YourOwnROOM Success Story - The Company Transforming Residential Real Estate

Jeenal Jain

Jun 23, 2021 — 10 min read

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by YourOwnROOM.

Searching for a new place to stay has always been a struggle for everyone. But now the times are changing and the days when you had to look for a broker and roam around the entire city to find a new home for yourself are going away.

Now, to help you with all this, PropTech (property technology) is driving transformation and efficiencies in residential real estate. PropTech is all the tech tools that help real estate brokers, developers, and agents fine-tune the way in which you buy, sell, rent, or manage a property.

YourOwnROOM is a PropTech residential real estate rental and property management company founded in 2016. It is an online platform where both tenants and owners can find and display places.

In this article, discover more about YourOwnROOM, its story, industry, founders and team, business and revenue model, and more.

YourOwnROOM - Company Highlights

Startup Name	YourOwnROOM
Headquarters	Bengaluru, Karnataka
Industry	Real Estate, PropTech
Founded	2016
Founder	Prabhat Kumar Tiwary, Sachin Joshi, Rewat Laxman
Revenue	Rs.10 crores (approx)
Website	yourownroom.com

YourOwnROOM - About
YourOwnROOM - Industry
YourOwnROOM - Founders and Team
YourOwnROOM - Startup Story
YourOwnROOM - Mission and Vision
YourOwnROOM - Name and Logo
YourOwnROOM - Product and USP
YourOwnROOM - Business and Revenue Model
YourOwnROOM - User Acquisition
YourOwnROOM - Challenges Faced
YourOwnROOM - Growth and Turnover
YourOwnROOM - Funding and Investors
YourOwnROOM - Awards and Recognitions
YourOwnROOM - Competitors
YourOwnROOM - Future Plans

YourOwnROOM - About

YourOwnROOM is a residential real estate PropTech rental and property management company. It was incorporated in February 2016. The PropTech platform enables onboarding and management of residential assets in multiple formats including co-living homes, alternate assets, and family homes.

YourOwnROOM - Industry

Residential RE Rental Market is $13.5 billion as per Primus Partners, 2020 and the Shared Living market is $6.4 billion with a penetration of only 2.5% with demand being fueled by migrant millennials moving to cities. Coliving, Student Housing and senior homes will be the new reality growth drivers. Demand will continue to be fueled by Migrant Millennials.

Real estate as a sector is the backbone of the Indian economy and its market size is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2030. Real Estate will grow to a $650 billion market size by 2025, growing at 19.5% CAGR, contributing to 13% of our country's GDP and generating 75 million jobs, and almost 1/6th of this is going to be residential real estate.

The recently approved Model Tenancy Act will help bridge the trust deficit between tenants and landlords by clearly delineating their obligations and will eventually help unlock vacant houses across the country. It is a big step towards institutionalising Rental in India.

YourOwnROOM - Founders and Team

Prabhat Kumar Tiwary - Founder, CEO, and CMD of YourOwnROOM

YourOwnROOM was founded by Prabhat Kumar Tiwary, along with Sachin Joshi and Rewat Laxman, with a deep interest in Entrepreneurship, Business and Technology.

Prabhat Kumar Tiwary is the CEO and Managing Director and drives growth. He is an alumnus of Stanford Business School. In addition, he is also the COO. Sanjay Singh is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer.

The total team size is about 25 across Bengaluru and Pune, with the bulk of the team based out of Bengaluru. YourOwnROOM has a very flat organisational structure where each team member has access to the founders and leadership team. YourOwnROOM has a mix of senior leaders, experienced team members, and freshers. About 60% of the team includes freshers from various colleges.

Advisors and Mentors

The team is extremely fortunate to have some very accomplished Industry leaders who have invested in them and provide strategic direction. This includes Ravi Chaturvedi from the US who is a former president of P&G, K Narasimha Murthy who is the co-founder of a health tech company based out of the US and Venkat Shiv Dasari, who is a senior executive for an MNC IT services company.

YourOwnROOM - Startup Story

"We initially started YourOwnROOM to solve the challenges faced by singles while looking for a decent place to live. However, what got us even more intrigued is the bigger picture" says Prabhat Kumar Tiwary, Founder,CEO, and CMD, YourOwnROOM.

YourOwnROOM's core belief is that it will no longer be just about the Asset. The Real Value of the Asset will unfold when you apply a tech-based service wrapper on top of the Residential Asset and channel it to the right unmet demand. PropTech-based Rental and Property Management companies like them will play a critical role in the next 5 years in driving transformation and efficiencies in Residential real estate.

YourOwnROOM - Mission and Vision

YourOwnROOM's vision statement says, “Our vision at YourOwnROOM is to deliver higher economic returns to our Residential Real Estate Property Owners over the Property Lifecycle using our Proptech-based Residential Rental & Property Management Solutions.”

YourOwnROOM - Name and Logo

YourOwnROOM Logo

YourOwnROOM considers tenants as their primary consumers with Homeowners, Developers, and Vendors as partners in delivering the services. The logo brings focus to 3 things – home at the epicentre, location, and vibrant colours which resonate with their young millennial tenants and homeowners.

YourOwnROOM - Product and USP

YourOwnROOM acts as a trusted custodian of residential assets for property owners and offers multi-year rental and property management services to them. It helps them get continuous cash flow, higher rental yields and higher capital appreciation from their residential assets. Their rental management services include finding KYC-verified tenants, drafting and executing rental agreements, move-ins, rental collection, service request management, renewals, and exit settlements.

Their property management services include property onboarding, offboarding, audits, maintenance, and project management across painting, interiors, and civil work. The company partners with PropCo companies and Developers as Asset Managers to increase the sales velocity, rental yields, and capital appreciation of their residential asset portfolio.

