Business Validation
To show that DOMO has the potential to be a feasible and viable business, we tested the largest assumptions about our business with the actual stakeholders of our business. To summarise, our assumptions can be categorised into 5 main assumptions.
Assumption 1: Renters spend a lot of time scheduling viewings and are looking for a faster way.
Assumption 2: Agents spend a lot of time on their phones and emails to process renter’s information
Assumption 3: Renters are happy to share their personal data with DOMO.
Assumption 4: Agencies are willing to pay per lead.
Assumption 5: DOMO is technically and legally feasible.
Assumption 1: Renters spend a lot of time scheduling viewings and are looking for a faster way.
Reasons:
Understand renter’s pain points in the renting experience
Measure the amount of time taken for renters to complete administrative tasks
Gather insights on the user experience for DOMO
Inform our business strategy and model in terms of our renters
To validate this assumption, our goal is to engage with our target users and generate a waitlist for users who resonate with this problem to indicate interest.
Semi-structured Interviews
As a group of students who rent in London, we conducted interviews with friends and family to confirm our pre-conceived assumptions as renters ourselves. Having short conversations with 20 renters who were either students or young professionals, certain themes became very clear.
Administrative Repetition
Renters constantly repeat the same information and often share private information with strangers, creating an uncomfortable experience.
Long Process Times
Communication with estate agents is often slow and time-consuming, with initial inquiry to scheduling viewings lasting as long as a week.
Ghost Listings
Platforms such as Rightmove and Zoopla often present listings which are not available, increasing stress and distrust amongst renters
Surveys
An initial survey was sent out to gather initial quantitative and qualitative data. This provided the foundation to frame and focus on the pain points of one of our most important stakeholder. The survey was launched through Google Forms, and a total of 24 responses were obtained.
From the data, the pain points we discovered initially were clear. The results showed:
30% of respondents
Agreed that waiting for agents to respond is a challenge in their home search. In a competitive market, any missed response can mean missing your dream property.
71% of respondents
Take between three weeks to two months to find a home. With over 2/3 of people viewing 3-10 viewings, the process to find a home becomes very stressful.
58% of respondents
Indicated that they would prefer to share information once. The frictionless process is attractive for our users, but some are still wary of privacy and sharing personal details with third-parties.
Engagement with Renters @ Imperial Accommodation Fair
With the pain points in mind, our team spoke with students looking for accommodation at Imperial College’s accommodation fair. By using the pain points we identified, we framed our value proposition with that in mind.
150 flyers were printed with a QR code sign-up link and a short explanation to what DOMO does. From engaging with over 200 students, all flyers were given, converting to over 30 different sign ups. From the conversations, it was evident that students currently seeking accommodation are feeling the pain points identified by older students and young professionals.
We have received some promising responses from students, such as:
"So when is it available?"
"Will this be available when I start my search?"
Assumption 2: Agents spend a lot of time on their phones and emails to process renter’s information.
Reasons:
Understand lettings agent’s pain points in their day-to-day work
Learn about the operational difficulties from branch managers
Measure the importance of lead conversion metrics for an agency
Define best workflow/design option for DOMO
This assumption is extremely important to confirm one of our biggest value propositions; significantly decreasing the friction in the lead generation process and time it takes to onboard potential leads. To validate this, our goal is to establish the resources that current agencies spend to generate and maintain leads, and get buy-in from branch managers or estate agency owners.
Agent Interviews
To understand pain points that an agency has, it’s important to speak with lettings agents from large chains. For this, we interviewed two lettings agents, Rachael and Borna, who work for large and established estate agencies.
Rachael
Lettings Agent @ Strutt & Parker
With nine years of experience in the industry in both the UK and Australia, Rachael's experience resonated with our value proposition.
"At the end of the day, the more leads we get, the more opportunity we have to grow" - for Rachael, any lead generation is opportunity for growth.
Profile match is really crucial, "they were both professionals, didn't have pets or kids, we got the deal done really, really quick".
"There needs to be more. Something that helps all the major stakeholders."
Borna
Lettings Agent @ Dexter's
Though Borna only had a few months experience working as a letting's agent, his experience showed lots of insights.
A significant portion of their day is being spent on lead engagement. From ~10am to 12pm, agents call and email renters to follow up on inquiries and check if people are still looking for properties. This can continue until 2.30pm.
