A Southeast Asia pioneer in building a full-stack, closed-loop property transaction platform for first-time home buyers and Indonesia’s largest in the market, Pinhome, makes its second comeback with CEO Dara Dayu Permata and CTO Ahmed Aljunied returning on call with us. This time we break down highlights of Pinhome’s growth in the past year, as they expanded data-driven automated valuation capabilities, covered more of the mortgage supply chain, and continued to build up the property agent tech stack. We also get views on Indonesia’s property market, the role of relentless prioritization to balancing scale and profitability, and learnings for the growth-stage tech leader. 

Check out our first call with the Pinhome founders and our second one as well!

About Our Guest

Highlights and TLDR

(01:19) Elements of a Southeast Asia Pioneer for a Full-Stack, Closed-Loop Property Transaction Platform for First Time Home Buyers: Data, FinTech, Agents;

“Fast forward one year, we are now still a Southeast Asia pioneer for full-stack, closed-loop property transaction platform for first time home buyers.” – Dara Dayu Permata

“We continue to create impact on this front because I think mortgage is still in a very nascent stage in Indonesia. Mortgage penetration of GDP is [around] 2% versus a more developed market, we’re seeing this statistic at 80, 90%, so there’s still huge room to grow…Eventually, bottom up what we’d like to also see that’s also in the backlog is how we could be there throughout the mortgage-seekers-turned-mortgage-borrowers journey basically on mortgage repayment, mortgage refinancing, et cetera.” – Dara Dayu Permata

“We recognized very early on that the agent is an extremely important stakeholder in the property transaction journey. So because of that, immediately after we built our first product for homeseekers, we built the property agent app…we see that agents that partner with Pinhome are more productive than other agents in the market.” – Ahmed Aljunied 

(12:00) Scale for a Property Platform Amidst Global Market Uncertainty and Indonesia’s Economic Resilience;

“Pinhome is a business that since inception has been scaling exclusively in challenging market environments…when thinking about scale in context of sustainable growth…it is one where topline revenue GMV is growing for products that have healthy contribution margin and positive unit economics… this is actually the kind of battleground that excites us, because this is one where companies with strong fundamentals are appreciated and rewarded.” – Dara Dayu Permata

“In Indonesia, consumer’s confidence in property remains strong. If you ask any middle income family, which represents 60% of all households in the country, about the areas where they would spend a significant chunk of their disposable income, property will be top two, if not number one in the answer…[there are] 150 million Indonesian millennials and GenZs that are yet to have access to home ownership who are looking to buy their first home…And this is what’s going to move the entire sector and the entire economy [forward].” – Dara Dayu Permata

(16:33) Learnings for Growth-Stage Scale-up Management;

“Learning and transitioning is a constant feature and a mainstay in Pinhome. And that’s to say, just for the organization to keep up with its own growth, we need to improve all aspects of the organization regularly…So although there are different expectations at different stages, it’s helpful that we have one constant vision, one constant north star metric that really encapsulates the value that we create regardless of the stage that we are in.” – Ahmed Aljunied

“We are looking for C-suite hires, several of them…And we look for three things. We look for experience in scaling a technology business…We look for someone who has expertise in their field…And finally someone who embraces the Pinhome values.” – Ahmed Aljunied

(21:24) Keeping the North Star With Relentless Prioritization and Extreme Cash Preservation;

“…extreme cash preservation has been the biggest learning for us, safeguarding balance sheet, because cash is king. In economic downturns, cash is king. And that also means in a situation, especially like now where, cash could be extremely dilutive, looking for ways to raise capital that’s non-dilutive…that was a really big learning for us [as well].” – Dara Dayu Permata

“…between then and now how we define success is quite consistent and coherent…but right now we have a stronger emphasis on profitability because we have evolved and transformed to a scaling stage. We have been aggressively pursuing profitability…and very happy to share that we’re on track to be profitable hopefully within this year.” – Dara Dayu Permata

(25:14) Rapid Fire Round;

“So growing up, I always dreamed of having my own space, very simple…It was all about me, what I wanted. But now with Pinhome, I think I can help others, property seekers and property stakeholders, basically to have access to home ownership in a way that’s better and more frictionless than I ever experienced as a property buyer and property seeker.” – Dara Dayu Permata

“My view of entrepreneurship has changed. So initially it’s the excitement of solving difficult problems, difficult challenges and making someone happy by solving those problems. But, the past five to 10 years, what has changed is that it’s a lot more satisfying if, while solving those problems, we are actually helping with fundamental human needs so the likelihood of security, and I feel that trumps everything.” – Ahmed Aljunied

Transcript

Elements of a Southeast Asia Pioneer for a Full-Stack, Closed-Loop Property Transaction Platform for First Time Home Buyers: Data, FinTech, Agents 

Paulo: Just to kick things off, maybe we can have a quick rundown of everything that has happened since our last call back in I think Q2 2021, and that will be the backbone for the rest of our conversation.

