so far?

It's hard to believe how quickly the three years since we've launched nestoria.co.uk have gone by. On the one hand we've accomplished a fair amount - the business is running well in 4 major EU markets, and we have plans for further expansion. On the other hand, we still have so many ideas of things we'd like to do with the site and with our partners. It's always hard to find the balance between our ideas and our resources.

The thing I'm most proud of though is the great team we've been able to put together. It's fun to tackle complex problems with smart people from diverse backgrounds. We experiment quite a bit with new ideas both on Nestoria and generally (see our lokkulabs.com initiative). Sometimes things work well, sometimes they fail. We learn a lot and that keeps it interesting.

2) What impact has the economic downturn had on your business?

It's been good for us. When times are good, people keep doing what they've been doing. It's only when times are tough that you start to question things and ask where you're really getting value for money. As a result I think agents are turning their money away from traditional print advertising to online. On the one hand we're able to benefit from more money in the sector, on the other hand there's a chance to partner with traditional players who haven't yet found a successful online strategy and are keen to catch up. Anytime change happens there are risks, but also opportunities. We try to stay small and nimble to seize the opportunities.

3) A lot of companies with similar models that started out the same time as you have almost completely vanished; yet you guys are ranked by Comscore as within the top ten of all property based websites in the UK. Why do you think that is?

I'd disagree. There were many visually similar sites that launched around the same time as we did, but all had different models. I think our strength has been in doing one thing consistently and well rather than switching models. Likewise I think users like the simplicity of our site.

In general regarding the landscape of other property websites, we don't take a competitive view. We view every other site out there as a potential partner. In fact of the top ten we work together with most of them (and are keen to work together with the others).

4) What do you think the future holds for the industry?

For the property industry, as with most industries, the internet will only become more important, not less. I think the traditional model of 'pay to list' that most of the portals currently offer will continue to exist, but will increasingly come under pressure from more pay for performance options.

From the user perspective it's very interesting to see the feature developments of things like video over the past few years. I think consumers will soon ask why there isn't a youtube style video of every property listing. One thing is clear, technological innovation doesn't slow down during a recession.

5) What does the future hold for Nestoria?

More partnerships, more countries and more product experiments (we hope to have some announcements soon). But our goal is not to grow the team much. We like being small and fast. So we're always keen to build stable, long-term partnerships that allow us to focus on the next thing.

6) Finally, the UK government intends to introduce a 'telephone tax' on UK landlines to fund the so-called 'digital future'. Do you think this is a good idea?

I'm of mixed opinion. On the one hand using the internet should be as cheap and easy as possible. On the other hand, there are costs involved in the infrastructure.

For me personally I'm fine with paying for things when there is a corresponding value and service. The problem comes when you just throw money into a black hole and it's unclear what the benefit is. It's exciting to see the hard work of folks like mySociety to use technology to bring transparency to government starting to pay off.

7) Any closing comments?

I'd really like to thank all of our team, our partners (especially those who bet on us in the beginning), and most of all the users. Their feedback helps us get better every day. Please keep it
coming!