INTERVIEW: Pietro Pellizzari, CEO at WikiCasa

The 26th Property Portal Watch Conference was held in Madrid this past November; it was our largest event thus far, with 400+ C-Level leaders attending from 40 different countries around the world, among them, Pietro Pellizzari, CEO at WikiCasa, was kind enough to sit with us for a short interview.

"WikiCasa, is the first property portal which works just with real estate agents in terms of agents' traffic generated and distinction," told us Pietro Pellizzari, CEO of WikiCasa, adding, "We have more than 20,000 real estate agents that work with us, with one million listings; last month we reached more than three million visits per month, so we are a growing property portal and we have also a different revenue model compared to other property portals because real estate agents don't pay for listing with us. They pay us for a mix of dynamic online marketing campaigns that we activate outside the property portal, so we sell advertising online via Facebook and Google, targeting display so that it's a dynamic service of marketing that can increase and boost leads for our premium real estate agents".

The company is young, "We started the business about two and a half years ago, and before that, I was working for a very large real estate company, then I came to the conclusion that I wanted to set up my own business. They trusted me, so they decided to invest in my new venture. I found other investors related to the real estate business but also came from other businesses now we are about to close a big capital raise and so we will invest more in the company to grow because it is a big market and I think there is space to grow," stated Pellizzari.

We asked Pellizzari if he had any advice for companies just starting out. "I have made many mistakes. In my opinion, mistakes are unavoidable and sometimes they are even useful. Now I am focused on practical things. We work a lot and we make a lot of mistakes, the important thing is to understand and then improve. Another thing I would like to suggest is to go beyond your country and see success cases all over the world. You can learn from the mistakes of other people. This will help you better understand which direction your business is going and you will be able to forecast a new trend and then invest before your competitors."

The Madrid 2019 Property Portal Watch conference was Pellizzari's first time at one of our events, "I knew of Property Portal Watch because I follow its blog, read the articles and receive the newsletter. I also have friends who have attended previous conferences; they told me it was very useful to come here and to attend the Master Class but to also attend the conference and sit in on the presentations by speakers from all over the world because you can learn best practices, you can compare your business with other nations and I think it's a good opportunity for networking and also investors, suppliers, maybe even clients.

What was his impression of Simon Baker's Master Class? "It was interesting. In one day we addressed many topics in depth. I was able to explore my business, which I am already familiar with, from a different perspective, that of Simon Baker, who is one of the leading experts in this business. So, it was definitely a good opportunity and I will recommend it to other people working in this business.

Over 220 attendees are expected at our next event - the Asian Property Portal Watch Conference in Thailand. The Conference will be held in Bangkok from 26th to 27th February 2020, and it will run for two days, featuring expert Industry Speakers, Innovative Companies at the forefront of the online real estate industry. The Asian Property Portal Watch Conference also offers amazing Social Events, a perfect opportunity for networking.
We hope to see you there.

Join us February 26-27 for the Property Portal Watch Conference Bangkok 2020.