Dara: Absolutely. Thank you Paulo. In 2021 last year, we spoke about the capabilities that Pinhome has built and the impact that we’ve created. Since then, what we have become, so fast forward one year, we are now still a Southeast Asia pioneer for full-stack, closed-loop property transaction platform for first time home buyers.

We have built and continuously improve both our home buying and home services that encompass basically realtime, largest property listing MLS, a multiple listing service as a single source of truth for property transactions. We also have an AI powered search and property value estimator, online payment and automated closing.

We have full suite SaaS and operations as a service (OaaS) for banks digitizing and simplifying the mortgage journey for property seekers, and we also have fully digitized investment and lending for property agents and developers [throughout the] property supply chain, and last but not the least, we have also built and rolled out on demand home services with natural expansion to home insurance.

So those have been the highlights of our work over the past year.

“Fast forward one year, we are now still a Southeast Asia pioneer for full-stack, closed-loop property transaction platform for first time home buyers.”

Pinvalue and the Role of Data

Paulo: Pinhome has really just expanded further the ecosystem that it has built, as you mentioned, [being] really a pioneer, not just in Indonesia, but also the region. 

And I wanted to zoom in into one of the things you mentioned, which is really the AI aspect, the AI powered value estimator, which we actually talked about the previous time that you were here on call, but I just wanted to know, obviously since that time, you’ve obviously collected more transactions, accumulated more data on the listings and all of that. So Ahmed maybe you can share with us being the CTO, what has been the role of data for Pinhome and how has that role evolved over the past year?

Ahmed: Just to jump off the automated evaluation model that you mentioned, it absolutely was one of the high [points] back when we were talking in the previous podcast. And even then we had quite a limited coverage. We covered about 200,000 properties in the greater area of Jakarta. And since then, I would say that we are a closer equivalent to Zillow’s estimate for Indonesia.

So we see our product called Pinvalue — probably the region’s first AI power with home valuation model at scale — now cover more than 500 cities in Indonesia across all the 70 million homes. And we do that with integration, with data sources that are private and public government based. So we are achieving a much, higher accuracy right now, about 90% accuracy with about 10% forecast standard deviation, covering hundreds of attributes per property.

So as you mentioned, we are collecting more transactions and more data. So with more data, Pinvalue becomes more accurate and provides a better experience for our users as well. So property owners and property seekers can take advantage of Pinvalue to get better pricing estimates, and in terms of strategies in general, data continues to play an important role.

So it influences how we prioritize opportunities, what type of features we build, what kind of capabilities we want to introduce to serve our stakeholders. So it always begins with the descriptive foundation, and with a strong descriptive foundation, we will identify opportunities for prescriptive use cases. And then finally with sufficient patents, we can introduce predictive use cases like Pinvalue.

“…with more data, Pinvalue becomes more accurate and provides a better experience for our users as well. So property owners and property seekers can take advantage of Pinvalue to get better pricing estimates, and in terms of strategies in general, data continues to play an important role. So it influences how we prioritize opportunities, what type of features we build, what kind of capabilities we want to introduce to serve our stakeholders.” 

Capturing the Mortgage Value Chain

Paulo: I like how you described that progression from descriptive to predictive, and really showing how you guys think about data. And another reason why I brought it up is because obviously we’re seeing data play a larger role in commerce. One of our other portfolio companies, Carro, has used that to great effect for the auto industry. And you guys are doing it for the property industry as well, creating Pinvalue. 

And then I also wanted to talk about another thing that I mentioned earlier in that rundown, which is the lending side and mortgage journey for the property seeker — the whole FinTech side of that whole property journey.

And we also mentioned in the previous call and I remember Dara talked about helping say folks like freelancers who are traditionally underserved by the backing system to actually apply for mortgages and then all these other products through Pinhome. So how has the FinTech side of the Pinhome business evolved over the past year?

