Ask Me Anything with ProppyApp’s Chief Coach, Mr Lee Willson

1. Tell us more about ProppyApp® and how does ProppyCares help local businesses connect with consumers and customers?

ProppyApp™ is an all-in-one portal that utilises the power of AI and geo-tagging technology to revolutionise the way property related services and businesses, including the buying, selling and renting of properties, and connecting and matching buyers and sellers within their neighbourhoods.

ProppyCares, a feature within ProppyApp™ helps merchants, traders and service repairmen by providing them with the ability to not only reach out to a wider audience, but target a more focused neighbourhood customer base. One major benefit for Merchants is that they can also build their business branding by enhancing their credibility ratings not only via the Reviews and Ratings function, but with an Endorsement function not normally found on other online marketing platforms. Merchants can build a higher credibility rating by getting non-business related contacts and acquaintances to Endorse their personality, character and trust value, thus creating a lifelong record of their credibility.

2. What triggered you to come out with this idea?

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit us real hard, affecting businesses and many have lost their income streams. Local businesses, especially local SMEs who are tradesmen, service providers, have been forced to close as the result of the prolonged movement restriction orders. Yet, even during the lockdown, many had to contend with home-defects and problems like water leakage, disruption of electricity, and had difficulty finding the nearest repairman in their neighbourhoods to fix their home defects as they were not allowed to travel from where they live. The conundrum that these business owners and service providers faced is that if they remained open, they risk getting infected. But if they stayed home, their livelihoods will also be sacrificed. Yet, these servicemen could be our neighbours, and since we could still travel within a 10km boundary, it makes perfect sense to have a platform that will help put these service providers on our neighbourhood economy map within ProppyApp™.

3. How does it work?

The neighbourhood economy concept in our ProppyCares uses AI and geo-tagging on the platform to match the nearest service repairmen, handyman or service provider to the User . Upon opening the ProppyCares feature on the app, Users will be able to see first the Merchants who are in the same neighbourhood within a 10km radius, or the ones who are nearest to them, before the AI algorithm lists other similar Merchants on ProppyCares. The AI in system will also push Merchants with a higher credibility rating to the top of the page, thus enhancing visibility for Merchants with better Review, Ratings and Endorsements. This also serves as an incentive for the Merchants to strive for better Reviews and Ratings and Endorsements.

4. How many businesses are now listed on this platform and the types?

There are over 30 business types that ranges from property-related businesses like electricians, plumbers, roof repairs, gate installers and other home service repair services, to home-related products and appliances, to general merchants and traders and food services, just to name a few. We are currently activating our merchant acquisition exercise and we hope to populate about 10,000 registered merchants onto our platforms by the 28th of August, which is our next milestone. We also cover services from property related to personal needs-related. Every trade is welcomed to list on our ProppyCares platform.

5. What areas do you cover?

The app functions like a Google-Map, where we can place any merchant from any locality wherever they are, as long as they have a registered address. The areas of coverage is triggered by the User, where the Users will search for the service that they require, and the immediate merchants, service providers that will be listed first are the ones closest to the buyer.

6. How do you generate income from this?

ProppyApp™ is a multi-stream business platform, and our income is generated from the annual subscription of our Pro Business Plans for the merchant listing platform and also marketplace platform for property agents. On top of that advertisers can also advertise on the platform via our advertisement banners.

7. Any rules for businesses to be on board?

ProppyApp™ is not an e-commerce platfom. All transactions between buyers and sellers are done outside of the app. As an Online to Offline (O-2-O), Merchants will have to abide by the listing terms and conditions as stipulated in the Merchant listing agreement agreed upon signing up and registration. ProppyCares is currently a, online merchant listing platform for Users to connect and interact with the Merchants via the in-app-chat called ‘Beep!’. All other transactions out of the app (offline) will be based on the Merchants’ terms and conditions, as agreed with the buyers. ProppyApp™ doesn’t handle any cash payment or online financial transactions between Merchants and their buyers.

8. Your plans for the next one-two years?

Current Initiatives

To curb the spread of the pandemic while maintaining a livelihood seems impossible until ProppyApp™ came along to create a neighbourhood economy via existing geo-tagging technology where nearby demand can be matched to supply.

The highest risk areas are the most populated neighbourhoods, and there are easily hundreds of households with thousands of residents in the area that is sufficient to sustain any local small business.

The #KitaJagaKita and #KnowThyNeighbour campaign, our marketing outreach programme to encourage neighbourliness during these times, need to go hand in hand and the most cost effective way is to digitise the tradesmen and local businesses, instead of clinging on to current platforms that take a big chunk out of every transaction.

Everyone has the tendency to patronise known businesses wherever they are. But with movement restrictions, we are forced to look for the same services within our neighbourhood. We always face privacy and trust concerns when dealing with strangers. ProppyApp™ introduces “KYC (Know Your Customer) levels”, “Endorsements” besides “Review & Ratings” for the merchants to quantify their reputation and eventually build a brandname that will accumulate into an intangible asset.

Future Plans

The currently much talk about “prop-tech” is still mostly just digitising advertising contents onto a website or mobile app without incorporating much of the elements of industrial 4.0 that includes AI, IoT and blockchain. ProppyApp™ will fully game change the industry by introducing an AI driven “infrastructure architecture” instead of just another digitise rent-seeking business model.

As part of our Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) effort we are offering most of our tools to the users, agents and merchants free of charge. At the moment we generate our income from Pro Business Package where extensive high-tech tools are being offered.

Malaysia is our first market where we build our model to later expand into Singapore and neighbouring regional markets by 2022. Currently, the Property Tech sector is only breaking into Prop Tech 2.0, whilst we have already introduced our new infrastructure that will game change the prop tech industry. But we cannot rest on our laurels and we have a product development plan that includes introducing new features that fully utilises the power of AI that will help us break into other industries and sectors.