Interview with Marco Ricci, CEO of ERAora
May 6, 2022
Interview with Marco Ricci, CEO of ERAora, the startup dedicated to the b2b market that follows both landlords and tenants until the end of the lease agreement.
One of the consequences of the upheaval caused by covid-19 was the digitization of the real estate market, which proved to be a great growth opportunity for the sector with the development of new business models. Startups and different types of platforms have made their entry into the market, changing the way to sell and buy homes, as well as the very craft of real estate agents. Today we want to talk about ERAora!
What’s ERAora
ERAora is an innovative startup born with the aim of completely digitizing the medium-term rental experiences (with a duration of more than a month), all through a secure and intuitive web platform that allows in a totally digital way to search for real estate, visit them virtually, get to know the counterparty, sign and register the contract directly on the platform itself.
So you can say goodbye to waste of time, stress, unsuccessful travel or waste of money. ERAora is the community where both landlords and tenants can work with confidence and speed, saving the costs of agency and property guaranteed!
To learn more about the project we interviewed Marco Ricci, CEO of ERAora.
Hi Marco, it’s a pleasure to meet you and thank you for your time. Tell us more about ERAora.
Hello, thank you for the opportunity to tell our growth journey and give evidence to the project for which we have been working for a year. Our team consists of me and 3 other guys (Marco, Nicola and Marco: yes, 3 Marco out of 4 are many, we are aware of this).
ERAora can be summed up in the word “time”, since we immediately render rapid a service that the market requires. We want to give back to people and companies the unsuccessful time spent searching for and visiting rented properties, because as we know, the more time, the greater the costs incurred.
How and when was the idea of ERAora born?
The idea was born from a personal need that united us during University, Master and work. We have lived in many cities in Italy and Europe, constantly experiencing the same problem: the complexity inherent in short and medium term rentals (for both parties, that is, landlord and tenant).
Our paths, albeit with different university paths, crossed in 2020, as well as our ideas, and we decided to find an innovative and totally digital solution to this common problem: all this led, in March 2021, to the creation of ERAora.
The name of the Startup, with a slightly provocative tone towards the traditional rental processes, we believed it was the most eloquent one, which expressed and combined the Italian spirit of the idea and its immediacy.
How did you launch your company? Did you use crowdfunding campaigns?
Since we had no experience in Startup (although with transversal skills we had never had entrepreneurial experiences before), we started strictly following the fundamentals of Startups, namely through self-funding and 3F (family, friends & fool), we collected the money needed to structure the platform and draw up a solid business plan (here a bit of experience we had accumulated during the master). Then we tried to get noticed and we were selected among the 30 Startup finalists of the Web Marketing Festival (one of the biggest Italian competition events for Startup) arousing the interest of the incubator that is supporting us in this process of validation of the idea.
Now we are talking with some crowdfunding platforms because once the validation has been completed, our goal is to raise the necessary capital for a widespread diffusion.
What services does your platform offer for landlords and tenants?
ERAora is the first completely and exclusively digital rental platform: from the search to the entrance, from the visit to the signing of the contract. Our mission is to reinvent rental solutions, providing the market with a simple and intuitive tool that can provide a new, fast and secure experience. No more waiting, no more traveling and constant visits. Basically, no more stress.
The main services provided are therefore a virtual visit (via virtual tour) of the real estate, the smart signature, the registration of the contract and the verification of both parties, in order to create a community where users can feel safe, radically eliminating the possibility of scams or fake ads that still populate some sites.
In addition, our roadmap includes additional services such as ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, laundry, cleaning and removal services.
The crucial moment is definitely the signing of the contract, how does it work?
One of the innovative elements of our service is clearly the smart signature. When the parties identify the ideal solution and reach a consensual agreement, the platform automatically generates the contract containing the elements established by the parties themselves. You can now sign it digitally.
The signature, however, does not require a smart key or a paid registration with a provider (as is the case for the digital signature)but it is an advanced electronic signature that allows you to crystallize the document over time and prevent it from being changed after the signature. From a technical point of view it is certainly a complex solution, but for the parties it is a very simple procedure: it will be nothing more than an OTP (one time password) that they will receive on smartphones or via email. Once this code is entered, the signature is affixed to the contract and in 30 seconds you can complete the operation.
The registration of the contract is optional: if the parties choose this option, they will proceed to registration with Fisconline (the portal of the Revenue Agency) only once the conductor has entered the property and confirmed that the conditions are consistent with what is shown in the virtual tour (an additional guarantee that we want to provide to our customers).
What are your goals for the future?
ERAora’s mission is to provide the market with the first platform for the digitization of the real estate rental and related services chain, a simple and transparent reference point for any mobility need. We want to allow people and companies to live a new rental experience, that through technology and innovation allows them to take back their time.
Our roadmap is ambitious and challenging: we want to structure ourselves on the Italian market and then offer our service even outside the national borders; we have already scouted some countries, noting that the need is widespread and that some potential competitors are developing similar services.
As they say, “per aspera ad astra”.
Curiosity: With ERAnow can we say goodbye to the long bureaucracy that invest your sector?
The digitalization of ERAora – and the resulting cyber security – can allow the simplification and immediacy of some bureaucratic procedures that have followed a traditional and cumbersome procedure in the real estate rental market until now.
It is clear that, in this context, digitalization is a means to a purpose: we can define it as a necessary condition, but not enough to say goodbye to bureaucracy. Innovation must be accompanied by a change in the mindset, especially in our country, in order to be able to answer this question in the affirmative way.