Dara: FinTech is a very important part of our business. Since inception Pinhome has always been 50% PropTech and 50% FinTech. We’re trying to strike balance between the two. We understand that for transactions to happen, for example, 75% of our property seekers need mortgage. 

On the supply side, property agents and property developers need state financing, project financing, and invoice financin basically to continuously create value. For all stakeholders, our financial service offering spans across the entire real estate supply chain. As a full stack, property transaction platform, we take it to the next level. 

We serve all property stakeholder needs when it comes to financing. On the consumer side, we facilitate mortgage applications online, connecting mortgage seekers with mortgage lenders and millions and millions of property mortgage seekers with the 50 largest banks and multi finance firms in the country. 

On the intermediary banking side — now this is basically the banking side, we provide mortgage software as a service and mortgage operation as a service, so that they could serve property seekers better. Now on the supply side as mentioned, we provide relative supply chain financing for property agents and property developers as well. 

“We understand that for transactions to happen, for example, 75% of our property seekers need mortgage…For all stakeholders, our financial service offering spans across the entire real estate supply chain. As a full stack, property transaction platform, we take it to the next level.”

Paulo: I think that really the essence of this whole FinTech play is really working with a lot of different intermediaries and working with a lot of institutions and different partners. Maybe you could share a little bit how you are able to build that trust as a brand and as a marketplace towards these like FinTech players or financial institutions that you work with in order to bridge that, in terms of access to property.

Dara: We have been fortunate to have been trusted by Indonesia’s largest banks, for example, Bank Mandiri, which uses our SaaS platform basically to serve mortgage seekers. We built for them essentially a CRM, consumer pricing mobile application, where Mandiri mortgage seekers. could discover Mandiri’s mortgage product at the same time also get exposed to Pinhome listings in the very same platform. And so that’s on kind of the top of funnel and then in the middle of funnel, the mortgage seeker is then able to qualify themselves, submit mortgage applications, and track the status of the mortgage. 

Eventually, bottom up what we’d like to also see that’s also in the backlog is how we could be there throughout the mortgage-seekers-turned-mortgage-borrowers journey basically on mortgage repayment, mortgage refinancing, et cetera. That’s been one of the examples of progress that we’ve made on the FinTech front, and we continue to create impact on this front because I think mortgage is still in a very nascent stage in Indonesia.

Mortgage penetration of GDP is [around] 2% versus a more developed market, we’re seeing this statistic at 80, 90%, so there’s still huge room to grow. We definitely wanna be there to support the banks so they could serve property seekers and mortgage seekers better.

“We continue to create impact on this front because I think mortgage is still in a very nascent stage in Indonesia. Mortgage penetration of GDP is [around] 2% versus a more developed market, we’re seeing this statistic at 80, 90%, so there’s still huge room to grow…Eventually, bottom up what we’d like to also see that’s also in the backlog is how we could be there throughout the mortgage-seekers-turned-mortgage-borrowers journey basically on mortgage repayment, mortgage refinancing, et cetera.”

The Role of Agents in Pinhome

Paulo: I think that’s really I’d say like an intuitive direction, obviously you’re already going further and further into the supply chain of mortgage, which you just described. And I think that it’s just now a matter of scaling that up across providers and across the rest of the country.

The third highlight, which I wanted to talk about and which I realize now we hadn’t really talked about before is the agent side. And if you guys happen to go on Pinhome’s social media like LinkedIn and YouTube, you’ll see a lot of videos of Pinhome talking to agents, property agents that they enable digitally and work with. So maybe Ahmed, you can talk to us about that aspect of the business, and how has the operation of managing that whole network evolved over the past year and maybe share some interesting stories from the ground.

Ahmed: We recognized very early on that the agent is an extremely important stakeholder in the property transaction journey. So because of that, immediately after we built our first product for homeseekers, we built the property agent app. And the first few features that we introduced revolved more around listing management and facilitating the purchase of a property. So, in the early days of the agent application, an agent could actually facilitate the transaction end to end, even with payments. Agents had access to that in the early days. 

Soon after that we introduced the agent academy. So we found that agents really wanted to upscale themselves. So we had various programs, there were programs for new agents just getting started or agents that wanted to get online. They wanted to digitize, and even for high performing agents that wanted to take it to the next level. So we offered programs to all of them and they could access the content through the agent app.

