The Next Web

Michiel Muller challenges real estate brokers with online auctions

Written on November 6, 2008 – 4:06 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

I’m at the Sprout Challenger Day, a conference celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit. Infamous Dutch business journalist Jort Kelder hosts the day and now interviews Michiel Muller, the Richard Branson of Holland. In only a few years, he challenged traffic collective ANWB (4 million members) with an alternative to their motoring organization, all the oil companies by introducing unmanned gas stations, and now he takes on real estate brokers.

The buyer has the money

When buying a house in Holland, you generally pay ten percent too much. That’s a weird thought, considering the current economic climate. The buyer can decide, he’s the one who actually spends money. So with that thought in mind, Muller has built an online auction site called Bieden en Wonen (Bidding and Living).

An hour of bidding

In a four-week process (collecting information from real estate agents to define the price etc.), it all comes down to an hour. That’s when the actual bidding takes place. The site opens up at 5pm and closes at 6pm. The selling party can give the starting price and a minimal price. Instead of starting with a high price and waiting for four months, only to see the price drop, you start low and see the price skyrocket in only an hour.

Inspiration in your news paper

By launching this site, Muller has shaken up the real estate market. Just like he did with the motoring organization and the oil market. What’s his secret? Muller: “Just look around you. Read a paper and see what the problems are. Try to fix them”. As an example, he mentioned another idea - which is similar to Zocdoc (an online booking system for the health sector). “It’s a matter of combining technological innovation with a marketing aspect”, Muller concludes.

I hope you like that post!

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bieden en wonen, challengers, market, michiel muller, real estate

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European and American VC’s, please partner up

Written on February 6, 2008 – 12:07 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Last year, start-ups had a hard time seducing European venture capital firms to invest in their companies. VentureBeat reports that the VC’s are backing the fewest companies on record since research group VentureSource began tracking investments in 1999.

Only 897 companies were able to woo investors. Yet when they did, it certainly paid of. Since when European VC’s do invest, they are putting in higher bets than they did previously. They invest an amount of 4.56 billion euro in total, a two percent rise from 2006.

It’s the fourth year of consecutive increase in the amount of money, yet this has not necessarily has to be a positive thing. Since VentureSource says that in Europe it’s more difficult to turn a company into a profitable business. Therefore VC’s have to keep investing to make sure that the start-ups become success stories.

The statistics of the European market for mergers and IPOs are a bit horrifying. In 2006 89 venture-backed companies went public, in 2007 this number dropped to 38. Moreover, mergers and acquisitions deals fell 38 percent to 136. Again, VentureSource can draw a sad conclusion: it’s the lowest figure of the past ten years.

The US economy seems to be in trouble, with the growing threat of a recession, yet the merger market was pretty strong.

Although this article is discussing differences between European and American markets, I reckon we should think in terms of best of both worlds. There’s more risk capital available in America and they have a better exit environment. But most American companies stick to their (huge) local market and their own language. European entrepreneurs and VC’s are more used to be working with language barriers, but less risk capital is available.

When we combine these two markets, the available cash, the network of the VC’s and the knowledge and talent of entrepreneurs,, chances of success are bigger. European investors already often look for an American partner in the series B. Let’s keep that up. On the web the world is flat, the only barrier we still have to take is language.

Europe, investors, ipo, m&a, market, venture capitalists

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