Startup Spotlight #143: Fácil
Fácil enables renters in Mexico to replace their cosigner & security deposit with an affordable insurance product, at any apartment in the country and for any length of time.
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I got the chance to speak with Joe Merullo, founder and CEO of Fácil, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.
His background in PropTech and a love for emerging markets led him to develop a product that leverages both of these passions.
While working as the Vice President of Business Development at June Homes, Merullo had the opportunity to work remotely and decided to head south to Mexico.
While he had originally planned to stay just a month, that quickly changed as he fell in love with the region and started to look for apartments. As he began to travel amongst the country, Merullo became aware of and enthralled with the inefficiencies of the Mexican real estate market, and quickly saw an opportunity to integrate his skills and innovation in the market.
He launched Fácil (then Carpe) after his first trip to Mexico City in the winter of 2020, to solve the pain points of participants in the rapidly growing Latin American real estate ecosystem.
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Startup Spotlight: Fácil
Problem: A lack of trust and transparency has created an environment that is extremely costly to transact in, in terms of both time and money. Landlords are forced to necessitate stringent requirements when renting their real estate in order to protect themselves from an eviction situation (12-24 month process), which puts a burden on tenants to provide significant capital for a deposit & a cosigner who can be used as collateral.
Market: We found that there are approximately 5.5mm households that rent their home across Mexico, with an average rent of $600 USD. Assuming the average deposit is just 1 month’s rent, when in reality it is often 2-3x that, it puts us as the first mover of a $3B TAM in the security deposit replacement business.
Solution: We provide a suite of tech-enabled financial products to the Latin American real estate market that make transacting radically more simple, efficient, and affordable. Our pilot enables renters to replace their traditional cash security deposit & cosigner with an insurance product that costs around 1/10th of a month’s rent, and is available for renters of an apartment in the country, for any length of time.
Team: I'm a solo founder with multinational executive experience scaling startup revenue from $100k to $10mm+, a Warwick MBA Scholar, ODF10 alumni and am joined by 3 expert advisors assisting with Real Estate, Compliance & Insurance.
Recent Success:
Merullo: We've been extremely diligent with talking to our customers and digging deep into what actually pains them. We've talked with a few hundred renters & landlords in Mexico by now, and have used their feedback to shape our company from idea to product, and have leveraged their insights for many pivots & tweaks in between. In fact, we originally started with an entirely different business model (marketplace) before evolving into our current FinTech offering.
Recent Struggle:
Merullo: Leading a tech startup as a non-technical, bootstrapped solo founder in a foreign country has been an extremely unique challenge. It's forced me to expand my capabilities across various disciplines and evolve as a human. I've had to learn how to code, find a way to hack growth amidst constant capital constraints, and became conversationally fluent in Spanish & Portuguese in a matter of 9 months. While I am certainly looking forward to hiring our first employees, I have to say that this bootstrapped period has been an experience I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. We've accomplished more than I could of ever have imagined, had we not actually done it ourselves.Founder Advice:
Merullo: Be hard to kill. If you can keep your head above water & progress fast; i.e. keep food on the table, lights on, rent paid, and ship product consistently, there's a pretty good chance that you will find success.
If you are someone that's prone to be discouraged, moves slow, or is afraid of failure, just stick with your day job. Startup life is not for everyone, and that's perfectly ok.
Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Merullo: Here are three founders you should check out next!
Luqui Diaz, Co-founder of Mudafy: Mudafy is a marketplace that adds technology to every step of the process of home buying and selling process to deliver a better experience, faster, and at a better price.
Michael Meo, Co-founder of Alo Home: Alo empowers residential developers across LatAm with the technology they need to sell new homes, direct-to-consumers, online.
Franisco Puente, Co-founder of wherEX: wherEX is a digital B2B platform that transforms commerce through the application of cutting edge technologies to optimize decision making across B2B trade.
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