You must be aware of the hurdle it takes to get hold of a perfect living space (buying a property). Irrespective of the tiring paper works and lengthy norms, you are always in a doubt of being cheated. Moreover, the adverse effect of technology has definitely invested in benefiting the cheaters in cheating on people more often. Such cases occur very frequently, almost every day. Further, the tragedy remains that government does not take any strict steps by establishing norms that would avoid or lessen such fraudulent cases.
With such bitter experiences in life, Binit Sharma, the founder of ‘Basobaas’ was determined in mending up something unique and beneficial for the society. His untiring effort and meticulous brain helped in opening a start-up that would completely focus on resolving issues faced by buyers and sellers while dealing with property. The company has its head office out of Katmandu and primarily targeting on Bhaktapur, Lalitpur and Kathmandu. The vision and mission of the company is to demolish all problem related to real estate business, it proves to be a one-stop door that would look for all problems commonly associated with purchase or selling of property. However, the reason behind the start-up solely focusing on Nepal is because of its messy, scattered, unmanaged and unregulated condition making the real estate business a nasty affair to deal with, nowadays.
The start-up has successfully established the trust and working its best to provide the buyers with their perfect need at the most reasonable cost, while for sellers it undergoes a quick process of verifying the property, further evaluating and suggesting most suitable and appropriate price for selling. Here lies the uniqueness of the company and makes it the only platform in this field.
Underneath remains some personal talks with the founder of ‘Basobaas’ regarding his journey and experiences in setting up the company.
1.What is the Name of Your Venture? Any specific reason for this name?
It’s Basobaas. The term “basobaas” in Nepali means a place to stay.
2.Who is your target Audience/clients?
Our target audience is anyone currently looking for a home, land plot or apartments. Our product is mostly used by real estate agencies and brokers.
3.Where is your venture based (city, state, country) & What are your geographical target areas?
We are based out of Kathmandu, capital city of Nepal. We are currently targeting three cities in the Kathmandu valley, namely: Bhaktapur, Lalitpur and Kathmandu
4.What problems does your venture resolve? What are your products or services?
We are a real estate marketplace, we are trying to resolve the problem of real estate business all together, one step at a time. The real estate market here in Nepal is quite unmanaged and unregulated, so, we are building tools to overcome these issues. Our main product is BASOBAAS.COM which is a property marketplace for both buyers and sellers.
5.Share the idea or story behind the venture. How did it came to an existence? What motivated you to start your own venture?.
Four year ago, i returned home from my studies and work in Malaysia. I worked for few startups there and wanted to build my own here. I saw a lot of challenges in the real estate industry and challenges always come with a lot of opportunities. There were few existing marketplaces but none of them were doing a good job for really providing properties to the clients as i was one of them looking for a newly built, moderately priced house unsuccessfully. So me and few of my friends decided make a move on the real estate market with a mission to provide quality properties with best prices to the customers and quality leads for agents as well as the sellers.
6.Who are your biggest competitors and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Currently, basobaas is the only platform of its kind. Most marketplaces only advertise the property with high prices and no verification. Basobaas has a sales team that verifies the proverty, evaluates it and suggests right and quickly salable prices to the sellers. We also help buyers find the right property according to their needs and make sure they are not over paying.
7.How did you identify your co-founder? Tell us some thing about your co-founder/s
The co-founders are mostly friends and with different expertise. Some of us are good at technology, some at finances and other at marketing. We make the perfect team.
8.How did you hired your first team members? What skills Do you want in your employees/team?
Our first hire was a developer. We called in a bunch of people for the position and took interviews. The reason we hired the employee was his drive to work for something different and putting learning before the salary.
Apart from there work related skillset, we look for loyality and fun loving individual. So far, we have managed to get the right people with few exceptions.
9.What expansion plans are you looking for the next 2 years, next 5 years?
In the next two years we are looking to expand all over Nepal. In the next 5, expand to atleast 2 neighboring countries. We are eyeing India and Bangladesh.
10.Where do you want to see yourself in next 10 years?
I want to see myself at the top of the game where Basobaas is above all the companies that Nepal has ever produced.
11.What are your goals over the next 1, 3, 6 and 12 months?
We recently launched the new version of Basobaas.com, which is an unfinished version of a much larger application, we plan to develop all the right tools for our customers/clients in the next 6 months and over the period of 12 months increase our user base at least 3 fold.
12.Have you raised any funding? Or have any plans for the funding?
Yes, we recently got seed fund from Emerging Classified Venture, an Australian company specialising in classified marketplace in developing nations.
13.What were the problems you faced during the starting days and how did you resolve them?
Since this was a new kind of product for the country, it was difficult for us to make people understand how it can shorten the property sales lifecycle. Over time we invested on educating our market and the results are pretty awesome right now.
14.What was the most challenging part of your journey till now? How did you overcome those challenges?
The most challenging part was the lack of funds as well as manpower to deliver quality product. We patiently hustled and waited with what we had to overcome this challenge.
15.Are you married, single or in a relationship?
I was recently married, to my girlfriend of 3 years 🙂
16.What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
I love playing football, photography and travel. I mostly do that, and spend some quality time with my wife.
17.Whats your favorite food & holiday destination?
I love sea food, however it is cooked. I always wanted to go to Paris, with my wife. Maybe one day 🙂
18.Whom do you consider your idol or biggest motivator?
Jack Ma and Elon Musk as my idols and my parents are the biggest motivators in my life.
19.What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
I think the major difference is the ability to perceive a problem and ways to solve it. Entrepreneurs tend to come up with solutions that are viable and create actual impact in the society.
20.If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Every decisions i’ve made in the life were well calculated and there is nothing i would change. Except maybe i would start a business more earlier in life 🙂
21.How has being an entrepreneur affected your family & Social life?
I have been able to keep work life balance so far, at least with my family, but social life has gone down the drain.
22.Anything, you would like to say to our readers or upcoming entrepreneurs?
Being an entrepreneur is not easy, but it certainly is fun. Don’t stress over things that don’t matter. Be patient, success with find it’s way to you.
23.Tell us something about your education & family background.
I have a BCA, specializing in Multimedia. My dad is a state judge and mom stays at home.
24.What is your USP which makes it unique & different from other start-ups in similar domains.
Our product is different & unique to others in the country and our team makes sure that we always stay few steps ahead of our competition. Use of technology in combination with the experience of the field agents makes us leaders in our domain.
25. What do you think is the biggest threat to the success of small businesses & Start-ups today?
For me, in Nepal, there are two major threats to the small business and start-ups:
1. The Government: Tax regulations, the limited number of grants and loans, marketing restrictions, and other rules and regulations could seriously injure companies like ours.
2. Lack of Funding
26. Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?
Not yet. There’s still miles to go. Meeting all the goals set in life, financial security and making a difference are the 3 things i measure success with.
27.Please share complete name, address, phone number, email id & website of Your Business & Contact Person
NAME: Binit Sharma
Address: 5th Floor, Tandukar House, Sankhamul Way, Kathmandu 44600, Nepal
Phone: +977 985 114 3935
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.basobaas.com
Contact Person: Binit Sharma
