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Interview with Simon Incir, founder of Commercialgate.ch

There are many real estate portals where you can advertise your apartment or property.  However, most of them only focus on the residential housing market or do not list commercial properties. The company Commercialgate, founded via STARTUPS.CH, offers the solution. Here entrepreneurs can look for commercial space but can also buy or sell an entire business. We met the founder and managing director Simon Incir for an interview in which he introduces Commercialgate.ch and tells us about his experiences as a founder.

Mr. Incir, what led you to found Commercialgate?

During the past years I worked in the real estate field where I could observe personally how important real estate platforms for the business are. I was dealing with search clients on a regular basis and many of them were searching for commercial properties like offices, commercial spaces, storages or even hotels and restaurants. In Switzerland most of the properties on the market are advertised and sold through big portals like Homegate or Immoscout24. However, the majority of the listed properties are residential and the commercial properties are often overshadowed by the residentials. This situation made me think about the importance to offer a dedicated service which focuses on a defined target group because most of the people looking for commercial properties didn’t know where to search. This is why I decided to create Commercialgate, a platform specialized only on commercial properties, where users have the opportunity to publish or search commercial properties. The purpose of Commercialgate is to build an online marketplace where offer and demand for commercial properties can meet.

The selection of conventional real estate platforms is already large and the market seems saturated. How does Commercialgate.ch differ from other real estate portals? What makes your company different?

That’s true, the market has plenty of real estate platforms but we have to consider that the majority of those platforms are focusing on residential properties. Nowadays the commercial properties are integrated in big platforms and only few are dedicated to commercial properties. Moreover, the platforms are not really offering a user-friendly experience and covering all the market needs. Commercialgate serves the purpose to create a platform for the commercial real estate market where users can profit from a specialized marketplace with the best possible service and quality.

Your company started in spring 2018. What have been the biggest challenges so far?

The competition in the online business and especially in the real estate field is very high. Moreover, people are always skeptical with new players. The biggest challenge was on the one hand to acquire the first clients and make them publish their commercial properties on Commercialgate and on the other hand to generate traffic by searching clients.

Where will you be in five years’ time?

Commercialgate is aiming to become the Swiss market place for commercial properties.

When you founded Commercialgate via STARTUPS.CH, you took advantage of Credit Suisse’s partner offer. To what extent did you benefit from it and would you recommend it to others?

The experience with Credit Suisse was very positive. Their advanced digital banking allowed me to do the entire account-opening process online. Within one week the account was open.

One last question: What would you advise our young entrepreneurs who have just founded their first own company via STARTUPS.CH?

My personal advice is to surround yourself by smart people and not be afraid to speak about your ideas. Often the best ideas result from discussion.

Thank you very much for this exciting interview.

 

Do you have any innovative business idea you would like to make come true? Use STARTUPS.CH experts to become self-employed.

» Commercialgate.ch» Found online

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