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1/ Today marks an important milestone for the @Opendoor team (present and past). Congrats on $OPEN!! I feel fortunate to have been part of this extraordinary journey from ~40 to 1500+ employees and <50m Ann rev to $5B+. A few thoughts on from my years there:
2/ As I considered what to share publicly when this day would came (and we have no shortage of stories—imagine managing a portfolio of thousands of vacant across America).
3/ The one idea that kept coming back to me is what I consider one of my biggest lessons from Opendoor: it pays to put in the work and time to solve things the *right* way. There are no shortcuts.
4/ From inception, Opendoor wanted to do the right things to solve the hard problem.
Other resi real estate platforms until then had focused on capturing value (e.g ad models) rather than build value in the ecosystem.
Other resi real estate platforms until then had focused on capturing value (e.g ad models) rather than build value in the ecosystem.
5/ Opendoor wanted to build a fully integrated solution that simplified and revolutionized the home transaction at scale, by taking inventory risk and building all the process and software to solve the operational complexities.
6/ In the early days, we had twice weekly “deep dives” with Keith where @rabois would grills us and push us to arrive and iterate on solutions by starting from first principles. Forget the way the world is. How should it be? And why?
7/ Opendoor couldn’t rely on existing tools for most things bc what we were trying to do was so different than what other prop tech cos had done before. Some things were tablestakes: We had to build and built the most accurate pricing models.
8/ We built software for operator oversight of pricing and risk. We built our own underwriting, transaction management, renovation management and even CRM software.
Other things we built that we didn't necessarily set out to do.
Other things we built that we didn't necessarily set out to do.
9/ Two cool examples: (i) novel bottoms-up home inspection/assessment software and (ii) home security solutions. The inspector space is very fragmented, under-technologized and had limited generalized standards. We created our own standards and tech.
10/ For our unique security challenges, we built our own hardware/software/real-world ops home security solution that is likely better than anything a retailer consumer can buy.
11/ A lot of our buyers often ask if our security systems convey after purchase-- a testament to the quality of a product we weren't even selling!
12/ When we had to decide between competing priorities, @ericwu01's frequent refrain was "do the harder thing first."
12/ I'm so glad we took that advice to heart as a company. I am obviously biased but I think the many hard problems Opendoor solved already will set-up the company for a strong upcoming chapter as a public entity.
13/ Thank you @ericwu01 for the opportunity. @rabois for the invaluable guidance. An amazing ride with the best people in the biz many of whom are good friends ( @justindross , @ryanmjohnson , @ihat , @evancharles, @juliadewahl , @varadhjain, @swathyprithvi to name just a few
