Interview With Kenny Alegbe, Founder & CEO of HomeHero: An Operating System For The Home

Kenny Alegbe

HomeHero OS™ is a unique AI-powered platform for property managers to provide an exceptional living experience for residents. HomeHero is designed to simplify the lives of both residents and property managers. The platform brings all of the home services together, into one easy to use app. From setting up bills, to reporting a broken boiler and making a house a home, HomeHero has you covered.

We’re building technology that will support real estate in being able to communicate through an omni-channel approach. We’re automating important processes, to increase efficiency for property managers, landlords and ultimately residents. To provide a completely innovative and personalised resident experience.

The key functions  of HomeHero include:

  • HomeHero brings together all of your bills into one place, giving you a simple way to pay and full visibility on everything.
  • The HomeHero app acts as a friendly concierge – If you need to get something fixed or ask your landlord a question, just shoot off a message in the HomeHero app. No more awkward exchanges, or leaky taps.
  • HomeHero ensures that residents can have their home services ready from day one. Tenants can move into their new home to find affordable green energy, fast and reliable wifi, council registration and water already up and running, with zero effort.
  • The HomeHero Picks service connects residents with their local neighbourhoods, ensuring that they know where to find the very best local flat white and spin class from day one.

 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
HomeHero came from a personal experience of moving into a new property. I found the whole process clunky and time consuming, and saw a huge gap in the market, a huge opportunity. The property space hasn’t previously adopted technology at the same pace as other industries, like transport – which has seen unrecognisable transformation in recent years. For example Uber – everyone used to get taxis – but Uber has reimagined the way we do that.

There are different services and products in the real estate space that solve different issues, but there’s a real opportunity to offer a single platform, a single touchpoint, for all of these home services. Recent research showed that around 2 in 3 Brits that work full time (65%), don’t always feel on top of their home admin. (*YouGov, Feb 2021) So there’s such an opportunity for Homehero to alleviate some of that stress, the mental burden of running a home. That’s our ambition.

Residents are no longer simply looking for a space to live, they are looking for amenities, convenience, assistance and lifestyle perks. There’s significant scope for a platform that offers all of these, this is what sparked the HomeHero ambition.
 

 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
Since the pandemic started last year, the way we use our homes has been completely transformed. Now, more than ever before, homes need to be multi-functioning; facilitating work, school and leisure. HomeHero aims to alleviate some of the mental burden of running the home. HomeHero is not just an app, but a much broader solution, bringing everything needed to make a house a home, into one, easy to navigate, platform.

In March 2020 we took a big jump, becoming a remote-first organisation. Internally, we have expanded rapidly over the last year and it’s really important to me to retain our company culture, whilst scaling up. Which is made more challenging with us all working remotely, for sure. It’s an ongoing process to retain, and also build, our culture but it’s at the core of what we do. The team have embraced remote working, with many finding it continuing to boost productivity and enable a work-life balance. It will definitely remain a big part of working life here at HomeHero.

It’s been a complex year for businesses and founders across a number of different sectors, we’ve learnt a lot and leaned into this new way of working. We’re at such an exciting period of growth. There’s a great year ahead for HomeHero.
 

What can we hope to see from HomeHero in the future?

 
We’ve got some pretty ambitious plans for HomeHero in the coming year. We’ll continue to evolve HomeHero OS™ using resident insights, which I think is so critical in building a great product. Keeping that feedback loop open is key. So that will be our first step.

Beyond that, there’s already an exciting project in process, enabling consumers, like private renters and homeowners, to access HomeHero directly from the app store. We’re also planning on expanding our core services, like setting up day one household services, into broader lifestyle solutions, smart home products and more. These solutions might include arranging a tradesman, reminding you of the things we all forget like to take out your recycling bin today and understanding your local community better.

If we get HomeHero right, the opportunity is huge, the scope of services is exponential.