After that we identified additional pain points that agents face. So we saw that they faced cash flow challenges in certain types of property transactions depending on how it’s structured. We saw that some agents did not, or were not able to offer, quite enough variety of mortgage options for their clients or home seekers.

So we solved that with two features, that’s available on the agent application. So one of them is the advanced commission disbursement that helps them with their cash flow, so that that they can get the commission up front, and we also offer them mortgage referral programs, so they get to offer their home seekers or clients a wide array of mortgage products.

So this helps them with their cash flow and also helps them with an additional source of income in the transaction. So because of these things, we see that agents that partner with Pinhome are more productive than other agents in the market.

“We recognized very early on that the agent is an extremely important stakeholder in the property transaction journey. So because of that, immediately after we built our first product for homeseekers, we built the property agent app…we see that agents that partner with Pinhome are more productive than other agents in the market.”

Paulo: Definitely a lot of perks for anybody who becomes a Pinhome agent. And especially if they do well, if they’re a high performing agent, there are even more perks down the line. So how do you balance or regulate the cost associated with maintaining training and managing to a certain extent these agents, while ensuring that this part of the business still drives a lot of revenue down the line?

Ahmed: We are very cost conscious when it comes to that, and the way that we can offer these things and still maintain good unit economics is through technology. So all the content that we are offering is through the application. It’s easy for them to access it at any time. So it’s just a matter of introducing them to the various different things that they can do on the application. Our advanced commission disbursement process and our embedded finance feature is also all online. So with applications online, repayments online, tracking online, that helps us manage costs on our side. So we can continue to add more value to the agents without affecting our bottom line.

“We are very cost conscious when it comes to that, and the way that we can offer these things and still maintain good unit economics is through technology…with applications online, repayments online, tracking online, that helps us manage costs on our side. So we can continue to add more value to the agents without affecting our bottom line.”

Scale for a Property Platform Amidst Global Market Uncertainty and Indonesia’s Economic Resilience

Paulo: Now I move on to a question that probably anybody’s listening in ever since I mentioned Indonesia property sector is probably wondering or itching to learn more about. How is it doing with this current market environment, right? That I’m sure all of the listeners have seen the headlines of. What does scale mean for Pinhome amidst this current environment?

Dara: A great question, Paulo. I’m sure these are classic questions that founders get almost every day. Well, luckily for us, Pinhome is a business that since inception has been scaling exclusively in challenging market environments between the fullblown COVID pandemic in 2020 and 2022 period and current tech winter, the founding team and the entire management team had been trained basically to pursue balance and sustainability.

For us that means growing the bottom line and gross profit, and pursuing profitability. For us, when thinking about scale in context of sustainable growth, it is an exponential growth, still exponential not just incremental growth, but it is one where topline revenue GMV is growing for products that have healthy contribution margin and positive unit economics. 

And so [it’s about] pushing volume and sales for these products that would result in higher gross profit. And then that while maintaining on the fixed cost side and OPEX side, maintaining cost at a manageable level healthy level where the gross profit grows while the fixed cost stays.

It’s either reducing the burn or allowing us to score profit. It is important, especially in the current climate where capital could be extremely dilutive, valuations are compressed, and investors are becoming more and more cognizant of that way towards profitability. And so for us, we’ve been fortunate and we’re also very excited to share that we are on track to be profitable in months’ time.

This kind of environment — this is actually the kind of battleground that excites us, because this is one where companies with strong fundamentals are appreciated and rewarded. The correction is really needed and necesssary.

“Pinhome is a business that since inception has been scaling exclusively in challenging market environments…when thinking about scale in context of sustainable growth…it is one where topline revenue GMV is growing for products that have healthy contribution margin and positive unit economics… this is actually the kind of battleground that excites us, because this is one where companies with strong fundamentals are appreciated and rewarded.”

Paulo: And actually we already talked a little bit about that, like Ahmed mentioned about leveraging technology to be able to manage costs as an example. You’ve talked about, how Pinhome is navigating the bear market in terms of capital markets, fundraising, and all that in the tech sector. But how about specifically for the property sector in Indonesia, how is that specific industry shaping up and how has Pinhome really been sinking its teeth in? 

