Zoopla's Alex Chesterman talks on what sets Zoopla apart from the rest

Zopla's founder explains the real estate company's name and branding, its origins, and the reason he decided to rival Rightmove over 12 years ago

Alex Chesterman, one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs, last year sold ZPG - including Zoopla, uSwitch, PrimeLocation and Money.co.uk - for a cool £2.2 billion.

Now, in a feature on Estate Agent Today, Chesterman is one of a number of entrepreneurs explaining how his proptech start up came into being in the mid-2000's and became one of the biggest property sector phenomena of recent years.

“In 2007, it was clear that consumer behavior was changing in many markets including property. And that this would lead to a shift in the way that consumers would search both for properties and for property-related information. I found it incredibly frustrating that so much data was available but was so hard to access and wanted to add transparency and efficiency to the property market” he explains.

There were around a dozen other portals at the time of Zoopla’s launch - so was it a risk launching yet another? Chesterman says his creation had a USP.

“All of the others were doing exactly the same thing simply providing an online search tool. Zoopla set out to harness the enormous amount of property data that was publicly available to combine property search with research to help users become more informed and make better property-related decisions” Chesterman continues.

And in the interview he explains how the portal got its name and distinctive color.

Read more here

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