Posted on Tuesday, 5th August 2008 by Launching Today
Name
What do they do?
Rofo offers free commercial real estate listings aimed directly at small businesses who need a small amount of floorspace.
What are they like?
I can’t think of a successful rest estate website geared at small office space only, so they compete directly with the big boys who deal in all kinds of commercial real estate, like Cityfeet and LoopNet. They even compete with huge real estate firms like Remax who don’t deal exclusively in commercial real estate, however have a big enough business in this area to make the Rofo founders’ mouths water.
What else should they do?
They are confined to San Fransisco for now, but have plans to expand as they develop their backend and listings which is smart. They need to appeal more to the real estate industry, promoting their free services to building owners, who might just be swayed by Rofo’s free listings to not even bother with the broker or the huge fees that the competition demands to list their ads. On the flip side, Rofo should be hard targeting industry publications aimed at entrepreneurs and small business owners. Entrepreneurs firstly, so that when it is time to get that tiny office space now that they have employee number 5, Rofo is already the place they know to look.
How they can fail
In service listing industries, it’s all about the marketing. There are plenty of third rate websites which get all of the marketshare (think most of the big players in jobs, dating, real estate). If no-one knows you are there, it doesn’t matter what you have to offer.
Final word
Solid site in a good niche that isn’t ever going to go away. Focus on San Fransisco only for a while and spread out from there. Once you get that one city covered well and your name is out there, it is going to be much easier to expand quickly.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)
August 5th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts on Rofo. I think your assessment of the challenges and opportunities is right on the money.
Best regards,
Alan Bernier
CEO
Rofo