NewDelhi/Nagpur: Housing.com owner Rahul Yadav, who was involved in a bitter public fight with some investors and competitors , has now resigned as the CEO and chairman of the house hunting start-up after several weeks of controversy and drama.
Yadav’s resignation brings to end a two-month long saga that started with his public spat with a prominent venture capital investor, alleged misreporting by Times Group, which owns a competitor site, and followed by a defamation legal notice.
Yadav has written a scathing resignation letter to the board members and investors accusing them of lacking of any “intellectual capability”.
Here’s a transcript of the now famous resignation letter –
Dear board members and investors, I don’t think you guys are intellectually capable enough to have any sensible discussion anymore. This is something which I not just believe but can prove on your faces also! I had calculated long back (by taking avg life expectancy minus avg sleeping hrs) that I only have ~3L (hours) in my life. ~3L hrs are certainly not much to waste with you guys!
Hence resigning from the position of Directorship, Chairmanship and the CEO position of the company. I’m available for the next 7 days to help in the transition. Won’t give more time after that. So please be efficient in this duration.
Cheers,
Rahul
According to previous reports , Housing.com’s investors were looking for a replacement because of disagreements over the strategic direction of the company and Yadav’s conduct.
Housing, launched in 2012, had raised investment from Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures. One of the highest funded startups in India, the company raised 90 million from SoftBank in December 2014, valuing the company at $250 million.
Rahul Yadav has been a firm believer in private funding as against going public.
Fund raising hasn’t been a problem for Housing. “There are so many investors willing to put in money, that has never been a problem,”
Rahul also adds that it is possible to build a billion dollar company without raising any funds but it just takes more time. “Raising funds is for lazy people. “The private markets are huge and I see this continuing for a few years to come. When people can raise $200 million in private markets, why go for an IPO?” he asks.
Talking of the ecosystem at large, Rahul doesn’t see many IPOs happening now as most start ups prefer going for funding like Yadav.
Rahul Yadav has been in the driver’s seat of Housing.com, an online real estate company that was started by a bunch of IIT-Bombay graduates in 2012 and has since managed to raise more than $130 million in capital and has been constantly making news for a variety of reasons- from pissing off investors to brute force advertising to law suits with competitors.
If one is driving from Thane towards Powai, a majority of billboards belong to Housing.com and their multi-million dollar campaign- ‘Look Up’. Housing already has four offices in Powai Transocean building was where Rahul Yadav used to sit as CEO with a panaromic view of the Powai lake.
But his vision saw much further -” I want to take the company overseas, to San Francisco and other places” he had said in a very recent interview.
He agrees in the same interview that he is brash. “I’ve always been like this. It was the deans during college and now it is the VCs. It’s just an attitude I have,” he says after some reflection. Indifferent to most of the things, Rahul looks everything from a mathematical lens. Talking of Housing, he pens down a function and says it is all about managing variables. “I’m not attached to any idea or thing. Give me a large enough problem and I’ll do anything to solve it,” he says.
He also says he has a general disregard for humankind. This attitude is based on things and people he has observed from childhood. “While growing up, I observed things and always kept thinking. Why are the trains so dirty? Why is this thing like this? Why are people not working hard? Why are hostels so dirty? Why is everything so broken? Why are people so dumb?”
Rahul does not subscribe to lofty management principles or theories. “It’s all mathematics, look at the bigger picture. I assign everything certain weightage and change it to see the changes,” he says and also confirms that it works. Housing gets more than 11 million visitors on the website and has crossed a million app downloads. “We’re clearly ahead of all the competitors on all metrics now,” he talks about competition. MagicBricks recently filed a law suit against Housing but Rahul doesn’t really take it seriously.
When Rahul had launched Housing.com it was with this vision statement –
Our mission is innovation and optimism for Housing. As India leapfrogs its way to becoming one of the fastest growing economies on earth, Housing spreaheaded by an ocean of highly ambitious individuals is at the forefront, changing the way real estate industry will be experienced in the future across the planet.
Signed – Rahul Yadac. CEO
With his resignation being promptly accepted, wonder what his own future holds for him now?
It is surely going to be worth watching!
