How a turnaround CEO Jason Kothari tried to repair Housing for its sale

Housing.com was in a freefall after its CEO Rahul Yadav was sacked, reports Tech In Asia

Indian real estate portal Housing.com got acquired last week by another online property marketplace PropTiger. Barely a month before the sale, I met the man who had been put in charge of nursing the startup back to health: Jason Kothari. The beleaguered startup was in a freefall after its co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav was sacked following a public spat with the board.
 
The backers – SoftBank, Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and Qualcomm Ventures – wanted to salvage what they could of their investment.

Damage control

Jason’s first task was damage control. “The reputation was at rock-bottom,” he told Tech in Asia in an exclusive interview. “I went to every business head, every investor, and journalists, to just talk to them. Re-building relationships was crucial to bring back lost reputation,” Jason says.
 
But Housing needed much more than PR to get out of its swamp.
 
Here’s how much cash it was burning: at the end of March 2015, the startup reported losses of over $40 million, on a revenue of just around $2 million. Employee cost at the end of March 2015 had jumped four-fold to $13 million, and annual marketing costs had increased almost 10-fold to $18 million. The investors objected, Rahul responded with animosity, and eventually he was sacked by July.
 
Dressed up for a sale

Ultimately, when mounting expenses went out of hand, the company had to let go of close to 900 people in two rounds of layoffs. But reducing cash burn alone wouldn’t cut it.

The solution was shutting the rentals business, and to focus all resources on buying and selling property. Rentals accounted for almost 80 percent of Housing’s business.

Later, Jason Kothari quit Housing to join e-commerce site Snapdeal.

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This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.