Ilya Drozdov— CEO of PIK-Arenda. Graduated from the Faculty of Physics of St. Petersburg State University in 2011, and from the Higher School in 2013
Nikita Komarov— Product Director at PIK-Arenda. Graduated from the Faculty of Physics of St. Petersburg State University and the Faculty of Innovation from St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University. Worked as coordinator of the Inliberty.ru project. Founded reed.media and Horoshey Dorogi LLC.
Dmitry Hanukov- Service station "PIK-Arenda". Graduated from the Faculty of Physics of St. Petersburg State University, Master of Applied Informatics in the field of AI. Manages a full-cycle studio for the development of IT products.
How to find an apartment without a realtor
The idea of the PIK-Lease IT platform is simple: search and rental of housing are possible without a realtor. And the duration of this process can be reduced to two days, when on average it takes up to a month to find and rent an apartment. At the same time, a person can come to see the housing at any convenient time, and do it yourself. The keys to the apartment are stored in a safe with a combination lock, access to which is sent to the client upon request. Electronic locks are already installed in one third of the apartments. The tenant arrives, inspects the apartment and, if everything suits him, concludes an agreement through a personal account on the site. The result is a minimum of communication with the landlord or realtor. The contract is concluded with a legal entity, and not an individual.
The founders of PIK-Arenda met in 2007year, while still studying at St. Petersburg State University. When one of them, Ilya Drozdov, needed to rent an apartment in St. Petersburg, he was faced with the fact that this process was not always convenient for the tenant. And that's putting it mildly.
“I was told to arrive at one in the afternoon. I took leave from work, arrived a little earlier, I called the agent, and he answered that other people were watching the apartment, and I needed to wait, ”Ilya recalls. And after half an hour of waiting, he was told that the viewing was canceled - people who were shown the object in front of him might take it off, and Ilya could only wait for their decision.
The same problems with rental housing have arisen inhis friends: it was necessary to coordinate the time of viewing the apartment with the agent, it was not always convenient for the tenant, the owners' plans changed before our eyes, and most importantly, both sides lost - this is the time. So the idea was born to automate the process of selecting rental housing and to minimize dependence on the intermediary.
Ilya Drozdov
The initial investment in the pilot version of the site, which was tested in St. Petersburg, came from our own funds. We wrote code with this money and began looking for our first clients.
“We did not know what might be needed in a personalcabinet, so they made a minimally viable product without tests. In addition, resources were limited, ”recalls Dmitry. - I wrote all the code, they didn’t look for encoders in St. Petersburg. There was no call center either, we were engaged in sales and answering phone calls ourselves. ”
What exactly should be in the first version of the site,co-founders of the company are recognized, they decided literally on the knee. And for data security, we used ready-made solutions, because it was about the safety of personal information of customers, including financial statements.
“We proceeded from common sense when we dida pilot version of the site, they decided what might be needed to place an apartment with us and gain access to view cameras. At that time, we did not collect sensitive data (biometric data, health information, religious affiliation, political views, etc.), and therefore did not store them. And in order to protect themselves from possible attacks, we used CloudFlare, ”says Dmitry Hanukov.
Dmitry Hanukov
CloudFlare- An American company providing CDN services, protection against DDoS attacks, secure access to resources and DNS servers.
The founders phoned people who rent outapartments, and offered to try a new service. “We placed ads on Cyan. Probably, we had a successful script - many agreed to meet. But the number of concluded agreements was much less, about 10%, ”recalls Nikita Komarov.
But even minimal success gave startups the understanding necessary at that time: the idea is viable and there is a demand for services of this kind.
Internal startup for the developer
It was decided to scale the business. To do this, the entrepreneurs moved to Moscow and invited the PIK company to launch their service within the group of companies.
“We had a choice: to make our own project or come to a large corporation and agree on an internal startup,” Ilya explains the choice of team.
PEAK- a large development and construction company. Founded in 1994. Implements complex projects in nine regions of Russia with an emphasis on Moscow and the Moscow region.
So in the summer of 2018, an internal startup appearedthe developer - the company "PIK-Rent." At the time of launch, Ilya, Dmitry and Nikita did not have a service, but only test results. The parent corporation gave them carte blanche: the founders of PIK-Lease could experiment and test the products without much approval. Once a month, they meet with PIK management to resolve strategic issues.
“Our experience is rather an exception to the rule, -Ilya notes. - It turned out that we are working on something that the company needs, and there was a coincidence of our values. We fully comply with the conditions of autonomy, PIK never interferes in our work. But there are not many such managers, usually investors intervene quite a lot in the activities of a startup. Therefore, we do not recommend following this path. "
Without unnecessary "witnesses"
At PIK-Lease with tenants and ownersApartments communicate only company managers. First, they call up the landlord, find out his requirements for future tenants and conclude an agreement. And then a specialist leaves the object, who makes a detailed description - the size of the rooms, the height of the ceilings, orientation to the cardinal points - and takes pictures. On this offline action ends, except for the viewing of the apartment itself.