Dara: You’re right. Indonesia is lucky to have the kind of resilience that is quite scarce. As an upper middle income economy with young population, rich in renewable and non-renewable resources and generally particularly quite stable, this country has proven to have quite a good and resilient property sector. In Indonesia, property continues to be one of the most important sectors, that the government relies on for support and incentivizes.

It is also part of the basic and primary needs, obviously shelter. In Indonesia, consumer’s confidence in property remains strong. If you ask any middle income family, which represents 60% of all households in the country, about the areas where they would spend a significant chunk of their disposable income, property will be top two, if not number one in the answer.

So a landed house, a typical landed house, residential, US$30,000 to $50,000 in the next two decades, and [there are] 150 million Indonesian millennials and GenZs that are yet to have access to home ownership who are looking to buy their first home like this. And this is what’s going to move the entire sector and the entire economy [forward].

And we’re very excited about this. The industry goes through cycles. For the Indonesia property industry, 2009 through 2015, property was in an upcycle. That was when the price was good, it was a sellers’ market. Consumer confidence was high. Employment was high. Money was easy. 

In 2015 all the way until 2022, it was on somewhat a downcycle, it was a buyers’ market, consumer confidence was quite low, but 2022 onwards, we’re very confident looking at all the macro indicators. So with rice and commodity prices, among others, we see that these market indicators show a strengthening property sector for Indonesia. Technicals aside, the outlook is bright for Indonesia’s property sector.

“In Indonesia, consumer’s confidence in property remains strong. If you ask any middle income family, which represents 60% of all households in the country, about the areas where they would spend a significant chunk of their disposable income, property will be top two, if not number one in the answer…[there are] 150 million Indonesian millennials and GenZs that are yet to have access to home ownership who are looking to buy their first home…And this is what’s going to move the entire sector and the entire economy [forward].”

Learnings for Growth-Stage Scale-up Management

Paulo: Well, that’s great to hear and thanks for actually illustrating it through the years, mentioning how the upcycle and down cycle have come and gone, and Pinhome is right at the center of this next stage of the market for Indonesian property. So that’s great to hear. 

I wanted to shift gears a little bit now and talk about the leadership side. Definitely in our first conversation, we talked about your journey through coming from Gojek and then starting Pinhome. It’s definitely one of my favorites and I always refer to it a lot especially when talking about some of these unicorn mafia founders that we’ve had the privilege of backing. 

So now I wanted to ask, instead of asking what you guys learned in Gojek, maybe you can share now what you’ve learned, having run Pinhome for already a few years.

So what are some of the learnings from running Pinhome, how things have changed as you’ve had to start from an early stage startup and now Pinhome is very much in the growth stages, and maybe even share how Pinhome has shaped you personally. 

Ahmed: That’s a great question. Learning and transitioning is a constant feature and a mainstay in Pinhome. And that’s to say, just for the organization to keep up with its own growth, we need to improve all aspects of the organization regularly. So that means that we have to introduce feedback loops throughout our processes.

We need checkpoints so that we regularly step back monthly every two months, step back, review the data and make changes to how we plan and we have to do that regularly to keep up with our own growth. That can be painful, but so far we are always better for it. And just looking back at the discussion that we just had around going through the pandemic and the various economic challenges, it has taught us to be extra mindful and deliberate in how we allocate our resources.

Because we need to strike that balance between growth and sustainability, which is extremely important theme nowadays to even be investible. So although there are different expectations at different stages, it’s helpful that we have one constant vision, one constant north star metric that really encapsulates the value that we create regardless of the stage that we are in.

And that’s very helpful. Personally in building Pinhome, it’s been constant education since inception. And what I’ve learned is appreciation. I really appreciate our team, our leaders, our investors, our customers, and our supporters, family included. I’ve learned that we have to relentlessly prioritize, and by emphasizing on team, that really equips us to deal with challenges that require that relentless prioritization. 

And finally, learning how to switch between macro and micro views, because we need to lead the path forward. However, we still need full visibility of what’s going on on the ground. 

“Learning and transitioning is a constant feature and a mainstay in Pinhome. And that’s to say, just for the organization to keep up with its own growth, we need to improve all aspects of the organization regularly…So although there are different expectations at different stages, it’s helpful that we have one constant vision, one constant north star metric that really encapsulates the value that we create regardless of the stage that we are in.”

