00:09:40 · Ilia Drozdov
[00:09:40] S1: I think actually the first thing we do is not kind of the improvement of margins or disruption of the model. The first thing to do is to give teams comfort because the first thing that happens with every acquisition is people become anxious what's coming next. And I remember when Uber merged business with local competitor with the index back in 2018, my first immediate reaction was as well, like, what's going on? Like, I feel pretty much threatened. Right? Like, what happens? Like, what comes next, etcetera? And appreciating that feelings, we for the first month focus on getting people kind of up to speed on what's going next, getting them comfortable, presenting them changes in a way that they don't feel threatened that their job will be automated with AI because a lot of what they actually do day to day will be automated. It's not kind of a secret secret. Right? But what they can do with that new technology to which kind of level they can elevate the the the service level to to customers, to the end customers and how much more they can deliver with a lot of stuff, very simple admin stuff being automated, you need to inspire them. You need to kind of show them that there is actually a nice future where they... Like, which they can be part of. And on that, we'll spend the first month, not the disruption itself, but getting people in our way.
00:10:55 · Sebastian Johnson, Ilia Drozdov
[00:10:55] S0: Yeah. That's super interesting. I guess it's like aligning around the mission and getting people on board and excited. To that point, is there a specific culture at Dwelly? Know, is there a certain certain ways of working or cultural kind of points that you then have to try and bring the acquisitions into? You know, you try and get them to adopt like the dwelling way of working, dwelling way of life? How does that work culturally when you're acquiring so many businesses? [00:11:22] S1: Spot on actually, amazing question. The answer will be we don't yet have kind of a very kind of clear culture that you can formulate in a set of a few kind of principles. And there is a reason to that. The reason to that is that previously no tech company was buying so many traditional businesses. And the collab kind of... No. The friction between tech first mindset, which kind of we have here in the HQ, and property kind of mindset that comes with the companies that joined Valley family. Like, there is no playbook how to address that, but we appreciate and where we are moving to. We are moving to the kind of environment in which these worlds can coexist and they understand why actually they coexist and which kind of impact is driven by either property mindset or tech mindset. And we're already doing quite kind of good steps towards kind of that alignment, but this is the road we have to kind of probably drive for the next couple of years to figure out actually how it looks like.
00:11:22 · Ilia Drozdov, Sebastian Johnson
[00:11:22] S1: Spot on actually, amazing question. The answer will be we don't yet have kind of a very kind of clear culture that you can formulate in a set of a few kind of principles. And there is a reason to that. The reason to that is that previously no tech company was buying so many traditional businesses. And the collab kind of... No. The friction between tech first mindset, which kind of we have here in the HQ, and property kind of mindset that comes with the companies that joined Valley family. Like, there is no playbook how to address that, but we appreciate and where we are moving to. We are moving to the kind of environment in which these worlds can coexist and they understand why actually they coexist and which kind of impact is driven by either property mindset or tech mindset. And we're already doing quite kind of good steps towards kind of that alignment, but this is the road we have to kind of probably drive for the next couple of years to figure out actually how it looks like. [00:12:22] S0: And both of you, you know, not being from The UK, why was The UK where you decided that this was the right place to build your business?
00:12:22 · Sebastian Johnson, Dan Lifshits
[00:12:22] S0: And both of you, you know, not being from The UK, why was The UK where you decided that this was the right place to build your business? [00:12:30] S2: I think there were a bunch of reasons. It was both across personal and across professional. Think I across personal, we actually were living here already, and I think it's obviously kind of easier to build something when you base here. You feel the empathy. I think we all experience the process of rentals, how fragmented and how kind of effectively outdated sometimes it is and how it can be improved. Kind of you you feel empathy as a customer. And then professionally, UK, if you talk about all of the countries in Europe for sure, and even The US is effectively the market where the kind of the cut of an agency that they create or that they charge from the rents is one of the highest, meaning that effective proving some of the first thesis points potentially is, like, just one of the easiest in The UK. Doesn't mean that our plan is to kind of stay in The UK forever. Even the opposite, there is definitely a plan to go beyond UK at some point of time when we're ready for that. But UK is like definitely big enough market to build a pretty iconic business in The UK alone.
00:12:30 · Dan Lifshits, Sebastian Johnson
[00:12:30] S2: I think there were a bunch of reasons. It was both across personal and across professional. Think I across personal, we actually were living here already, and I think it's obviously kind of easier to build something when you base here. You feel the empathy. I think we all experience the process of rentals, how fragmented and how kind of effectively outdated sometimes it is and how it can be improved. Kind of you you feel empathy as a customer. And then professionally, UK, if you talk about all of the countries in Europe for sure, and even The US is effectively the market where the kind of the cut of an agency that they create or that they charge from the rents is one of the highest, meaning that effective proving some of the first thesis points potentially is, like, just one of the easiest in The UK. Doesn't mean that our plan is to kind of stay in The UK forever. Even the opposite, there is definitely a plan to go beyond UK at some point of time when we're ready for that. But UK is like definitely big enough market to build a pretty iconic business in The UK alone. [00:13:26] S0: And so right now you're focusing on London, I guess. Is this like a part of a stage transition of like, you know, you've been focused kind of in the North and in the regions. Now you've started to go into London once you kind of nail London or you kind of capture it off ground there then will you start thinking about international? What does that roadmap look like I guess for as you expand geographically?
00:13:26 · Sebastian Johnson, Ilia Drozdov
[00:13:26] S0: And so right now you're focusing on London, I guess. Is this like a part of a stage transition of like, you know, you've been focused kind of in the North and in the regions. Now you've started to go into London once you kind of nail London or you kind of capture it off ground there then will you start thinking about international? What does that roadmap look like I guess for as you expand geographically? [00:13:47] S1: I think kind of the way we look at this is as London being almost half kind of of the industry size in The UK in terms of the rent roll combined for us is just like a definite acceleration of The UK growth. We will continue growing in regions obviously But UK... The London opens up the second half of The UK market effectively for us. The way we look at the international expansion is less kind of stage through regions to London to international, but more in terms of how stable and predictable kind of the growth of our business here in The UK. But in terms of sequencing, it's probably gonna be... Gonna look as you you you mentioned. Now we double down London, we double down regions, we go to kind of certain scale, we make sure our service is extremely reliable, and then we can go after kind of following European markets as well and maybe US. [00:14:42] S0: And what would success in London look like?