Diogo Nogueira brings over 10+ years experience at one of VivaReal’s competitors. He will help lead the expansion of the sales team across Brazil with co-founders Brian Requarth and Diego Simon. Also, joining our sales team is Felipe Vergara. He has over 15 years experience building and operating call centers.

Paulo Schiavon, former marketing manager for home builder Tecnisa (considered by many as a leader in the online real estate marketing space in Brazil) will be joining the team to lead VivaReal’s marketing efforts. He will be recruiting a team. We will be posting some job openings shortly. This complements a hire we made last month, Mariana Ferronato, author of one of Brazil’s most widely read blogs on real estate marketing, MarketingImob.com will be focused on Industry Marketing.

VivaReal got off to a great start this year in Brazil with a record number of visitors and leads.

Last November I wrote this blog post about hiring senior executives to join VivaReal. The reason I wrote a letter to all the candidates that were applying was because after interviewing a dozen people, I was having trouble finding the right cultural fit. I wasn’t meeting people excited about building something. Most directors and managers that I spoke with already had cushy jobs in big companies. I just didn’t see the passion for building something big from something small. Fortunately, we were able to find some excellent leaders to join our team (inlclude a link to the post above).

At VivaReal we are passionate! We are passionate about building a great company, product and making VivaReal an awesome place to work. Several years ago on a rainy Sunday in Bogota, Thomas and I wrote down short sentences that summarized some core beliefs that are key parts of VivaReal’s DNA. Over the last couple months as we expanded and added new people to our already talented team, we reflected in more detail about what we believe in. After a lot of input from the team, we came up with these core principes – VivaReal Core Principles 2.0:

• Be ambitious, but stay humble
• Adapt and overcome
• Results, not excuses
• Do more with less – DIY (Do It Yourself)
• Deliver exceptional service
• Be passionate and determined
• Take risks, make mistakes and learn from them
• Respect our competitors, but beat them in every way possible
• Be obsessed with quality – move fast – constantly improve
• Keep it fun and celebrate our success!

At VivaReal, we live by these core principles.

We also came up with a clear Vision, Mission and Purpose that I would like to share.

Vision: Be the best and biggest real estate portal in our markets.

Mission:

• Create and maintain an excellent working environment for all team members.
• Provide property searchers with the best experience making it easy, fun and painless.
• Guarantee an excellent ROI for advertisers
• Deliver exceptional returns for investors and shareholders

Purpose: VivaReal touches the lives of millions of people by helping people realize the dream of finding their home.

VivaReal.com.br, a real estate marketplace in Brazil, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a number of angels and investors, including Greg Waldorf, Simon Baker, Shaun Di Gregorio, Wences Casares, Micky Malka, Ariel Poler, Gordon Rubenstein, 500 Startups, Jeff Fluhr, Errol Damelin, Florian Pass, Monashees Capital and Kaszek Ventures.

As co-founder Brian Requarth tells me in more developed markets like the U.S., property searchers have the option to find almost all the inventory for sale or rent online. In Brazil, a fraction of the listings are available online and it is still a highly fragmented marketplace. In the U.S., we have the MLS, which is a centralized database for rental and for sale listings, but in Brazil there’s no such mechanism in place.

With 57,000 real estate brokers in Brazil, the country’s real estate market is largely offline, Requarth explains. And property searchers are under served since there are little to no buyers agents in Brazil. There is an information gap, which Requarth says can be filled with an online portal.

Similar to function of Craigslist, Zillow and Trulia, VivaReal connects buyers and sellers with properties for sale and rent. Users search for and/or list properties by location, size, rental vs. sale, and more. The company also focuses on helping expats and investors find properties in Brazil with an English version of the site. And the startup plans to deploy mobile optimized versions of VivaReal.com.br for smart phones and tablets this year.

After two years, the company is seeing 1 million monthly unique visitors in Brazil, says Requarth. And currently, the site lists properties in 15 cities in Brazil and will be expanding over time.

Valor Econômico: In Spite of US Crisis, VivaReal Thrives in Brazil and Latin America

(Adapted from the article published on the 18th of November, 2011)

The American entrepreneur Brian Requarth has found in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, an alternative to the US real estate crisis for his company VivaReal. Founded in 2007 in San Francisco, California, the company has then focused in developing the largest portal for purchase, sale and leasing of properties for the Spanish-speaking market.

Recently, the company  received a second round of investment from  high profile angel investors, enabling it to tackle the Latin American markets. Among the investors were Greg Waldorf, creator of eHarmony; Chamath Palihapitya, former vice-president of Facebook; Dave McClure, member of the US 500Startups fund and Wenceslao Casares, member of the Meck investments fund of Chile.

