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Rune Niska, who just graduated from Aalto University, is interested in startups and software development. He wanted to combine these in his thesis, which is why Komu offered the perfect place to carry out the work. Rune had previous experience in software development through working in companies of different sizes and studying at Aalto University. In companies, he has programmed and designed software both in independent projects and in multinational teams.
The thesis was built around a product development project, where Rune applied the principles of software product development and the operating models of a startup company. The main part of the research focused on creating a user-centered software development process. In practice, Rune applied the “Build - Measure - Learn” model from the Lean Startup methodology to a software project. The model is based on building a prototype, measuring the effect of the prototype in use, and building the next prototype according to the lessons learned from measurement.
“It's important to know how the real estate industry works, what kind of stakeholders there are, and who are ultimately the users and customers of the produced software. Thus, the software can be designed to suit the real needs.”
In his research, Rune mapped the stakeholders operating in the startup's target market, which was part of the user-centered design process. It is important to know how the real estate industry works, what kind of stakeholders there are, and who are ultimately the users and customers of the software produced. Thus, the software can be designed to suit the real needs. Rune researched software engineering principles used in Komu. He noticed that many user-centered theories were already professionally applied in practice. “It's great to see that user-centricity is at the core of Komu's entire operation. The founders started developing the product by interviewing more than a hundred real estate experts, which is reflected in the features and usability of the software”, Rune says.
“Processes in the real estate industry are still surprisingly manual in the 2020s”
On the basis of expert interviews, theory and practical cases, the real estate field took shape, and it was not exactly what Rune had originally thought. He says he was surprised by how manual many processes still are. People seem to spend their time “running Excel and filling out paper forms”, even though there are more modern alternatives. He sees that digital solutions have a lot of potential, which the real estate industry does not yet know how to utilize.
“It became apparent in interviews that there are cases where information is moved between digital systems without clear rules or standards, in which case essential things cannot always be forwarded to another system. Transferring data from, for example, an information system to Excel or printing information on paper slows down the data management process.” Manual processes cause bottlenecks in the daily operations of the real estate industry, as time is spent on routine activities that do not produce value, or it is spent on processing paper documents.
Rune sees that software aimed at the real estate industry can solve many of the slow-downs caused by traditional methods of operation. Waiting and routine tasks will be replaced by modern processes that utilize digitalization. The time of real estate professionals can be used in meaningful tasks, while automation takes care of simple things. Rune estimates that the workload, which is especially focused on the turn of the month, becomes easier when the processes related to moving are handled by automatic systems. On a larger scale, software could be used to combine many real estate functions and tasks under one system that takes into account residents, properties, service providers and property owners.
New digital solutions will certainly emerge in the real estate sector. Rune thinks that the number of startups striving for digital change and replacing old operating methods will increase in the near future. Startup companies also have to invest in their own product development processes so that they can produce software that meets the needs of the users. In Rune's opinion, iterative processes, user-centered methods and continuous development of the company’s operations are crucial for the success of startup companies focusing on digital products.
KomuHomes has been producing user-centered software for over a year. At the center of the operation are the customers, whose needs are transformed with the modern processes of software engineering into a product. Komu's goal is to produce the best digital product in the real estate industry for the user. It is achieved when user-centered product development is applied and improved continuously, taking the real estate industry into account.
The thesis focused on optimizing the product development process by combining a scientific perspective with Komu's already professional product development. As a result, our product development process was tuned to be more efficient than before. When the customer's needs, professional product development and a competent team are combined, the result is functional software that truly meets the customer's needs. That's what Komu is.
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