When I think about why I work at Redfin, I have to begin with real estate. It happened organically, but my career has always revolved around the built environment. Prior to Redfin, I worked at interior design, architecture and real estate marketing companies. In fact, my first job was at a subcontracting company that sold toilet partitions and accessories. (How glamorous!) I love real estate because it’s an industry in which a project isn’t a virtual concept but a place that I can see, touch and feel.
As a technology-powered brokerage, Redfin offered me the chance to work in a familiar industry within an unfamiliar environment: one of the hottest startups in Seattle. I joined as the second full-time member of Redfin Builder Services, which provides sales and marketing services to developers of condos, townhomes and single-family homes. It’s not very often that you get a chance to be involved in building something from the ground up. As a startup within Redfin, Builder Services offered me that opportunity.
Bringing the Power of Redfin to Builders
During the Amazon Fire phone launch earlier this summer, Jeff Bezos showed a slide that said simply: “Recipe for trust: 1) Do hard things well. 2) Repeat.” It’s become my motto for Builder Services. As a company, Redfin already does this well. We took something hard for consumers, the often opaque process of buying and selling real estate, and found a way to do it well through a marriage of service and technology. Then we repeated it — for thousands of customers.
Redfin Builder Services aims to do the same thing for a different audience: developers of new urban condos, townhomes and single-family homes. Engaging Redfin for sales and marketing allows builders to reach potential buyers in the right place, at the right time, with the right message. As the most-visited brokerage website, we offer builders an unparalleled audience of people searching for homes. Our data-driven sales and marketing approach is complemented by local insights from Redfin agents.
Early Wins
During my first week, I got my hands dirty planning a groundbreaking event for our condo project in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood: Solo Lofts. Within three months, I was working alongside our consumer engagement team on a Redfin homepage takeover for Grow Community on Bainbridge Island that would be seen by tens of thousands of Redfin users in the Puget Sound region.
Secret Sauce: Our Team
I’m working shoulder to shoulder with our real estate team and designers, engineers, analysts, event planners, email marketing specialists and PR professionals — all under one roof. It’s the first time I’ve worked on such an integrated team, and every day offers a new opportunity to learn.
Being an early member of a startup within a startup means I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing 12 months from now, but with the incredible technology and team of Redfin backing me up, I know it’s going to be good.
About Jessie Culbert
Jessie is marketing manager at Redfin Builder Services in Seattle. She was among the first marketing professionals to receive LEED® accreditation. Jessie completed the University of Washington Certificate in Commercial Real Estate in 2013. When she’s not at work, Jessie rows on a competitive women’s team at Pocock Rowing Club.
This post is part of a series titled “Why I Work at Redfin.” Check out other posts in the series to learn more about what it’s like to work at a growing customer-first real estate brokerage. For more information on Redfin, and to check out open jobs at the company, visit Jobs at Redfin.
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