Back in 1995, when the internet was in its early days, Martin Howell and Karl Sabljak had the foresight to create a small company called Netwide Solutions. The business was started in the basement of Karl’s house in suburban Melbourne. Their objective was to provide small businesses with dial-up ISP (internet services provider) services and websites.
They installed a bank of modems that allowed their customers to dial into the ISP and created a small team of people to build websites. As their business grew, they picked up a range of customers from real estate agents to male escort services.
Over time, they realized that creating websites and being an ISP was a tough business with much larger companies, such as OzEmail taking the lion’s share of the customers.
They pivoted the business and started to advertise real estate listings on a site called Virtual Realty. Fortunately, through their contacts at the Australian manager of domain names, they were able to secure the realestate.com.au URL and rename the company. The company would go on to change its name again to the REA Group.
This video is an interview with Karl and Marty back in 2008 and shows what the early days really looked like for the REA Group.
Join us at the next Property Portal Watch Conference in Bangkok from the 28th February through to the 1st March. Register now and secure a great discount with the Early Bird Pricing.
