Every realtor knows that their website is the face of their brand and a prospective clients’ first stop. Therefore, these websites must be professionally built, be highly marketable, and have robust features like customer relationship management. However, since fully custom-built websites can cost tens of thousands of dollars, how can new realtors expect to pay this monstrous upfront fee? Enter Vancouver-based founder, Barry Dong. With his 15 years of website design experience, Barry strives to provide affordable access to professional websites with his latest venture, My GoodReal, a one-stop tech solution for realtors.

Removing Language Barriers and Building A Community

Being in the website building industry for many years, Barry found that the abundance of realtors in the greater Vancouver area need a website building solution with multilingual functionality. It is extremely important for realtors who speak different languages to understand and properly communicate English listings to international buyers on their website. Before My GoodReal, it was virtually impossible to translate the thousands of highly complex English listings manually, however with Barry’s technology, it is easier than ever. Additionally, My GoodReal helps realtors connect residential and commercial listings to buyers and sellers.

Community plays a pivotal role in the success of realtors. After helping a successful realtor create a multilingual website, he realized how important community is if he were to pursue his startup idea. The significance of multilingual functionality integrated within My GoodReal cannot be overstated, as it fosters a sense of togetherness amongst realtors and their clients. In particular, it enables realtors to cater to the unique needs of new immigrants and international students by providing them with a culturally sensitive and supportive experience throughout the entire home buying process.

Growing Through VentureLabs

With limited formal business education under his belt, Barry needed guidance when it came to rapid business growth. In Barry’s words, “Running a startup is more complicated than just spending money on advertising and making money. We need to learn where to find investors and how to pitch our idea to them in a convincing fashion.” VentureLabs supports him with all different kinds of aspects like finances, market viability, and scaling growth. Especially as a company that can be affected by the real estate market’s fluctuations, it can be a challenging task to sustainably bring in constant streams of revenue. “We don’t have millions of dollars to spend, so we need to make sure our customer acquisition is thoughtfully strategized,” said Barry. As a founder, Barry finds business accelerators, like VentureLabs, to be profoundly valuable resources for companies looking to scale up.

Barry’s Entrepreneurial Advice

Business accelerators can be a game-changer for new founders, and Barry knows this from personal experience. He firmly believes that success in entrepreneurship requires a strategic approach, starting with extensive market research and identifying your competitive advantage. However, these efforts alone are not enough to guarantee success. You must be willing to put in long hours of hard work to actualize your vision. One of the most powerful tools at your disposal is to be part of an entrepreneurial community, that’s why Barry joined VentureLabs. Barry is a strong advocate for the community, having benefited greatly from the expert guidance and support he received from VentureLabs’ mentors. Barry shares, “I had a lot of questions about running a business and VentureLabs provided me with answers from mentors who have built successful tech businesses themselves.” He advises new founders to connect with mentors and experts to gain valuable insights that can’t necessarily be found online or from generic courses to maximize their chances of success.