Paulo: Lots of great tidbits there, I’m sure, especially for the founders who are listening in. Dara, is there anything you wanted to add from your own personal experience about how Pinhome has shaped you as a leader?

Dara: It’s been absolutely humbling experience. I think that despite coming a long ways since inception, I feel that it’s always day one. And in day one, that mentality of always having to make decisions and choices, what to do and what not to do, despite that we have a strong balance sheet, we understand that resources is limited, and we can only do so much. The biggest learning for me is that it’s equally important basically to decide what not to do as deciding what to do.

“The biggest learning for me is that it’s equally important basically to decide what not to do as deciding what to do.”

Paulo: It’s definitely a lot of tough decisions, especially in this market, but definitely you guys have — I would say it’s not your first rodeo either, and you’ve definitely experienced the hypergrowth cycle and glad to see you guys are well on it now with Pinhome as well.

And another aspect of being a growth stage company is actually leveling up the leadership in the company, either bringing in outside expertise or promoting training and developing the internal talent within the organization. So what has been Pinhome’s approach to that? What do you look for especially in this C-suite kind of level of leadership as Pinhome scales?

Ahmed: As you alluded to, we are looking for C-suite hires, several of them. And so looking for a few awesome people to join us. And we look for three things. We look for experience in scaling a technology business. So we look for someone that has driven a startup to scale in the property industry or adjacent industries. 

We look for someone who has expertise in their field, typically reflected in the number of years they have been in that field. Preferably with a deep understanding of property and financial services and someone that has a great reputation, and networks in those two industries.

And finally someone who embraces the Pinhome values. So someone who is passionate about the sector, a great people leader, someone that lives by the Pareto principle, resourceful in execution and at heart, are entrepreneurs.

“We are looking for C-suite hires, several of them…And we look for three things. We look for experience in scaling a technology business…We look for someone who has expertise in their field…And finally someone who embraces the Pinhome values.”

Join the Pinhome team

Keeping the North Star With Relentless Prioritization and Extreme Cash Preservation

Paulo: It couldn’t have been said any clearer. That’s obviously already the JD out there for anybody who’s listening, who wants to join Pinhome and you guys can reach out to Dara or Ahmed, leaving their LinkedIn in the episode descriptions. You guys can check that out if you do wanna get in touch.

And before we head into our rapid fire round, I wanted to close things off by checking in again on the north star goals. I asked about that in the last episode, and I just wanted to know how things have changed if at all, or maybe you guys have now raised the bar even higher for yourselves, seeing as you’ve grown over the past year. So how has the north star for Pinhome evolved over the past year?

Dara: Great question. But Paulo before that, I wanted to go back to your question about the biggest learning [as a growth stage company]. And it immediately crossed my mind how repeatedly we had to activate survival mode and take extreme measures to preserve cash. We’ve gone through that cycle from the beginning, [with the pandemic] multiple times, given the external conditions. 

[And so] internally we’re ready. We have the capabilities and the resources where we have to activate survival mode. So thinking about pulling out completely from a certain unprofitable segment even for a promising even promising market, cutting unprofitable products, cutting variable costs or COGS or cost of revenue, customer promotion incentives across the board. [We are] always cognizant of costs, surgically looking at the different OPEX, payroll, and marketing costs being the biggest driver.

And so far, luckily that’s been enough for us. So we never had, for example, had to make that hard decision looking at our workforce and streamlining our workforce. We have been continuously growing our workforce now to a strong 450 people team. But that’s said extreme cash preservation has been the biggest learning for us, safeguarding balance sheet, because cash is king. 

In economic downturns, cash is king. And that also means in a situation, especially like now where, cash could be extremely dilutive, looking for ways to raise capital that’s non-dilutive, let’s say, debt, to finance classic ROI, like positive ROI product lines, that was a really big learning for us. 

“…extreme cash preservation has been the biggest learning for us, safeguarding balance sheet, because cash is king. In economic downturns, cash is king. And that also means in a situation, especially like now where, cash could be extremely dilutive, looking for ways to raise capital that’s non-dilutive…that was a really big learning for us [as well].”

Paulo: That’s very interesting and Pinhome is also taking those creative measures, so to speak. So how does that — maybe you can tie that in — you talk about all these measures, how do those tie in into the north star for Pinhome moving forward?

Dara: Absolutely. So we just looked backward right now. Now we look forward to what success would look like for Pinhome last year and between then and now how we define success is quite consistent and coherent. 