The company's biggest differentiator is its prop-tech platform. It integrates their golden execution capabilities and helps them deliver better management for their Asset Owners and a better living experience for consumers. This provides it with the foundation to profitably scale its business across multiple cities and multiple residential asset formats.

YourOwnROOM - Business and Revenue Model

YourOwnROOM's core business is automated and runs on its PropTech Platform which is also one of the startup's biggest differentiators. In addition, it uses several tools to manage CRM, IVR, and Ticket Management. The startup has also built an integration with KYC systems and various payment gateways. YourOwnROOM also has an online method to sign agreements with its tenants, owners and vendors.

YourOwnROOM Revenue and Business Model involve 3 steps:

1. Onboard Property

It signs a 3-5 year MoU with owners to manage their property and rentals. With developers and propcos, it signs a 5-7 year MoU for the same.
YourOwnROOM onboards the property on its PropTech Platform and conducts quality assurance checks.
It gets into an arrangement with the owner and seeks 30-45 days to rent out the property to tenants.
YourOwnROOM assists the owner to onboard the property by conducting a quality check, helping with repairs, and helping procure furniture and appliances.

2. Onboard Tenant

YourOwnROOM actively scouts for suitable tenants, run marketing campaigns and organizes site visits.
It books a tenant and signs a rental Service Agreement. This is done between the tenant, owner, and YourOwnROOM
It then onboards the tenants into the property.

3. Engage Tenant and Asset

The tenant will pay a fixed rental to YourOwnROOM through the tech platform.
YourOwnROOM pays rent to the Owner minus its commission.
In addition, the tenant pays for admin and move-out charges and service requests (requests for repair work and other complaints) after 14 days.
YourOwnROOM manages service requests, audits, renewals, exits, and refills.
The owner and tenant interact with YourOwnROOM using the technology platform, which includes the interactive tenant and owner dashboards.

YourOwnROOM - User Acquisition

YourOwnROOM acquired its initial 100 tenants mainly through word of mouth, social media sales, and a strong direct sales team. Getting customers to buy their business model was key, as co-living in the early days was a developing concept with only a few options. The company's initial inventory was of very high quality and located just 15 minutes from the business parks, which accelerated the sales process.

YourOwnROOM - Challenges Faced

"Most challenging part of our business was to build long term trust among our tenants and homeowners" says Prabhat Kumar Tiwary, Founder, CEO, and CMD, YourOwnROOM.

The real test of the business was to have repeat customers. For the first 2 years, YourOwnROOM focused heavily on picking the right asset, managing the same and servicing its tenants. This built great trust among tenants and homeowners which was key to building long-term associations. Today most homeowners sign over 5-year rental and property management contracts with YourOwnROOM.

YourOwnROOM - Growth and Turnover

The company's Asset Under Management is 1 million square feet valued at over Rs. 400 crores ($50 million) spread across 500 properties in Bengaluru and Pune. YourOwnROOM’s annualised revenue run rate is about Rs. 10 crores. It is operationally profitable and will be EBITDA positive in the next 3-4 months. Post that, the company is looking for a multi-city expansion which will help fuel its growth.

YourOwnROOM - Funding and Investors

YourOwnROOM has raised a total funding of $1.3 Million from Angles in US and India.

Date	Stage	Amount	Investors
2019	Seed	$1.3 million	Angels - US and India

YourOwnROOM - Awards and Recognitions

YourOwnROOM received several awards. The most prominent ones are:

It was an honour for YourOwnROOM to get recognized by International Brand Equity in the India Properties Award - 2020 as the Best Coliving Company in South India. The award was felicitated by Senior Politician Tanveer Ahmed. Grabbing the award for best Coliving company in India in one of reputed India’s National Real Estate Awards platforms is proof of the credibility of the company.
Your Own Room Received ETNow Award 2019 for Excellence in Real Estate as the Company of the Year (Co-living Spaces). This is one of the most significant achievements for the company in Real Estate.
YourOwnROOM received Paul Writer’s 50 hottest Brand for 2019. YourOwnROOM was proud to share the stage with Brands like Swiggy, BYJU'S, BigBasket and the like.

YourOwnROOM - Competitors

The top competitors of YourOwnROOM are:

Colive
NestAway
NoBroker
Square Yards

YourOwnROOM - Future Plans

Over the last 6 years, they have built a well-established business model, growth, profitability, governance, and brand. This has stood the test of time, especially COVID. It also built a Proptech platform that will drive operational consistency and performance and allow them to profitably scale across cities, offerings, and asset formats.

Now it is all about growth and investments to fuel growth. On growth, the company's approach is to:

Increase the sales penetration of rental and property management services in Bengaluru and Pune.
Offer Property Manager Tech Services to PropCos, Developers, and Channel Partners to exponentially scale.
Expand their presence in Hyderabad and Chennai.
Upgrade features and UX of Proptech Platform (Portal, Mobile App & BPE) and make it SaaS enabled for Property Managers to manage multiple asset formats.

To support the company's growth, they are planning to raise a Series-A investment. The company is looking for strategic and institutional investors who can provide them with the capital, connections, and guidance to scale their business. Investments will fuel growth and they plan to invest in developing their offerings, adding new cities, new partnerships, digital marketing and taking their PropTech Platform to the next level.

FAQs

What is YourOwnROOM?

YourOwnROOM is a residential real estate PropTech rental and property management company. The PropTech platform enables onboarding and management of residential assets in multiple formats including co-living homes, alternate assets and family homes.

Who founded YourOwnROOM?