It is always exciting to see real estate related industries trying to innovate. There is no question that we have few difficult years ahead of us, and those who truly innovate will not only survive these times but will become leaders forcing others to measure up to their success.
An email alert notified me today about a press release announcing that FreeGreen.com has introduced “Facebook” like profiles for the builders joining the website:
FreeGreen.com, provider of free green house plans has launched its FreeGreen Builder Program. This new feature allows green home builders across the country to upload their own “Facebook” like profiles, portfolios of their work, and even “price out” FreeGreen’s Free House Plans. FreeGreen users can then search for green home builders by zip code, state, or by the house plans that a builder has priced. This unique service allows builders to obtain targeted leads, and FreeGreen users to research and find reputable green home builders.
Unfortunately you don’t have to wait long to get completely disappointed:
FreeGreen has offered its existing builder users a free year subscription to this new service. Many of FreeGreen’s builders have already loaded profiles prior to go-live and are ready to accept new leads. New builders will be able to take advantage of a free trial period which lasts until January 1st, 2009. After this date FreeGreen will begin charging $25 per month for this service.
In my humble opinion they completely are “missing the boat” by setting this deadline after which they will begin to charge builders this monthly fee.
“Going green” is going to be real hot in the next few years and FreeGreen.com is probably positioned to be the leader in bringing “green builders” and “green (or aspiring green) shoppers/homeowners” together. I am sure there might be a need to monetize quickly their project. However it might be somewhat shortsighted.
If you think about Facebook or any other “social media” websites, the major part of their success was easy and FREE access to their services. Especially since you are trying to imitate these websites.
As of this time I have seen nothing at FreeGreen.com that resembles the Facebook. I wish some one from the FreeGreen.com team shows up and leaves a link so I can be proven wrong.
My wife and I were always interested in “going green” and to reduce our footprint on the environment, so we will definitely keep and eye on this project. Hopefully FreeGreen.com will introduce us to a “green builder” or offer us some ideas. I do encourage visiting the website and see what they have to offer. Any one can join the website and you can look up “green builders” in your area or even plan and order blueprints of your “green home”. Hopefully you will find more builders that I did.
Very cool. I wanted to do something similar with UtahLuxury.com but I dont have the technical know-how to make it happen. Nice find!
Hello There. This is Dave Wax, CEO of FreeGreen. Thanks so much for your post and opinions about our site. I like to be able to see what people think about our ideas, as we are in pretty unchartered territory in the design and builder space today.
So a couple of points:
1) I know the article did not have a link to the actual builder search page. That was a mistake by our PR team and I am sorry for that. To see the program in action go to http://www.freegreen.com/Builder/Green-Builders…, choose a state or enter your zip and find a builder. Right now there are limited builders on the site as we are just beginning our marketing campaign (through NAHB and USGBC).
2) Right now builders can upload their own profiles, work portfolios, and price out our house plans. Users can search and contact them. I agree that this is no where near “Facebook” yet, but this is the internet and you need to launch and then build. Over 2009 we are going to add a number of tools to this program which will allow users and builders to communicate and create sub-communities. We are excited to make this happen, but as everything it will take time.
3) On the fee discussion above this is a very interesting topic that I have been grappling with. The internet (through facebook, myspace, youtube, etc.) has set up a precedent that you should create a great platform, get users to upload your content for you, and then make money off advertising because those users and their friends are now addicted to your platform. The reality is that this model (from a true business perspective, i.e. making money) has failed. Most of the sites listed above are not making profits even today. Heading into the worst economy in my lifetime, and building a platform in the hopes of ad revenue in the future is pretty scary to me. I think that the companies that will survive this downturn are companies that can produce cash not burn it. With this idea in mind I look to the examples of Ladders.com, Linked In, etc. These are professionally based sites that have some free components, and then charge for selected “Premium or Targeted” features. These companies are really making money these days. Advertising is a component of their revenue (as it is ours), but they have many other revenue streams as well. This idea of setting up a platform and then charging people to use it, is very new to the internet and I am sure that we will struggle through it at first, but over the next 5 years I believe that this model will be a winner.
4) If you buy my argument in point 3, then the key to making this work is to make the services you charge for amazingly affordable. $25 month for a builder to gain access to a tool which allows them to directly communicate with 1000's of people looking for their services is a bargain. You want to price these services so that any builder who see this says “$25 per month for that, no problem”. Then make your money off volume. At least that is the idea. We are actually pushing this model even further in December by setting up what we call Open Source. This is a place where architects around the world can post their own house plans, have their own profile, etc. Users will search these designs and rank them by votes and views. In a Open Source twist we are going to charge the designers $100 to post their designs. The concept is that they are getting a great web presence, huge notoriety, and access to tons of new clients. For this they should be willing to pay. Especially when you think about competitive marketing value they could get for $100 (about 400 clicks on Google). Also we are using the fee as a natural filter to keep useless design entries out of the program.
Well, I hope this helps, and thanks again for your time. I would be very interested in hearing your, or your readers feedback on this. We are a new company (April 2008) and are learning as we go along. As always I encourage everyone to head to the site and sign-up so that you can keep up to date on our progress.
David,
Thanks for stopping by and providing additional information about your
website. Yes the $25 is not that big of a price to pay. Especially if your
website can draw people like myself, who are not builders but home owners or
future home. It can probably provide good ROI for builders.
I agree this is uncharted territory. Considering economy, many home buyers
may welcome the idea of “zero energy” homes.
I have already created an account so I will keep track on “green builders”
in NJ. It actually gave me an idea about next few posts for this blog.
Maybe it would be also worth of shot to reach out to real estate agents as
well.
Good luck with your project. Also feel free to let me know about any
exciting new features you might introduce in the future, I will be happy to
share them here on my blog.
interesting indeed, tahnks for picking this up Vlad!
Jenna,
I don't agree that they tried to compare their features to “Facebook”. As I pointed out, there is nothing there to resemble even close Facebook.
However it caught my attention as Facebook user. I thought it would be quiet intriguing to see how other companies could implement similar ideas.
I hope as they develop further they will be able to attract both users and builders. We'll see how they progress.
this is an interesting debate about when, in your site's lifecycle, to charge. At http://www.rofo.com we've taken the approach of content first, then users then fees. the important thing is to know your business and avoid comparisons to other non-related venture capital models. David, if you ever go into the world of commercial interiors we should connect. Thanks Vlad,
Alan Bernier
CEO
http://www.rofo.com
Alan,
Thanks for stopping by. I have read at least two reviews (TechCrunch and
Mashable) about http://www.rofo.com
Hopefully one day I will write my own (whatever that is worth) review of
your website. But I might need to ask you a few question if you don't mind.
Very interesting post. I really enjoyed reading it.