Aligning with the vision to make property more accessible, we provide basic technology platforms that organize property information, digitize property financing, and also digitize property transactions.

And success for us, given that vision and mission is when we could on the supply side bring a significant portion of the 18 million homes and properties in Indonesia online, building Pinvalue’s home database for Indonesia. We’re going to cross our 1 million mark hopefully in the next coming months.

But on the intermediary side, bringing a significant number of the 10 million property agents and property service providers combined also online. On the demand side, how do we convert a significant portion of the property transaction that today represents 365 billion worth of property value also online. 

So those all are very consistent but right now we have a stronger emphasis on profitability because we have evolved and transformed to a scaling stage. We have been aggressively pursuing profitability and that has led us to a clear pathway towards profitability and very happy to share that we’re on track to be profitable hopefully within this year.

“…between then and now how we define success is quite consistent and coherent…but right now we have a stronger emphasis on profitability because we have evolved and transformed to a scaling stage. We have been aggressively pursuing profitability…and very happy to share that we’re on track to be profitable hopefully within this year.”

Rapid Fire Round

Biggest thing you have had to un-learn being a founder? 

Dara: What I had to unlearn and then relearn is basically the art of letting go. And previously for me, it was all about doing it all myself. I feel like I’m best positioned to do things, but then I realized that as the business grows and scales, we cannot do everything ourselves. We cannot be everything to everyone. So letting go of positions, letting go of execution, letting go of control and reporting, letting go of some opportunities that we have to deprioritize. I think that’s been one of the biggest things I learned as a founder.

Ahmed: For me, it was how to process feedback. Because there are sources of feedback, many internal sources, and many external sources. And what I found helpful was to treat each feedback as a data point, remove emotion from it, and process them systematically. So acknowledge it, empathize again, gain understanding about that feedback, contextualize it, then look for relevant applications. I found that this was really important, because it’s too easy to be [swayed] by a few data points that really need to be qualified.

What digital technology/innovation excites you the most today? (apart from your work at Pinhome)

Ahmed: Apart from property and apart from Pinhome, I’m excited actually about advances in space exploration or deep sea exploration. So this is kind of related to what I was interested in when I was a child, but exploring the unknown, that’s exciting to me. And it kind of puts our role on earth into context.

Dara: I’m excited about the basic innovation in the country around digital banking and personal finances. It’s another massive underserved sector, like many in the country. 

How far away would you say is your current work at Pinhome different from your childhood dream?

Dara: Far but related. So growing up, I always dreamed of having my own space, very simple. As a kid, I wanted my own room, my own bed, and my own toilet. As a teenager, I wanted to be independent. I want to live in my own living space. And as an adult, of course own my own home, own my own working space, own my own property.

It was all about me, what I wanted. But now with Pinhome, I think I can help others, property seekers and property stakeholders, basically to have access to home ownership in a way that’s better and more frictionless than I ever experienced as a property buyer and property seeker. So that’s how it was similar and different.

Ahmed: So when I was a child actually wanted to become an astronaut. So I’d say pretty far off from what I’m doing now, probably watched too many Star Trek movies. But growing up, I have a father who is an entrepreneur and I eventually married an entrepreneur and then became an entrepreneur myself.

But my view of entrepreneurship has changed. So initially it’s the excitement of solving difficult problems, difficult challenges and making someone happy by solving those problems. But, in the past five to 10 years, what has changed is that it’s a lot more satisfying if, while solving those problems, we are actually helping with fundamental human needs so the likelihood of security, and I feel that trumps everything.

What is your favorite part/feature/room of your house (or any other property you have)? 

Dara: I was gonna say my dining and living room because that’s where most memorable moments happen at home. But as a new parent, I would say my baby room. That’s my favorite part of the house but let’s see how long that will last. 

Ahmed: The family room. That’s where the family and cats gather around to play, and reconnect after a long day. That’s where we spend most of our time on the weekend. So definitely the family room.

In one line, what does “property” mean to you? 

Dara: For me, property means freedom, inclusion & prosperity

Ahmed: For me, property means family, comfort and security.

Advice you would give to future “Pinhome mafia”? 

Dara: Find, follow, and execute on your passion, don’t settle for anything less

Ahmed: Focus on people at every step of your journey, and every step forward will be better than if you didn’t.