Making you feel at home when living abroad.
What is Homecityhome?
Homecityhome is a Startup project developed during my MBA at IE Business School, Madrid - 2016/17. It was created by me and developed with other two MBA students.
Homecityhome connects students and young professionals moving abroad with their future roommates. The challenge was to create a mobile app that allows users to book their long stay abroad in advance, reliably. For that, we would need a mobile app that seamlessly facilitates not only the online booking process of users moving abroad who need to book a place to live before moving, but also the engagement between users and roommates.
The project is based on a true and personal story that I moved from São Paulo to Madrid for my MBA. I needed to find a shared apartment for my staying in Madrid, and had no idea where to start.
During the 1 year MBA, we had a module of 5 weeks that we as a team, developed every single step of a Startup, starting from exploring the problem by researching opportunities and pain points of real users to pitching the idea to real investors.
Starting the project
My Role
I was the founder of the project, and as the only one with a design background, I was also the one in charge of creating: competitive analysis, user research, user persona, user flow, wireframe, prototype, visual design, and presentation to investors.
The Solution
From the problems that users encounter, develop a mobile app that offers the
following solutions:
1. Connection between user and roommates. How: Display the profile of roommates, including their personal details and habits.
2. Chat with roommate(s), so users can get to know them before moving in, and also a video-call feature for users to have a look at the conditions of the house in real-time.
3. Possibility to rent a room before moving to the new country/city, and/or having to meet the landlord in person.
4. All the information about the contract, rules and property conditions in a way that it is transparent and easy to understand.
The Problem
When moving abroad, students and young professionals find extremely hard to find and rent a place in advance in which they could get to know the roommates who are living at the house before moving in.
To rent a room in a new country, they usually encounter the following problems:
1. They don’t know who are the roommate(s) already living in the house.
2. It takes a lot of time and effort to visit multiple places, and even more to get accepted (in some cases).
3. They can only rent it once they arrive to the new country/city.
4. They are not sure about the contract, the conditions, and rules of the property.
User Research
In order to officially kick off the project, I needed to make sure my problem was also other people’s problem, and the size of it was big enough to have a solution in place that users would be interested in using it. So, the first step that I took was to start talking to people who were in a similar situation as me - recently moved abroad to study (or to work). I put together a few questions and went after people to collect their opinions. The questions were very open, in order to make sure users didn’t feel biased nor guided to answers that I was hoping to find.
Introduction Data
In total, I collected feedback from 125 people. I first started sending surveys via SurveyMonkey to students and friends. Then, after collecting and analysing their feedback, I had 10 face-to-face interviews with random people. I went to a few hostels around Madrid and searched for foreigners who have just arrived in Spain and were looking for a place to live (long-term).
115
Online responses
10
Personal interviews
37
Nationalities
Out of 125 people that I was able to collect data, 95% of them were between 26 and 35 years old. In terms of gender, 55% of them were male, and 45% female. They were from 37 different nationalities, which enriched a lot my findings, since I was able to have a better understanding whether there were different preferences based on nationality, or not.
Deep Diving
The purpose of the research was not only to understand the business aspects that I needed to shape the project, but also to understand in-depth the user’s preferences. So, after the initial basic questions to understand my target audience, the remaining questions went deeper, intending to find out what were the main pain points of my potential customers. So, the questions aimed to two main points: 1. find out if there was indeed an problem to be solved, and 2. find out how users would like to have it provided. In other words, what would be the ultimate solution that would solve their problem(s).
Understanding the alternatives
The first question was about how the users rented their places, and if they were still searching, which tools they were using to find their new home. Idealista was by far thei first option, all the other alternatives represented much lower, as shown besides.
Satisfaction with current providers
The following question was about how satisfied users were with the tools they used (the ones that are available in the market). The very surprising fact was that almost 70% of users were either dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied with what they used or found in the market.
Length of living abroad
When users were asked how long they intented to live in Madrid, 68% of them responded they were planning to live in Madrid for 1 year. 19% said they had plans to live more than 1 year (some said “no plans to leave”), 7% responded around 6 months, and 6% responded only 3 months. Another thing that was relevant was that they showed concern with the contract when renting something, and this is also mentioned further in the research.
By knowing their intention of how long they would like to stay in Madrid, would later help me to think about how to design the information about availabilty and contract rules and fees. It was quite clear that this was topic with high relevancy for users. They wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t be a issue to leave according to their plans.
Willingness to pay for an agent
In regards to how much users are willing to pay for an agency or website for their service regarding renting an apartment/room abroad, 56% said they would be willing to pay up to 15% comission of the first month of rent. Only 7% replied they think is fair to pay up to 1 full month of rent to an agency or website.
Collecting such information would help me define how much I could charge from my users without overcharging them. More than half of the interviwees replied that 15% commission is a fair price to pay when renting something abroad. Without such information I wouldn’t have any idea of how much to charge, ending up charging too much or not enough when launching the business.
User’s pain points & concerns before moving abroad
Drilling down to the questions regarding the main pain points of users, with the following information I was able to come up with my design ideas which are shared further down the presentation. These feedback below were the main pain points and concerns of users before renting something abroad shared during the interviews. After collecting this data, I was finally able to have a initial solution that could be meaningful to users according to their feedback. The takeaway are the following:
What are the most important things to know before renting an apartment/room abroad?
Most important things to know before renting something abroad
Almost 100% of interviewees shared that finding out as much information possible about the people living in the apartment is by far the most important thing to know before renting something abroad. The second most relevant thing to know in advance is regarding to where the apartment is located (76% of users), and most importantly, what are the amenities around, such as: bars, supermarkets, metro station, etc. In third place, with 52%, information about the contract, house utilities and bilss. Half of the interviewees mentioned that without having these information crystal clear, they wouldn’t rent in advance.
What would you like to know about your future roommate(s)?
Once I found out that users were super interested in getting to know their future roommates, I then asked the following question to deep dive on the topic and see if I could find out further details. I ended it up finding out that the topics beside were the most important ones for users before renting a room abroad.
Good to know!
What things are most important to be nearby the apartment?
Exploring the neighbourhood!
Users were quite clear on what matters the most for them in regards to things nearby the apartment. It was easy to spot that anything related to eating, drinking and sports were by far the things they care the most to have around their new home abroad.
User Persona
After having gone through a really intense process of interviews (both online and in person), I was finally able to define the user persona:
VISUALS
Color Palette
Typography
Icons
Logo
Sketches
Sketches displayed are only the ones specifically about the roommate profile’s user flow - MVP of project.
User Flow
Roommates Profile Flow (MVP)
Once users reach the roommate profile page, they are able to send a message to the roommate.
Wireframes
In only three steps, users are already able to visualize all the information about the roommates who are currently living at the place they are looking at.
Once users reach the roommate profile page, they are able to connect with the roommate(s) by starting chatting with them.
Prototype
Flash screen