Lead engagement over email takes too long, and calls are unreliable. "Time is money", but email chains just drag on, while with phone calls, "You can call 50 of them, but only 15 will pick up their phones".
From both conversations, this provided insight into how DOMO would be helping agencies, and exactly how to achieve this.
Significant efforts to maintain communications with leads to secure viewings were costing over 1/4 of the work day.
Though more leads are crucial for business growth, the quality and profile is really important, and DOMO provides this.
Expert Interviews: Executives / Owners
To understand on a branch/operational level, we also spoke with branch managers and owners for their views. We spoke with three managers/owners of estate agency branches.
Joshua Lee
Associate @ Stanley Properties
"Being able to reach out rather than wait for people to reach in and inquire - that would be my preference."
"We've got 30 people that we otherwise didn't know were looking. Here's this property we think is suitable…could be a good idea."
Ed Gormley
Director @ Hogarth Estates
"With the change in the Renter's Rights Act, it will make your proposition more enticing."
When discussing our proposition of verifying our users, Ed said "If you can really build up the proposition of what your applicants are…you are pushing against an open door."
Martin Press
Head of Sales @ Fyfe McDade
"One of the things that we're really keen on is the speed to lead. If we don't respond to you in the first 48 hours, the first 24, we're going to lose you"
"You send an inquiry through via Instagram at 10pm at night, are we going to pick that up? No."
The conversations with managers and directors at these properties have shown that if DOMO provides qualified leads, this will reduce the administrative burden on their side. However, these conversations also brought additional insights into indirect benefits:
Frictionless experience on both sides - on a platform like DOMO, this allows both renters to have more control over when estate agencies reach out, while estate agents won't need to waste their time and reach out to customers who are no longer looking for a home.
Speed to lead - as Martin said, an agency with multiple streams of lead generation would struggle with maintaining each lead, especially during downtimes like the weekend and evenings. The potential short turnaround time that DOMO provides is something that they have said are attractive.
Renter's Rights Act Opportunity - Ed confirms that with the Renter's Rights Act being enforced May 2026, this would make DOMO's value proposition much more attractive.
Assumption 3: Renters are happy to share their personal data with DOMO.
Reasons:
Learn current industry practices for onboarding new customers.
Test if renters are comfortable sharing their personal information with a third party.
Learn how to improve the DOMO onboarding process.
As renters are not one of our main revenue streams, the best way to validate if they feel this problem is if they were to provide their information to us. Thus, our metric of success is if renters provide their personal and financial information to DOMO.
Primary Research
To learn what information estate agents require from renters to conduct both an initial pre-check and a full background check, we employed two different ways of obtaining this information to see if there are any discrepancies or differences in industry practices.
Acted as renters and sent inquiries for homes ourselves.
Consulted our partner agencies for what information they would require.
Martin Press
Head of Sales @ Fyfe McDade
Joshua Lee
Associate @ Stanley Properties
Email between Joshua Lee and Alex
Hi Alex,
Thank you for your email and following up.
[Some parts of email removed for unrelated context]
In terms of the information that we need for confirming a viewing, then certainly Full Name, Contact Number and Email Address.
For ease of reference, will work on a Traffic Light System for what would be needed at each stage.
Red (Initial search details)
Amber (For a viewing)
Green (Submitting an offer and referencing)
Hope that helps for now.
Kind Regards
Joshua Lee
Associate (MARLA)
Screenshot from required information from Joshua Lee
Social Media
To extend our reach, we registered our Instagram account (@domo.rent) to expand our marketing streams. This stream provided a platform for us to share our story and purpose, reaching audiences past the current Imperial focus. From our account, we have reached over 3.4k views, with over 2/3’s from non-followers. The engagement from non-followers showed a strong interest and following for our platform.
From Interest to User: Conversion Validation
Our final step of validation to test if renters are truly looking for other options, we implemented a “Wizard of Oz” test set up. A new “DOMO: Onboarding” Google Form was created and sent to users who indicated interest through our waitlist. This validates our initial success criteria as well as measuring our conversion rate.
From the 30 emails on the waitlist, we received five responses, indicating a conversion rate of around 13%. Given our no-budget sales team and time constraints, this is a very promising result. Not only did this experiment validate our initial success criteria, we also were able to achieve 13% response rate from our users.
