Exclusive Interview with Ashish Acharya, Founder, Propsoch

Propsoch is a tech platform that gives home buyers access to expert insights into the home buying process. This is built by industry experts to help home buyers make the right investments without regrets. The prop-tech startup offers a seamless platform for legal, Vastu, architecture, interior, and transaction services. Going beyond the regular listings and promoted content that is seen in the property portals, Propsoch delivers technical inputs which significantly empower home buyers in one of the biggest decisions of their lives. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Ashish Acharya, Founder, Propsoch.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

Propsoch is a team of experienced professionals from the real estate industry who have branched out to help homebuyers in their purchase journey by facilitating unbiased, rational, and data-backed information. Having a combined experience of 50+ years in the Real Estate industry, we ease the tedious home buying journey.

The company's platform aims to transform the home-buying experience for the Indian consumer by combining proprietary data analytics, industry expertise, and consumer reviews to provide unbiased inputs and recommendations, enabling home buyers to access detailed insights based on data analytics and in-house expertise to make informed home-buying decisions.

2. With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company.

Propsoch was born with a vision of eliminating Buyer's remorse for every home buyer in India. We plan to achieve this by combining industry expertise with data science to provide unbiased insights and direction to the millions of Home buyers in India. Our objective is to declutter the marketing noise in the home buying journey and give consumers the right tools to make good decisions.

We are currently tracking more than 1.5 Lakh homes in Bangalore and are offering our services to home buyers through our platform www.propsoch.com. For every Property, we have a checklist of 150+ parameters on which we collect data and derive insights. Currently, we are continuously improving the platform to make it as user-friendly as possible while building our data analytics capabilities to deliver a far superior experience.

3. Brief us about the proactive Founder/CEO of the company and his/her contributions to the company and the industry.

A Prop-tech startup, Propsoch is founded by Ashish Acharya, who has more than 15 years of experience working in marquee corporates in the Indian real estate industry. He brings in the expertise, networks, and strategic vision for the venture while being hands-on in operations & marketing. In his 12-year tenure at Godrej Properties Limited, he has built high-performing teams, across business development, strategy marketing & sales functions. He played an integral part in the rapid growth of Godrej Properties in the last decade and worked across South India and NCR markets.

During his tenure at ANAROCK, as the Director for Land Services, Ashish worked with clients across residential, commercial, retail, and alternative asset classes. He specialized in enabling large-scale Joint Ventures and transactions and played a vital role in the closure of several marquee transactions.

4. Tell us how your company is contributing to the IoT/AI/Big Data Analytics/Robotics/Self-Driving Vehicles/Cloud Computing industry of the nation and how the company is benefiting the clients

Propsoch, throughout its inception, had focused on unbiased advisory to homebuyers, and we have figured out that the results of Data Analytics from market data are free from opinions and biases. We collect more than 150+ data points on each project and have plans to dive even deeper to retrieve more specific insights to give the right direction to our customers. When you layer this with data analytics derived from user behavior on our platform, Propsoch becomes a very powerful tool for both Consumers and Developers. We envision our insights becoming industry standards and ultimately resulting in the development of better housing projects in line with what home buyers actually want.

5. Kindly share your point of view on the current scenario of Big Data Analytics and its future.

In today's scenario, technology drives everything, and every work process is automated and tracked. A lot of data is being generated at every touchpoint and big data analytics is key to processing this data for improving business performance and consumer satisfaction.

For instance, in residential home buying, an enormous level of information is generated by the complexity and scale of the residential projects and also by virtue of homebuyers' tendencies. Only analytics can help find trends and patterns that match demand and supply sides to make suitable decisions at both ends. Big data analytics is growing at an enormous pace and is evolving the way businesses are managed and we envisage it to be the main differentiator between successful and unsuccessful businesses.

6. Kindly mention some of the major challenges the company has faced till now.

Real estate across the country typically lacks transparency and is very unorganized. This is even more prominent in the residential segment. This creates a serious barrier for anyone looking to collect accurate data and derive the right insights. It needs a deep understanding of the industry to enable this.

Also, there is a huge mismatch between the real demand vis-a-vis what is being supplied in the market. This results in products being pushed aggressively through marketing channels with no value addition for the homebuyers. This influx of marketing money has the potential of blocking efforts to make positive changes in the industry. We see this as a short-term challenge, as we feel that as long as there is an inherent value in the solution we are providing, we will be able to reach our customers. We take inspiration from Zerodha and Ditto who have faced similar challenges in their sectors and have succeeded in building strong businesses based on the honesty and quality of their service.

7. What is your biggest USP that differentiates the company from competitors?

Propsoch is differentiated for not being a listing platform but for being a platform that brings value out of the market data to help homebuyers. We do not accept real estate advertisements or listings nor do we accept payments to improve ratings or rankings. Our proprietary algorithms play a massive role in ensuring we can rate and rank projects accurately in the market.

Also, we believe that every homebuyer has his own set of requirements, and customization to his needs is the only way to ensure total customer satisfaction. Our algorithm ranks properties through a combination of the requirements set by the homebuyer and by our data-backed ratings and expertise.

8. How is IoT/Big Data/AI/Robotics evolving today in the industry as a whole? What are the most important trends that you see emerging across the globe?

IoT/Big Data/Artificial Intelligence/Robotics is a cutting-edge technology that, with the help of IoT sensors, connects various physical objects located on real estate properties, providing users with an interconnected way to gather the information that allows them to automate various repetitive operations, detect potential equipment flows, and create a more unified and informed user experience.

These integrated technologies along with the combination of high-tech hardware and machine learning are making sure that the realty market continues to grow at a fast rate. An individual can now buy and sell properties in a much more streamlined manner. Real estate middlemen are leveraging IoT/AI/Big Data to provide much better services to consumers thus improving the overall satisfaction levels. Renting a house has become much easier. Metro/Big cities are enhancing the living conditions of people thus increasing the overall productivity. High-tech sensors and data are resulting in improved safety and security measures for natives. We expect the pace of innovation to continue in the real estate sector given the huge market opportunity.

9. Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how they get value out of it.

Our product involves an online platform that curates projects in the market by analyzing projects on 150+ parameters with smart tools to help customers compare and find projects based on the parameters they choose. Further, users can book expert consultations from the platform and connect with us for further in-person advisory and hand holding. At the same time, we are building a Social platform for homebuyers to share their experiences of homes they are planning to buy or have already bought so that other potential home buyers can benefit from the other's experiences.