Meet Driss Hafid, CEO of Bunji, an Incubateur HEC Paris startup
Success is all about using the right tools for the job at hand. And the right software for a real estate professional can make a world of difference. This is where Bunji comes in, a new software specifically engineered for realtors. Bunji coalesces a meeting generator, which identifies home sellers by leveraging property managers’ networks, and a monitoring software, which ensures the realtor convinces the seller of its expertise from the very first meeting, into one seamless software.
Bunji was created from scratch by Driss Hafid and Christopher Bagard at the Incubateur HEC Paris at Station F, the largest startup campus in the world. Today we are meeting with Driss Hafid.
Hello Driss, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello my name is Driss Hafid, I am a 28-year-old entrepreneur. I have both engineering and management backgrounds.
I am currently the CEO of Bunji, a company that I created last year with my partner Christopher.
We met when working as strategy consultants with Advancy. We worked for 3+ years advising top management from large corporations all around the world.
Christopher has a management background and as a data lover, he completed his studies with several coding trainings.
Otherwise, we both share the same passion for sports which takes a significant part of our free time. I also like spending time with friends and family (especially after being confined for so long).
How do you think Christopher and you complement each other as cofounders?
We use to work together in our former job so knew exactly how the other was working. The first element that was crucial for us is the trust relation we managed to build. We are friends but also do not hesitate to tell the other when we disagree with him.
We are also very complementary from a skills point of view. While Christopher is passionate about coding and handles all the product related aspects, I have a stronger appetence for commercial tasks. With Bunji I am in charge of clients relations and business development.
How did the idea to create Bunji come about?
The idea of Bunji came when we realized that most of our friends who bought/sold a house, had a bad user experience. Most of the methods currently used by realtors are outdated. But we cannot blame them because they just do not have the right tools to help them in their day-to-day business.
That is the reason why we decided to dedicate ourselves to creating the best tools to help the agents provide the best experience to their clients. We aim to become the best assistant for all the “super agents” of tomorrow.
We decided to start by helping agents from property managers (called syndic in French) leverage their network to capture more sales.
Our main question was why would an apartment owner choose a random agency instead of working with its property manager who already knows the owner, the building and who’s able to reduce administrative difficulties.
Has real estate always been your main area of focus?
During our consulting career we had the opportunity to discover a large range of industries among which real estate.
We felt that most players were trying to improve but did not always had the tools to do so. Buying or selling a house is a one in a lifetime moment for most of us, we all deserve the best experience during that stressful time.
Starting this moment, we focused on our mission to help agents identify home sellers and turn them into clients by improving their service.
Where does the name « Bunji » come from?
Christopher is half Australian and the name Bunji stands for “friend” in aboriginal language. Our mission is to ensure that real estate agents become friends again with their clients. We also would like to become the best friend of our agents, the friend they consult every day to improve.
How does Bunji facilitate realtors’ jobs?
Today we facilitate realtors’ jobs with two services:
A meeting generator where we identify home sellers by leveraging property managers’ (“syndics” in French) network. To do so, we combine a machine learning algorithm with highly personalized marketing: the more tailor-made real estate study in the entire French market.
A monitoring software to ensure the realtor convinces the seller of its expertise from the very first meeting. We are currently developing the software and the launch is expected by September.
To sum up, with Bunji real estate agents receive 3 times more leads in their pipeline and all the tools to ensure they transform them into actual clients.
What are the key features of your new software?
Our new software has three main sections:
A valuation tool
Our objective is to provide realtors with a branded report highly professional to convince leads of their expertise.
Instead of taking 45 minutes to build, only 2 minutes will be needed to create a valuation report containing pictures, market price, latest transactions, automatic identification of strength and weaknesses…A tailor made CRM
The main difficulty for agents is to manage a large pipeline of leads, especially when they have long-range projects. That’s why we created the most intuitive tool to manage all its network. We’ve put many artificial intelligence features to help realtors save time every day.
A performance dashboard
Today it’s very difficult for agency’s management to follow their team performance. Our dashboard will enable them to pilot their business with KPI: number of valuation meetings, number of sale mandates, turnover forecast, …
What are some difficulties you’ve faced while building your company?
We faced a few difficulties while building Bunji:
The first one is to be able to launch a product that you’re not entirely satisfied with. The “quick-and-dirty” / ”lean” state of mind that you need to have when launching a new product is not something we were familiar with.
The second one is I guess a common one to most first time entrepreneurs: dealing with the admin requirements. Before launching Bunji we did not know anything about the administrative procedures. Fortunately, I am improving every day!
Finally, some of our clients are very large corporations. In these companies, the decision making process takes way longer than we expected and we needed to adapt our strategy.
But despite all the difficulties that entrepreneurs face every day, it is crucial to keep the same motivation since the beginning of the project.
How has Covid 19 affected your product launch?
Covid-19 had a significant impact on the overall real estate industry as most agencies were completely closed.
We took this opportunity to work on core problems that we did not have time to tackle before. It also gave us the opportunity to develop a second product to help real estate agents in their day-do-day work.
Do you have any advice for realtors just starting out?
I would have two advices for realtors starting out:
Build a strong prospects database. Indeed, the larger the database, the more selling mandates for you!
It is not always easy for new realtors to build their network. We do recommend to combine both traditional (door-to-door, mailing, …) and digital (SEO, emailing, Social networks) methods to ensure better results.
Use tools to gain productivity and spend time for what actually matters: your clients.
Today, there are tools to help you better manage your client pipeline, broadcast property advertisement, secure more valuation meetings, …
The real value of a realtor is to advice the client on its selling project not to spend time on administrative processes.
How do you wish to see Bunji develop? What are the next steps for you?
Our goal is to provide out tools to every real estate professional both in France and Europe.
The next step for us, will be the launch of our new software in September. As we developed it in cooperation with several agents we are convinced it will become a life changer for every agent wanting to provide a better customer experience.
We will also prepare a Seed funding during Q1 2021 to accelerate our growth. We plan to add features to our products by recruiting developers and to increase our presence with a strong Sales team.