Cary Stronach views his real estate software as the David to Zillow Inc.'s Goliath.
"The new technology-based models coming out in real estate are really designed to replace the agent and replace the broker," Stronach said.
He is CEO of Kansas City-based Nestwork LLC, which developed software that adds to the value of real estate agents instead of subtracting them from of the homebuying equation.
Agents often get caught in one of a couple inefficient scenarios. They could pay an upfront cost to get leads from sites like Zillow or realtor.com. Other websites don't charge upfront costs but instead take a referral fee, pushing agents to give up part of their commission when they close a deal.
Nestwork takes a different approach.
"We're not like Zillow, that people have to go to zillow.com and start searching for houses, and then at some point, Zillow captures their name, their email and their phone number, and when they capture that information that they then give it to an agent," Stronach said. "We already have the data. Over time, we have collected and purchased all the names and addresses, email addresses and phone numbers. ... Our philosophy is not 'capturing the lead.' Our philosophy is, do something valuable to that, to help that person and get them engaged in using our website."
Nestwork collects how often people engage with a home listing, prompting an agent to contact them if engagement is high. Stronach described the platform as a Zillow tailored for brokers.
He's not an antagonist to Zillow, Stronach said, but an opportunist.
"Unfortunately, Silicon Valley is not doing that," he said, adding that it's "a missed opportunity, but one that we're going to focus on and take advantage of."
Stronach and his wife developed Nestwork in 2018. After it underwent testing and beta stages, he launched it to his independent brokerage in October. His brokerage has a team of 25 real estate agents, who are on track to complete $45 million in transactions this year.
He hopes to launch the platform to markets outside Kansas City in 2023.
"It really is designed to help that broker office deliver a much richer set of services to the agents," he said. "I anticipate that franchise broker offices and or larger independent broker offices are going to be very interested in our platform."
Nestwork has not raised any investment money, using the brokerage's sales to fund the startup.