The service offers a smart apartment selection service. A mobile application running on Android and iOS selects apartments based on user preferences. When registering, users are invited to like or dislike different apartment options, then the algorithm selects housing based on the ratings.
“The know-how is that viewing an apartment is notneither the agent nor the owner are involved. Compared to other services, PIK-Rent has a personal account, an application for managing rent, as well as the ability to conclude an agreement and receive reports on the apartment online, ”says Ilya.
While searching for tenants in the apartmentinstall cameras where operators can monitor people who come to see the object. The owner can also, if desired, observe the visit on the site from his personal account. This reduces the risk of property damage or theft, and the owner sees who is renting the property. After the apartment is rented out, the cameras are cleaned.
“It is unlikely to steal anything while watchingapartments, since cameras are installed there and private security is working, - Nikita clarifies. - At the time of viewing the apartment, the process is “insured” by an observer from PIK-Lease. If an unscrupulous tenant decides to take the unnecessary with him and disappears before the arrival of the private security company, the company will cover the losses to the owner. Since the launch of the service, we have conducted more than 30 thousand views, but in practice we have not encountered such situations. ”
Nikita Komarov
To see the apartment, the tenant mustfirst find in the courtyard near the house a safe where the key to the intercom is located. The second safe is located in the entrance, and already in it is the key to the apartment. Codes from safes can be obtained by the link that the operator sends. After that, the tenant has half an hour to inspect the apartment. At any time, he can contact the manager and ask clarifying questions.
Since the time of visiting the apartment is known in advance, in addition, smart locks are used for entry, the company can always find out about unauthorized entry.
Who will indemnify
“When renting an apartment, the owner does not always knowto whom he is renting housing. How reliable and solvent a person is, ”says Nikita. “And for the tenant, the legal cleanliness of the apartment is important so as not to encounter unpleasant surprises.” The company checks the apartment through the Unified State Real Estate Register (USRN) in order to minimize possible troubles.
In addition, PIK-Rent takes overhousing conditions throughout the lease term. Once every three months, a company representative comes to make sure that the apartment is in good condition, takes pictures and describes the general impression (for example, the apartment smells clean or, on the contrary, there is a smell of tobacco). The owner can also see all information about the condition in his personal account.
“If the tenant violates the terms of the contract,“PIK-Rent” has the right to suspend the provision of services for a particular tenant. Damage to the owner is covered by insurance or collateral, ”- says Dmitry.
If the damage is caused by the fault of the tenant - for example, he decides to terminate the contract early, damages property, etc., the company will compensate for it.
According to experts, approximately 11% of Russian families rent housing, and the market volume is 241 million square meters. m (7% of the total housing stock).
According to experts, the level of home insurance inRussia is very low - the average rates do not exceed 7%, while most of the policies issued in the framework of mortgage insurance. About 3% of people voluntarily insure apartments. However, in Moscow these figures are much higher - about 50%.
The main damage, according to the owners of the apartments,connected with flooding (either by neighbors, or due to a pipe break) - more than half of the respondents faced such troubles. In second place is the voltage drop in the power grid (21%). Much less often, residents face theft (8%), fire (6%), natural disasters (3%), damage to property by foreign objects - fallen trees, ice, strong wind, lightning strike (3%). In addition, 8% of owners had to compensate for damage to neighbors. In Moscow, there is also a program of voluntary housing insurance against emergencies - the corresponding item has been added to utility bills.
There were also a lot of funny cases. For example, some leave notes on cameras. There was a case when open windows are left in the apartment. “If you didn’t close the window, that's all,” Nikita says with a laugh. - From the wind, the curtains begin to oscillate, and the sensors regard this as movement and begin to transmit signals that there are strangers in the apartment. Another case: the family came to watch the apartment - mom, dad and a child. The child became interested in the camera and accidentally dropped it. The image was incomprehensible, but one could clearly hear the parents shout: "Do not lick the camera!"
Money and frames
For the first two years of PIK-Lease's developmentThe PIK developer planned to invest 500 million rubles. In 2019, the revenue of the service amounted to $ 1 million, and, according to its own forecasts, in the first quarter of 2020, the company should become a leader in the rental segment. For owners, the company's services are free, tenants pay a one-time commission in the amount of 50% of the down payment. Also, the creators of the service are considering switching to a monthly subscription.
Recruitment system for the PIK-Rent teamborrowed from Uber. Each candidate goes through four stages: selection based on the requirements for him, an initial interview with a manager, 3-4 meetings with colleagues with whom he will work, and, finally, a work case that must be completed in a few days.
Now the company employs about 50 people. Half of the staff are programmers who provide the technical part of the project, about 10 more are financiers and lawyers, the rest are the operational team responsible for ensuring that the equipment is installed and new apartments are connected and rented out.
Speaking about further development plans of the company,the creators note that the priority is not to scale the business to other regions, but to expand the list of services. For example, assistance in selecting specialists who can make repairs in a rented apartment or provide other related services. “We want to be not just a service for selecting apartments, but to become a kind of management company,” says Drozdov.
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