Gary Stewart

Lazarus (and Casas Chulas . . . and surfing sofa)

general 6 August 2008

Yeah, yeah. I’m a lazy bum. I know.

I really do need to write on a more consistent basis, but the truth is that I’ve been enjoying the summer. For the first time since 2005, I’ve been able to take a mental break. In the past, there was always something to worry about, and no one else on whom to depend. In 2005, for example, there was the “problem” of the slowing down of the Spanish real estate market. And since the correction arrived so abruptly, the result was months (years?) of stress.

And, of course, between 2005 and and 2008, I’ve been busy with our search engine company, migoa, in an exciting but nerve-wracking process of looking for financing, perfecting our vision of the product, recruiting superstar employees, easing out non-functional employees, trying to create some buzz, going all over Europe to attend different conferences, etc. So when we received the first cheque from Highgrowth, I decided to be a bit selfish and focus on myself for a little bit, at the very least to recharge my batteries in preparation for Q3 2008. This means more time in the gym, more focus on my personal life and tying up various loose ends that I’ve simply been too distracted to attend to. Even entrepreneurs need a little bit of equilibrium in their lives, and as Terri McMillan put it, we all need to exhale every now then.

But that has nothing to do with team nuroa, which has continued very busy at work. Almost no one will take vacation during the month of August, given that we are in the process of launching two new products:

Marbella and Kirsten just finished up Casas Chulas (or Mein Traumhaus in German). It’s a really cool way to pass those hot moments in front of the fan. It’s like Hot or Not but focused on homes. It was inspired by Zillow’s Dueling Digs, except that we adapted to our reality — celebrity gossip (who has the cooler mansion - Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston?) and trying to find a cool, cheap holiday rental in the context of diminishing vacation budgets thanks to the global credit crisis. And because we like to reward our loyal users, we’re offering a weekend for free in a luxury flat in a Spanish beach town (co-sponsored by Natural Holidays for our Spanish users) and really amazing flat in the Canary Islands (co-sponsored by TUI-Wolters for our German users). To participate in the contest, you just need to read Victor and Katia’s real estate blog, Sin Techo.
And speaking of Victor, he’s been working like a madman on polishing the alpha version of our new social network focused on the exchange of sofas in different cities (currently, only Spain and Germany, but we’ll soon expand to other cities). The site’s objective is to allow members of the network to contact other members who are willing to offer free housing or advice about their cities, to facilitate international and interregional friendships, to help people find the coolest parties when traveling and in general to offer our members as close to an “authentic” local experience as possible when in foreign locations. It’s ideal for cash-strapped travelers of any age, given that housing is usually one of the biggest expenses when traveling. The first version of the web is directed toward the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community, but we’ll soon do a more “universal” version. We chose the GLBT community as a first step, largely because gays tend to travel 6-8 more times per year relative to the heterosexual community and this site is the convergence of the property and the vacation/travel sectors.

In any case, sorry for the absence, but as you can see we’re still hard at work, trying to offer our users innovative solutions. I’ll be sure to be you all up-to-date about the other projects that we’ll launch in September. We have a lot of stuff in the pipeline.

And, of course, I’ll share some of the pictures from the various non-professional pursuits that have keeping me so distracted of late.