The idea for Zillow emerged from recognizing the lack of transparency in the real estate market, where basic information like home prices was hard to find online.

At Zillow, we built a PR data distribution infrastructure to feed local newspapers with housing data, capitalizing on the constant demand for housing news, which helped establish our brand without spending on traditional advertising.

I believe the product is the most important part of the marketing mix; when we launched Zillow, we focused on creating a provocative feature that would generate discussion and interest.

When we launched Zillow, millions of users flocked to the site due to positive press from influential tech journalist Walt Mossberg, but our server crashed under the traffic, leading to a memorable headline about our popularity.

Zillow's long-term strategy is to create a super app that integrates all aspects of renting and buying homes, embedding ourselves in the workflow to solve real customer problems.

We were enamored of auctions, believing the US housing market should operate on an auction basis for efficient price discovery, but we learned that a real-time liquid market is necessary for auctions to work, which the housing market lacks.

We provide landlords with insights on pricing and market trends, helping them understand how to maximize their rental income.

We aimed to empower consumers in the real estate market just as we did in the travel industry, by making information accessible and transparent.

The realization that our technology could work for both hobbyists and enterprises was pivotal when we received an email from Zillow about rewriting everything on top of Next.js.