I sat down with Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman and investor/board member James Slavet to talk about the continued success of the Seattle-based company. Warning in advance – the interview was done at the end of the day and we were drinking beer from our new kegerator, and we rambled at times. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon viewing, in my opinion.
Kelman announced in the video that Redfin is now on a $30 million revenue run rate, up from $15 million last summer (and at that point they were profitable.
The company cuts real estate fees dramatically, by about half, for both buyers and sellers. Kelman called real estate “by far the most screwed up industry in America” on 60 Minutes a couple of years ago, But Kelman has cooled somewhat since then, and some of the death threats and hostility by realtors has now calmed down, he says.
We also brought up the age-old Seattle v. Silicon Valley debate again – something we’ve been arguing about since 2008. And we touched on his recent guest post about the need for founders to share the love with employees when it comes to distributing equity.
Side note: Slavet was also in our studio recently to talk about his investment in TellApart.
Redfin is an online real estate company that provides real estate search and brokerage services. Redfin uses an interesting combination of online real estate search and access to live agents. They employ their agents so they can better control customer satisfaction; traditional brokerage firms license their name to independent agents. Redfin claims to save homebuyers on average $7,500 by reimbursing roughly 1/2 of the buy-side real estate fee directly on closing. Redfin also pays bonuses to agents when they...
Mr. Kelman is Redfin’s CEO. Prior to joining Redfin, he was a co-founder of Plumtree Software, a Sequoia-backed, publicly traded company that created the enterprise portal software market. In his seven years at Plumtree, Mr. Kelman at different times led engineering, marketing, product management and business development; he also was responsible for financing and general operations in Plumtree’s early days. Prior to starting Plumtree, Mr. Kelman worked as one of the first employees at Stanford Technology Group, a Sequoia-backed...
James Slavet is a partner at Greylock. His primary areas of investment focus are e-commerce, online advertising, and Web-enabled consumer services. James’ investments include Cardspring, Coupons.com, Groupon, High Gear Media, One Kings Lane, Redfin, and TellApart. He previously represented Greylock in its investments in Revision3 (acquired by Discovery Communications), Auditude (acquired by Adobe), Farecast (acquired by Microsoft) and Kongregate (acquired by Gamestop). James was named to the 2012 Forbes Midas List which recognizes top VC tech investors. His complete...
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