x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.
By Graham Norwood

Editor, EAT and LAT

Graham Awards

OTHER FEATURES

Exclusive - the final three Quirk interviews

“You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over,” is an oft-quoted saying of Richard Branson.

Well, quite a few of us fall over at some time: I certainly have, and maybe you too. A re-cent example of falling over on a big scale is Emoov’s founder and now former chief ex-ecutive Russell Quirk. 

The collapse of his company - which he puts down firmly to a failure by others to provide promised investment - may just be a tipping point for online agents generally. 

Advertisement

But one other consequence of Emoov’s demise has been the openness with which Rus-sell has spoken of errors and plain bad luck, and how he might have done things differ-ently had he known then what he knows now.

That’s what Branson meant, I guess, by learning from mistakes. You fall over and pick yourself up.

So, it’s perhaps not surprising that in a series of 11 (yes, 11) video interviews with proper-ty consultant Christopher Watkin, Russell has given a unique insight into Emoov’s col-lapse and, inevitably, his own desire to bounce back.

Eight of the 11 have already been aired on Christopher’s YouTube channel but now we can exclusively cover the final three on Estate Agent Today.

Like many prominent individuals in the agency industry, Russell is a Marmite figure; look at the comments beneath any story about him and you’ll see what I mean. 

But whatever your opinion, he’s always worth listening to.

The first of the three interviews concerns whether High Street agents should offer an online service given his own experience at Emoov…

The second is, one might say, ‘peak Quirk’ - his views on what is wrong with estate agen-cy today…

And finally…a look back at who was involved in Emoov and their role in its evolution and ultimate collapse…<

  • Michael Riley

    Which video in the series do we need to watch where the CEO takes responsibility for a poorly conceived and executed idea?

    I whole heartedly disagree with EAT about RQ being like Marmite in that he divides opinion.

    Marmite,is unqiuely different to this, in that regardless of whether it is liked by everyone, the brown spread is highly successful.

    Lets have some talent giving interviews in our industry....

    Lets have Jon Hunt (Foxtons founder) or Tony Pidgley (Berkeley Homes).... people who know their stuff, are worth listening to and built impressive (profitable) businesses from scratch.

    PS EAT Any reason why the news from over a week ago about PB changing their business model in the US hasnt been written about? I would have thought a few people might be interested in that.


icon

Please login to comment

MovePal MovePal MovePal