Reprimanded by his manager, frustrated real estate agent left to start Japan’s largest property portal

Takashi Inoue (pictured below), founder and CEO of NEXT, is responsible for HOME’S, one of Japan’s largest real estate listings and housing information sites.

Established in 1997 in Yokohama, HOME’S was NEXT’s first online product, and it has now grown to over four million listed properties. The company itself made over US$117 million in revenue in 2013.

Inoue – an economics graduate from Aoyama Gakuin University – started his career at Recruit Cosmos, the real estate developer subsidiary of Recruit. Inoue was doing condominium sales and property brokering and was helping a young couple find their dream home. When a loan application was rejected, Inoue went the extra mile to introduce them to other houses which weren’t under his care. The young couple finally found their dream abode but Inoue got reprimanded by his manager.

“I was frustrated by the information gap between property developers and the end consumers. Even when I’m part of the real estate industry, obtaining information on properties was very time consuming,” Inoue says.

(See: How a high school dropout became a multi-millionaire entrepreneur)

In 1995, he left Recruit with the intent of changing the real estate industry. As internet companies were on the rise in Japan in the 90s, Inoue had a big vision for his own startup. “I wanted to build a real estate online media that is coupled with a database and network. That is why the internet is the best vehicle to do that,” says Inoue.

Money not a priority

With just one million yen (about US$10,000) in the bank at that time, Inoue set forth to build his empire. In 1997, NEXT was established. HOME’S was built as a site for real estate developers and agents to list their properties online so that people can search for them easily. “Nine out of ten of my friends [thought I was] crazy,” he says. The journey was tough. The site made zero revenue in the first three years, but Inoue was determined to make HOME’S work.

I really wanted to change the real estate industry in Japan. I was very determined and to give up in the first few years would be a pity. Money isn’t my priority, I just want to change the industry.

In the late 90s, practically no one was using the internet in Japan. Inoue says that only about 17 percent of the agents in Japan had a personal computer at that time. But things started to get better as he learnt the ropes of becoming a better internet entrepreneur and as more people gained access to the internet.

Two things changed the company’s fortunes in 2002. First, he changed HOME’s pricing model to 15,000 yen per month (US$150), and that allowed property agents to post as many listings as they wanted. Second, he focused on search engine optimization (SEO) which brought traffic to the site more efficiently.

No stopping this train