Life at New emoov One Month on!
Behind the scenes at Mashroom / Emoov!
It has been one month since our team at Mashroom switched the lights back on at online real estate agent Emoov. Here we share 10 of our team’s highlights so far!
Where did February go?!
Our month passed in a heady blur of tech talk, customer TLC, UberEats and 60 hour weeks! But we start the new month with our welcomeback@emoov.co.uk inbox under control, previous properties relisted, new listers onboarded, houses sold and our new Mashroom lettings platform almost ready to enter pre-launch beta phase. Phew!
We are aware that there is a lot of curiosity about the new chapter of Emoov.
We are asked / emailed / tweeted / Facebooked /pretty much every platform, every day about our plans for the company; who is behind it, why on earth did a proptech start-up acquire a real estate brand in administration? All fair questions! We answered a lot of these questions in our previous Medium post and our press release.
But to sum it up, we purchased the Emoov brand and tech as part of our vision to create a property marketplace and to scale our vision quickly, smartly and sustainably. It is as simple as that.
We have spent the month working closely with previous Emoov customers to relist their property and really work on our customer journey.
Selling, buying and moving is one of the most stressful experiences in life (one of our team members sitting here as we write agrees – she moved home 10 times in 10 years to 10 different cities!).
We want to create the easiest, most intuitive, most human friendly online estate agent in the UK and that starts with looking after each other, listening to what sellers and buyers truly need and then we work our a**es off to create and deliver that.
1. We got deep and meaningful
We grabbed beer from the fridge, sat down together in front of our big fat whiteboard and set out to define our mission, our vision and our shared values.
This is what we came up with and we’re pretty happy with it :
“Emoov is part of the Mashroom family, a property services group dedicated to making your home changes happy ones, now and in the future, all under one roof.
Emoov is one of the UK’s first hybrid estate agents with a fixed fee and zero commission promise. Mashroom acquired Emoov in 2019.
Together, we exist to give you more freedom to move and more control over life’s most important transactions by giving you tools and support you need.
Our team is guided by a set of shared values and principles. Together, we are on a mission to connect and empower a strong community of home buyers, sellers and renters who value transparency, trust, speed, service and cost efficiency.”
2. We got a facelift!
Bye bye birds, bye bye ‘emoovment’.. but you will have to wait a little while longer for the big reveal of our new branding because who doesn’t love a cliffhanger?!
3. We made people happy!
So February really was the month we committed to a forever-focus on perfecting the customer experience.
As an example, meet one very happy, new customer, Emma Barron.
Emma was one of the first customers Emoov welcomed this month and our super star new sales team helped her sell her house in just 3 days of it being on the market. <happy dance!>
We learned a lot from Emma who was awesome and gave us her feedback throughout the journey. For her, as with many others, having an easy to use platform along with being assigned a “dedicated agent” bolstered our belief that tech and community need to go hand in hand.
4. We fell in love with our sales team
Relaunching Emoov has been an interesting challenge for our sales team who have been at the forefront of over a bijillion emails (#fact) from previous customers wishing to relist and new Emoov customers. Thankfully, James, Chris, Daniel and Jay took it all in their stride, looking after each and every enquiry all while the tech team threw a million updates at them and system improvements. We got there in the end and can (almost?) smile about it!
Chris Friend, “It was a pleasure to be the dedicated agent for Emma. It really was exciting to see her property go on the market, with viewings being booked up the next day. Knowing that I managed to accept an offer on her property for full asking price, really does make me feel good.” Cue all the feels!
5. We managed to get a photo of our Mashroom and Emoov COO Naveen!
She wiggled her way out of our first set of team photos so we thought it’d be fun to surprise her with another photoshoot <insert evil laugh here>.
6. We asked COO Naveen to reflect on the first month since we acquired Emoov
“From the very start of this acquisition we as a business felt that it was morally right to allow all customers affected by the Emoov closure to re-list with us once again without paying an advertising fee. This has been greatly received by returning customers and it has been a privilege to welcome them back. Additionally we have also recruited former Emoov employees who have brought years of experience with them, combined with the belief that we must offer our customers the very best service. It has been honor to welcome them back and work with them.”
7. We asked Alex to share where we are at with Mashroom
“As we are nearing the final stages of developing Mashroom, our vision for release is that our technology should make life easier for every party involved in the process of renting a property. As we are forming a community of users, and will be actively involved into it, we look forward to listening closely to customers’ stories and further enhancing the processes — we believe that together we can achieve the ultimate renting experience. Our initial testing shows very positive results and we are excited to welcome new members to our user testing groups very soon!”
8. We had a tea time Q&A with CEO, Stepan
What is the biggest lesson you’ve learnt this month?
“Well we’ve all learnt a lot. But the main thing is that we have a great team, we have each others backs. Everyone is doing an amazing job and it just makes me very happy. I’ve definitely learnt to trust people more and let them do the things that they’re good at. It’s easy to do with our team.”
What is a low of a Startup Founder life?
“There are no lows, apart from having less time for friends and family.”
If you could sum up February using one word, what would it be?
“Amazing”.
9. We partnered with Centrepoint
We are super passionate about supporting local communities and so we are looking forward to partnering up with Centrepoint, the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. Our team are proud to help them with their work which supports more than 10,000 homeless young people per year.
Centrepoint help vulnerable young people by giving them the practical and emotional support they need to find a job and live independently.
10. Want to be part of our super exclusive insider landlord community and save a tonne of money?
.. aka be part of our beta test group of landlords? Go to mashroom.com and sign up there and you will be the first to find out more. We are looking for landlords who want to pioneer, work alongside us and be part of something new.
And so that is it from us for February! Stay tuned for more updates and behind the scenes action at Emoov / Mashroom and our big new brand reveal!
