BUSINESS

Brandery startup aims to change home buying

Emilie Eaton
eeaton@enquirer.com

When Alex Bowman and his wife moved back to Cincinnati last year, they thought they knew what neighborhood they wanted to live in. After all, they had grown up here and they knew the different communities.

Casamatic CEO Alex Bowman, left, Chief Technology Officer Chris Ridenour and Partner Advocate Sarah Felix work at The Brandery in Over-the-Rhine. Casamatic is part of The Brandery's 2015 class, but their office space is in the 84.51° headquarters.

But Bowman and his wife soon learned that the homebuying process was much more tedious and difficult than they expected. They couldn’t find a home where they were looking in Hyde Park or Oakley, where houses were much more expensive and there were few places on the market.

“It was frustrating,” Bowman said. “After a few months of that, we ended up finding a home in Norwood. The home had been there the whole time and we just didn’t know about it because we weren’t looking there.”

Bowman was discussing the experience with Chris Ridenour, another local entrepreneur who had a similar homebuying experience, and they decided to do something about it.

They created Casamatic, a website that matches shoppers to their perfect home by learning the type of activities, home styles and schools that are important to buyers. The website officially launched Aug. 3.

And that’s just the beginning. Bowman, 30, and Ridenour, 27, want to take the service wherever the market and demographics are fitting. In the next couple weeks, they’ll be launching in Chicago.

Here’s how the website works:

After logging on and creating a profile, the website asks you a series of questions. What do you love to do on the weekend? Are there friends and family you want to live near? What’s your ideal work commute? Are highly-rated public schools important to you? How much are you willing to spend? Then, the website instantly matches you with a selection of homes that meet your criteria. Each listing has a description of the home, along with details about nearby activities, restaurants and schools.

Bowman said the website provides a much more effective way to buy homes, especially for the millennial generation, which the Pew Research Center defines as 18- to 34-year-olds in 2015.

“Right now, the way that millennials are buying homes is not being served with what is out there today,” said Bowman, the company’s CEO. “That’s what we’re trying to fix. We’re creating something where you can instantly find a home instead of scouring through thousands of listings.”

Chief Technology Officer Chris Ridenour and CEO Alex Bowman are co-founders of Casamatic, a website that matches users with their perfect home.

Creating a website with a perfect algorithm wasn’t easy, though. It took a lot of adjusting and fine tuning.

Bowman and Ridenour, the company’s chief technology officer, came up with the idea in December. In January, they started with the Ocean accelerator, a six-month program based at Crossroads church’s Oakley campus that offers technology companies financial assistance, mentorship and marketing support.

During their time in the Ocean accelerator, Bowman and Ridenour spoke with people who had recently purchased a home and began working on the product. Bowman, who has previously worked for Blackberry and Amazon, focused on the company’s vision and marketing. Ridenour, who used to work at Procter & Gamble and Rockfish Digital, built the algorithm and product.

They launched a beta version of the website in late April on the Ocean accelerator’s demo day. Over the course of the next few months, they continued tweaking the product based on feedback received from participants. One of the biggest differences: The service originally took an hour to match users with a home; now, it’s instantaneous.

“People have dictated some of the features we’ve launched in the last few weeks,” Ridenour said.

In mid-May, Casamatic was selected to be part of the Brandery’s 2015 class. Now, they are staying at the 84.51° headquarters Downtown and working with local branding company Landor.

Each new city offers new challenges in finding data and creating a new algorithm. For example, in Chicago, users who live in the core of the city won’t be typically commuting, as many Cincinnati residents do. Instead, they’ll be taking the train. For Bowman and Ridenour, those unique city characteristics can be fascinating.

“That’s been the most interesting thing,” Bowman said. “It hasn’t been figuring out where we get the data, but how we tweak the algorithm so we can cater to the individual flavors of each city.”

They’re not saying how many users they have in the Cincinnati market right now. But, that’s not the point anyway, Bowman points out.

“The goal really isn’t – at least to us – how many users we have,” Bowman said. “We want to make a significant impact in how millennials are buying homes.”