Assumption 4: Agencies are willing to pay per viewing lead.
Reasons:
Learn what industry competitors are charging for best financial positioning
Build a viable and sustainable business model
Though competitors and Rightmove and Zoopla charge a flat subscription fee, testing if agencies are looking for alternative pricing structures can make DOMO attractive and more cost-efficient for agencies. To successfully validate this, we need verbal or written interest from estate agencies.
An Opportunity
Both Rightmove and Zoopla do not publicly advertise their prices on their website. However, there is a growing negative sentiment towards Rightmove for charging “absurd prices”. In fact, a £1 billion lawsuit was filed against Rightmove in November of 2025. This growing negative sentiment from independent agencies show a strong push towards finding new services which match their price requirements.
Identifying First-Adopters
With growing prices, the agencies who will be significantly affected include small independent lettings-focused agencies with large portfolio sizes. The reason why we target these agencies is because:
Less human resources: Large established agencies, such as Dexter’s or Foxton’s, have significantly higher manpower and revenue to support their use of Rightmove or Zoopla, independent agencies are more inclined to welcome automation tools fit for them.
Cost-efficiency: With large portfolios, they will need more viewings per home. While they pay a flat fee for Rightmove or Zoopla, our unique pricing structure might be much more attractive.
Workflow Flexibility: Large established agencies would have custom CRM software which lack integration. Independent agencies are more likely to use external providers such as Alto, who provide more integration capabilities.
To identify these agencies, a web-scraper and dashboard was made to track agent leads. A total of 685 agencies fit our initial early-adopter criteria (independent agency, with large portfolio size of 30-60 properties in their porfolio, Zone 1-3). From those agencies, 247 emails were found, and a initial cold email were sent. Out of the emails sent, we had 6 responses, which gave us a ~3% response rate. Using the dashboard, we called a total of 7 agencies, with a ~50% response and direct interest from 1 agency.
Engagement with First-Adopters
From our emails and calls, we established four agencies who will be a part of our pilot testing and partner program. In person meetings were scheduled, creating an opportunity to learn more about their businesses and current costs.
Martin Press
Head of Sales @ Fyfe McDade
Fyfe McDade pays over £85,000 to Rightmove annually, £2,000 per month for Zoopla, and uses the free tier of OntheMarket.
In terms of ratio of lead generation, Rightmove brings over 50% of the viewings, Zoopla brings in around 30% and OntheMarket brings in around 10%, with the rest of the leads from natural streams like walk-ins.
Any new platform which offers greater product and analytics offerings are welcome, and will definitely try it.
Ed Gormley
Director @ Hogarth Estates
At Hogarth Estates, they pay around £1800 per branch at Rightmove per month (£21600 per year), about £1000 for OntheMarket, and £700 for Zoopla.
Rightmove brings in around 70% of their leads, while Zoopla is a dying business as their offerings are degrading compared to its competitors.
If we can qualify our customers and verify before bringing them for a viewing, will be more than happy to pay over £5 for a lead.
Joshua Lee
Associate @ Stanley Properties
Property portals like OnTheMarket are paid as a flat fee subscription, but OnTheMarket has brought Stanley Properties zero customers in his three to four years at the agency.
With OnTheMarket not bringing in customers, he has tried convincing his director that the unqualified customers taking up times for viewings and not putting in offers are hard to justify the cost.
Joshua agrees that pay per viewing is much more valuable when you know what you're paying for
Wizard of Oz: Trial Run
With information from potential users and agencies who are willing to trial our services, we implemented the final phase of our experiment, where we match our users with our agents. With their information, we can provide anonymised profiles with their property requirements.
Two of the agencies responded:
Though the two agencies didn't have any matching requirements, the potential here is shown. With this test we achieved the goals that DOMO sets to do:
Recommended potential validated renters to agencies
Saved renters and estate agency's time
For the next steps, to test in a higher fidelity, efforts should be focused more on increasing our renter base and our partner agencies, which would start increasing successful viewing coordinations. For a greater experience, based upon feedback from renters as well as estate agents, a fully-working MVP would provide a greater experience for all, and provide many learning opportunities to further improve our product offerings.
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