{"id":42715,"date":"2023-10-20T15:23:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/property-start-up-housenet-throws-its-website-to-the-crowd-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:23:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:23:14","slug":"property-start-up-housenet-throws-its-website-to-the-crowd-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/property-start-up-housenet-throws-its-website-to-the-crowd-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Property start-up Housenet throws its website to the crowd – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Housenet\"<\/div>\n

A Sydney-based online real estate start-up has taken an unusual approach to website development by crowdsourcing ideas from the public over the functionality and concept of its offering.<\/p>\n

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Housenet.com.au, which launched in September, bills itself as the only social media network for property in Australia.<\/p>\n

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Aimed at both the real estate industry and consumers, the site allows people to buy, sell and interact with other. The business has a free basic level but users can pay a fee to subscribe and add new features or promote their listings.<\/p>\n

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Darren Moffatt, Housenet\u2019s founder who previously launched Express Mortgage Market, says that he wants to \u201cdemocratise\u201d the process of website development.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to include site members, but also other people, maybe social media nerds, who have ideas,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLike every start-up, we\u2019re in an evolving process. We have learned the last three months that people like the site and it\u2019s easy to use, but the experience needs to be localised, which we are looking to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to cast a wide net, not caught in groupthink. We are a big believer with wisdom of crowds, [and we are] very happy to dump our ideas if better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In return for providing suggestions that get taken up, users will receive free Housenet lifetime premium membership and free advertising on the site.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEveryday users will bring practical responses, such as \u2018I don\u2019t like where this button is\u2019 but we are trying to go beyond that and attract lateral thinkers to give them the opportunity to shape a site from the ground up,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo date, the stuff has been practical, but we\u2019re looking for more conceptual stuff. It\u2019s not every day a new social media site launches.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s very much an experiment. We\u2019ll suck it and see. It is a little scary, frankly, about letting go of some control.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re in a start-up and you\u2019re building a community, this is the way to go. Feedback is common, but we\u2019re putting that approach on steroids and saying anyone can have a say. There are risks to that, but I think it\u2019s worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sydney-based online real estate start-up has taken an unusual approach to website development by crowdsourcing ideas from the public<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}