“I’ve always had an interest in maintaining business in Latin America, but the investors were not willing to run the risk” says Requarth. However, as soon as the real estate market bubble burst in the second quarter of 2008, the plans for VivaReal and its investors did change. Requarth went forward with business in Latin America, which continued to grow despite the crisis, with websites in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. The investors seemed more open to bet on Brazil, which had already obtained the necessary level of investment and also showed sustainable economic growth.

The Brazilian subsidiary  was founded towards the end of 2009. It’s corresponding portal went into action in early 2010. In order to swiftly attract the announcements of property owners, real estate brokers and constructors, the company initiated it’s operations in Brazil with an aggressive price strategy. In little less than a year, the portal went on to manage an offer of over 220,000 properties in all the country.

According to Brian Requarth, the number of property announcements in Brazil has now grown between 20 to 25% a month. “In Brazil, there’s more than two million properties on sale. There’s a market potential to expand within the country.” Requarth tells us.

Veja: Foreign Entrepreneurs Betting for Brazil
Brian Requarth, American (VivaReal.com.br)

The 31-year-old American CEO settled in São Paulo a few months ago. Born in California, he always nurtured a taste for the Brazilian culture. Aware of Brazil’s economic growth and with the increasing interest for entrepreneurial investments in the country, he decided to bring his already fruitful business covering the US, Colombia and Mexico, to the Brazilian market: a portal where people go to buy, sell and rent property. Two performance differentials stand out as key to the portal’s success: an exclusive portal for international customers and a Facebook plug-in for comments on the properties. In his words: “I came to Brazil for the first time in 2001. I had finished a course in Argentina, where I met the Brazilian Diego Simon, my current business partner. I spent some days in Rio, Salvador and Foz do Iguaçu. During that time I thought I should start something out here”. In 2007, the entrepreneur returned to Brazil to study the market and after two years he launched the Brazilian version of his startup. “In the beginning the angel investors didn’t want to hear about Brazil. Now they are paying great attention to it”, says Requarth.

Excerpt from the article published on the 31st of December, 2011

Your Job Application: Entrepreneurially Minded CFO/COO

I received your application for our job opening at VivaReal.com.br, the fastest growing real estate marketplace in Brazil. I decided to send this email to you because as of today we have almost 400 candidates that have applied for the opening for the “Diretor Financeiro Administrativo” combining some of the activities of a CFO and COO. We are still small so the job will be involved in several different areas of the company. This email serves two functions:

1. Communicate the opportunity, company culture – setting your expectation.
2. Eliminate the candidates that don’t really have what it takes to join a scrappy group of ambitious entrepreneurs focused on changing how Brazilians find real estate.

CAUTION: If you currently have a cushy job at a bank or a multi-national and your number 1 priority is money, let me cut through the bullshit – THIS IS NOT THE JOB FOR YOU.
Let me be clear if you kick ass, we will pay you a competitive salary + stock options.

We are a funded Internet company well positioned between our management team, investors and advisors (FYI our investors and advisors have built some of the most successful internet business in the WORLD and we are on track to do something BIG). However, we maintain a startup culture. That means that if you don’t like to get your hands dirty, don’t even bother contacting me. My partners and I started the company with almost no money and very little support so if you need a secretary from day 1, you won’t fit in. With very little money we have become one of the most widely visited real estate portals in Brazil and we passed our two competitors in number of listings. Yes, you read that correctly, we passed them.

We are in a growth phase right now and we have an aggressive hiring plan. We need a senior executive that will add to the team and work directly with the founders to build an internet business that becomes a case study in Brazil. This is your opportunity to build a company without having to assume all the risk of the early days – the blood, sweat and tears of getting it off the ground.

If you have read this far and you are nodding your head with excitement because you can connect with what I write – the passion behind having an impact, building a team and innovating – taking on classic businesses that have been around for over 100 years, but haven’t turned the industry upside down because they can’t take the same kind of risks as us. We want YOU! You may have a job at a consulting firm, a bank, a large multi-national, whatever the case maybe…If you are really talented and motivated by doing something meaningful, send me an email to brian@vivareal.com with the title CFO/COO. Knock my socks off with an email that shows you want to be part of this. I can honestly say that it will be a life changing opportunity where you will learn a ton, make good money and ultimately increase your happy factor. Read more about VivaReal principles here and just for a little extra life/philosophical boost, watch Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford. If it gives you Goosebumps and inspiration, let’s talk about how VivaReal could be a good fit for you. Thanks for your time.
Kind Regards,

Brian Requarth
CEO, Co-Founder
VivaReal.com.br

VivaReal’s clients need to know the sites are operational and work quickly, 24/7 – anything less could mean lower page views and fewer sales. Because of its global reach–local, in-language websites in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, as well as an English language site covering 22 countries in the region—VivaReal’s top priority is website accessibility over geographically dispersed regions.

