Interview with Rafael Di Meglio, co-founder of the Matera company, which has experienced very rapid expansion since its launch in 2017 and now has over 200 employees.
What was your background until the creation of Matera?
I had just left school. I studied law and after a business school and I started working during my last year of study. We were then in 2017 and we started with two of our co-founders, one I met in business school and another we recruited on LinkedIn because we were looking for a technical profile to grow the platform .
How did you get the idea to make Matera?
I bought an apartment in the suburbs of Paris in Saint-Ouen and faced problems with the trustee himself. That is to say, I received calls for funds, a document sent by the trustee to calculate our charges and which was quite illegal. I was having trouble reaching my trustee and told myself that something needs to be done in this area.
What were the big steps from there?
We have since started by first designing the product, raising funds, developing in France and now internationally opening an office in Berlin. We have gone from three people in 2017 to 200 today. The fundraising of 35 million euros in 2021 was not the first as we have done two others before. They can also be considered as phases.
We had the necessary steps to sign our first customer, then to sign our hundredth, and today we have 4,500 included customers. There are also fundraising and developments in Germany. There were also other product launches such as becoming a neo-bank itself. In this case, we are developing a platform for building management and each building must have one payment account per building. We ourselves have obtained authorization from ACPR to become a neo-bank and allow our customers to manage co-owned funds directly on the platform. It was a huge technical challenge.
What were successive fundraisers? What were they used for?
We did fundraising for the first time in what we call 1.5 million euros in seed. Then, we made a 10 million euro Series A and most recently a 35 million euro Series B. Fundraising was used to fund the development of the company, both in terms of platform development, as developers were required to continually improve the product, and also in the case of sales, for marketing expenses and recruiting sales staff. . , It was also a question during these fundraising to grow itself in terms of market share. Finally, they were also used to recruit experts, support people, lawyers, accountants, and some people from the building industry to support our co-owners.
Did you manage to sell right away or did you face difficulties in the beginning?
We managed to sell immediately. There has always been a huge appetite for our product and our models. I think the difficulties we face are more related to regulations and the complexity of being able to change the trustee model in France. It is a market that is very hostile to the fact that it is necessary to hold a general assembly with a convocation which is sent by the syndic, a vote in the general assembly. Lastly, the process is very cumbersome for contracts that sometimes go on for as long as three years.
What are the main advantages of your solution today compared to the other?
There are two main ones. The first is that condominium problems are solved more quickly, as we help find solutions in record time, for water leaks, elevator problems, problems present in condominiums. The second is to save money in condominiums. On our customer base, an average of 30% of the total budget is saved compared to what was done.
What are the main difficulties you have faced since inception? How did you beat them?
The main difficulty is the behavior of traditional players, who do not always respect the laws and procedures to keep their contracts. We have a legal department and we work with lawyers to enforce our rights and the rights of co-owners. We have been successful in this tour de force by internalizing lawyers to respond effectively to the practices of the region.
What has surprised you the most since setting up your box?
What surprised me the most? This is the difference between the discourse of the current players on the market and the ground reality. In other words, there is a huge gap between what traditional players perceive and what co-owners expect in terms of quality of service. They have no vision of what co-owners expect.
What are the challenges ahead in the future?
It means growing up calmly and efficiently. By the end of the year, we will have 8,000 condominium customers. So we must be successful in recruiting, performing well, investing our money properly and continuing to develop peacefully. It’s all about our customer satisfaction in Germany and continuing to grow while maintaining execution and expansion.
Why this particular country?
Because it is the country with France which has the largest market size in Europe. There are 800,000 apartment buildings in Germany. A definite advantage in this country is that co-owners can make decisions by consensus outside of the general assembly. If all owners agree, they can become Matera customers without going through a general meeting.
You have grown quite fast because after four years you are already on 200 people. Was it easy to integrate all these people into the team?
It was done in a very healthy way because we have a very strong team. People driven by the mission of moving from disgruntled co-owners to co-owners in their previous positions are particularly happy for greater transparency and efficiency. These are the things that unite everyone and allow people to integrate very quickly.
What are the core values of the company?
Our value proposition can be summed up in part by happy co-ownership. We really want to enable people to manage their housing efficiently and transparently. That, we want to do in France and Europe and that’s what drives us mutually.
“We really want to enable people to manage their housing efficiently and transparently. That’s what we want to do in France and Europe, and that’s what motivates us as well.”
4 questions from François Xavier Priet, managing director of Outbrain France, the solutions Matera uses to make himself known
- In what context do you collaborate?
Our collaboration takes place at the “discovery” level. what is that ? This is the opposite of search, i.e. we put internet users in situations where they search for things they might be interested in and which they don’t know yet. This is ultimately the reverse of what everyone knows, called “search”, more commonly known as a search that is usually done through a search engine like Google. We are very happy because in fact we do a lot more collaborations with start-ups like Matera, even if they are not really “start-ups” in the sense of the first stage. These are the new unicorns who will be the future giants of tomorrow. We finally help them engage more effectively and quickly, to accelerate, to find new audiences, to be known, to fight against a certain image deficit as they are yet to be known to all. Not enough to go. That is to say, very few people already know Matera and they need to meet new audience. Of course, notoriety is beginning to show, but it takes time and Internet users do not consider it necessary to search for new models of syndic. - What exactly is involved in your action?
Our job at Outbrain is to go to TF1 or watch Le Monde to explain to internet users that “Matera is revolutionizing the concept of syndic” and say “find”. Very interestingly, in a way, it’s time to build the e-commerce giant of the future, like Google at the time. We look forward to participating in helping very agile new players become legends. We’re clearly not the only device since Matera is already present on TVs. - What is their main contribution?
We are committed to them and it works out very well because we have a very strong strike force and we can deliver millions of visitors very efficiently. To quote a “case study” that we published in collaboration with Matera, we manage to deliver more effective conversion rates and leads than social networks like Facebook. We are often two to three times more efficient. We reach a CSP+ audience that has an interesting average basket and is probably in line with Matera’s goal. Our intervention is carried out in all major media groups around the world. Furthermore, it is of interest to have a company like Matera, especially if you have very international ambitions. Our platform is there, so if tomorrow they want to revolutionize trustees in the United States, for example, we can grab internet users from CNN, The Washington Post, etc. Apparently, this also works in Europe. We are currently initiating action with Matera from elsewhere in Germany. We started with them in France and are now firmly establishing ourselves in a country where we are well established. Our action ultimately takes place on websites, mobiles, applications… - How does this actually happen?
Once the Internet user has seen the first article, we ask him to search for other content with a flow of recommendations in the style of social networks. This is where an advertiser like Matera will be able to appear and be present in the recommendation stream. This action does not stop at the media site, but extends to different types of media such as e-commerce sites, telephone operators, etc. Our challenge is to generate searches with Internet users wherever possible.