Housi’s CEO, Alexandre Frankel, revisited his own trajectory in an episode of the From scratch to the top, From Infoomoney, presented by Mariana Amaro, to explain how her restlessness with time, mobility and technology resulted in Housi, a platform that has a concept of subscription housing.
Neto of Jewish immigrants who “arrived in Brazil with absolutely nothing”, he started early: at 13, 14, he was already in sales shifts and via customers “giving the apartment entry with the car”.
The first company emerged in the internet boom, digital entertainment. The beginning was turbulent: the investor who had stumbled to board the journey with ten initial contributions gave up after the first – and still charged the first back. “I had to make ten promissory notes,” he recalled. Shortly thereafter, however, came the first hit: the digital game of the “Million Show” via SMS, which allowed Frankel to sell the company around 22, relevantly capitalizing.
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Mobility
The personal turn started in the traffic of São Paulo. “I was 5 hours a day in a car.” When moving close to work, Frankel went on and bike and wrote three books on how to live in Sao Paulo without a car.
From this experience came, location and sharing of areas. “Vitacon means building life.” The business created in partnership with Brother Ariel, who is now CEO of the company, faced discredit of banks and real estate in the beginning, but the mobility thesis gained traction.
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The emergence of Housi
In 2019, the spin-off was born, Housi, from one finding: the individual investor bought Vitacon’s compact studios and apartments to rent, but did not want to manage location, furniture and slips. The proposal was to turn housing into simple, digital and bureaucracy service. “99% of our locations are online.” The concept evolved into “subscription housing”, with recurring payment and all ready, with Wi-Fi, utensils and cleaning, for example.
Six months later, however, the pandemic overturned demand and revenue to “practically zero”, but a brand and technology licensing pilot with developers exploded in sales: “It has sold out everything on a weekend.” This ended up opening another possibility of business expansion.
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Business model
Currently, Houssi operates a Asset Light model, connecting residents, investors and a constellation of services within buildings, such as laundries, mini -market and even supply, coworking, among other items. And capturing a Take Rate about what is traded. According to Frankel, the company is expected to reach $ 600 million in revenues in the year and “has been profitable for over 3 years.”
With an eye on the “silver economy”, ”, with lean condominium, technology and support for longevity. Ambition, he says, is generating time and practicality to the resident, reducing costs to the point that“ practically ”lease will pay with economies in the building’s ecosystem.
Check out the full interview at the Officer of From scratch to the top.