Read more ->

He said people maintain courtesy since they are not anonymous, and pointed out that different uses appear in different countries: people in Brazil and Colombia are asking specific questions about property, so the tool becomes useful for the Realtor. Better property exposure and better branding are also a consequence, as property is shown in everybody’s Facebook wall. In this way VivaReal shows its commitment to innovation.

We would love to know what you think about this post. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Comment section below.

Images by PopertyPortalWatch and SocialKonnekt

1. We made it easier to “like” properties on Facebook, Tweet properties and we also added the +1 button from Google.

2. We are also testing the Facebook Social Plugin for leaving comments. Now, a site visitor can leave a comment if they are logged into Facebook. Facebook is growing faster in Brazil than any other market in the world. It is an experiment and we realize that there is a risk of negative comments, but from other sites such as Techrunch we have seen that commenters are much more courteous because they do not remain anonymous. We will be monitoring how it works. Nevertheless, VivaReal is committed to setting itself apart as a leader and social is clearly changing how people communicate and interact.

3. To help better promote our clients we also include a featured real estate company alongside the results page with a link to the client’s properties.

4. Property searchers can now filter by price, area, bedrooms and bathrooms using sliders.

Please don’t hesitate to give us feedback on the site. We love to hear from our users.

I decided to write this short introduction with links to articles that might be helpful for you to better understand our company and the opportunity we present.

VivaReal is founded by Me (Brian Requarth) and my two business partners, Thomas Floracks and Diego Simon (an AIESECer). We have a pretty big cultural mix at VivaReal. I am from California, Thomas is from Germany and Diego is Brazilian. While at our office in Bogota it not uncommon for you to hear a combination of English, Spanish, Portuguese and maybe even a little German if  Thomas is really upset about something .

Here is a quick breakdown. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask them in the comments. You can ask them in English, Spanish or Portuguese and I will respond.

VivaReal is an online real estate marketplace. This basically means we help people find property in any of the countries where we operate via website we built. We are not real estate companies and we don’t actually sell real estate. VivaReal is a technology/marketing company.

VivaReal is a fast growing startup that is expanding. We have a fun – work hard, play hard company culture. To learn more about VivaReal’s core philosophies click here.

We are a pretty demanding group so we want to find the best possible people to join our team.

To give you an idea about some of our success you can check out the following links:
Article in the New York Times
Award for best property portal in Latin America

We will be opening two positions via AIESEC.

1) Development and Technical Support - You will be in charge of providing technical support to VivaReal’s growing client base in Brazil. Your main tasks will include: Support XML feed management and processing, web services maintenance, test automation and creation of technical documentation for software companies and providers in Brazil. We are looking for candidates in Sao Paulo able to facilitate communications between clients, our development team and Brazil headquarters.

For this opening we prefer someone with the background/experience described below:

• JAVA programming (Required)
• HTML / CSS (Required)
• JavaScript / AJAX (Required)
• Good written and verbal communication (Required)
• Linux Operating System (Required)
• XML / XSLT (Preferred)
• Bash Programming (Preferred)
• Linux Server Administration (Preferred)

Applicants for this position can send their cv’s directly to Thomas at vivareal.com.

2) Content/Social media – You will help us plan our strategy for Mexico (candidate must live in el DF)

Ideally you have EXCELLENT writing and verbal communication skills and are passionate about social media and the internet.

These are the two positions we have available. So if you like new challenges, the Internet and potential growth opportunities, please apply for the position. We like cover letters about why you think you are the right person. If you want to stand out upload a video to youtube and tell us why you think you could be the right person. You can send it to me @ brian (at) vivareal.com.

Kind Regards,

Brian Requarth
CEO, Co-Founder
VivaReal, Inc

The entire team at VivaReal works extremely hard to build a user friendly online real estate experience for both consumers and real estate professionals so it’s a huge honor to win the award and we are excited for what 2011 brings. Additionally, winning the award will just encourage us to do even more to revolutionize the real estate process for buyers, brokers, sellers and agents all over Latin America.