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Where Is The Monii Money

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About Me

Asking Oliver Gleave (Loop Software) where £180,770 Crowdcube investment went when Monii ceased trading 64 days later.

my expertise in the industry

It's a simple question, Where is the Monii money?

In May 2016, Monii Limited raised £180,770 on the crowdsourcing website CrowdCube. Eight weeks later, the company ceased trading. There would have been two months running expenses and possibly some limited redundancy payments. However, this does not explain where this substantial amount of money went.

103 investors in Oliver Gleave’s company are owed an explanation.

One of the investors trusted Oliver Gleave with £20,000 - her life savings. Life is the key word here as this young lady was terminally ill with secondary breast cancer. A fact that Oliver knew. Having no children of her own, she wanted to leave a legacy for her nieces and nephews.

She died in May 2018. It is for her that we want the truth about were the Monii money went.

Where Is The 's Recent Activity

Data indicates that people move on average every 20.8 years (longer in London and shorter in Kent!). There's long-tail and there's long-tail... Would be good to know how the FIA actually tested the viability of this product and what the demonstratable improvement on the "64%" (and where did that number come from?) was. It's a clever idea though. A software marketing product that is unchallengeable in terms of having to demonstrate a return on investment. A salespersons dream!

From: Where Is The Monii Money 01 December 2020 11:13 AM

One of the promises of technology is the automation of routine, repetitive or mundane tasks to the point at which personal intervention or decision is required. My experience of the relationship between estate agents and the various proptech solutions is that rarely does a new or change of CRM system bring about a fundamental change in the commercial success of an estate agent (assuming that commercial success is the desired outcome). This is a good thing for estate agents. It means that a bad estate agent is unlikely to be transformed into an outstanding estate agent by technology alone. It is rare for an estate agent to change how they operate based on the provision of a new or different technology platform. Here's a simple analogy. Excel has over the last couple decades become a shadow of its original self with a whole host of functionality and widgets being added with every iteration. However, how I use Excel hasn't changed since 1993. Protech is yet to understand the psychology of technology usage...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 25 November 2020 10:29 AM

Or just tell your competition what you've been appraising and save £100 month...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 20 October 2020 09:36 AM

Where's the analysis to prove this claim? And the follow-up question is, what is meant by sell? Zoopla says that it takes an average of 50 days to sell. Let's say two months is 60 days. If sell is time on the market, then it's a "Back to the Future" moment. Hidden in the small print is the right to change agent if a buyer is not found which must then increase the time on the market. Taking the value of the property listed and dividing by the UK average house price, we're looking at around 200 properties listed. Statistically, a third will complete, so a best guestimate on revenues is around £120,000. That's not bad for what is intrisically a photography and floorplan company!

From: Where Is The Monii Money 13 October 2020 09:25 AM

For sales agreed, it would have been more meaningful to have the actual numbers and then a large pinch of salt. To cannibalise another phrase, "...sales arranged is vanity, sales completed and commission paid is sanity..." I'm also not clear on the data sources to make such a judgement.

From: Where Is The Monii Money 09 October 2020 10:16 AM

They forgot to mention the YSL Kouros aftershave that could strip wallpaper at 100 yards...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 09 October 2020 10:01 AM

If something needs constant medication, chances are it's not well. Medication may alleviate the illness and give the impression of normality. It may delay death but if there is no cure, the removal of the medication brings the reality of fragility sharply into focus. The housing market appears to be heavily medicated. A rise in property prices may be a false positive as an indicator of health. The idea that all is normal because the graph is pointing up is possibly a distraction from what is really happening. The delay in what's going at the coalface today is rarely reflected in this historically correlated data. I worked through the boom of the eighties and the recession of the early nineties. I remember house price drops of 40%, negative equity and repossessions. That was 30 years ago. The challenge will be that estate agents and homeowners either didn't experience this or don't believe it could happen again...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 02 October 2020 10:30 AM

I think I may have missed something. The fee is calculated as a percentage of the price regardless of how long it's on the market. I can't see any relevance in this "research" at all. In fact, let's give sellers a reason to drive down the fee by telling them that on a daily basis one agent is "cheaper" than another. It's got the feel of an inexperienced marketer who got to page 19 of "Online Marketing Hacks" which recommends report writing as useful content generation! Anyhow, time to make a brew in my chocolate teapot...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 24 September 2020 13:02 PM

1. It would be useful for mio to explain what it means by "'...have a positive impact on transaction times and fall throughs..." whilst supporting any claims with some data. 2. PIP Vault is only a differentiator is your competition isn't using so I guess they'll be limiting who can use it to support this claim? 3. AgentRelay claims thousands of estate agents are using it but has yet to rustle up a client testimonial...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 24 September 2020 12:53 PM

I thought about this over night and have a couple of further thoughts. Forbes believes that 90% of tech companies fail so that is more likely to be the starting place for your claim of a percentage failure reduction. Maturing Innovation is almost an oxymoron although I do agree that innovation should come from within with the caveat that any idea should be religiously challenged. Encourage people to fail quickly and cheaply. Never engage experts. An "ex" is a has been and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure!

From: Where Is The Monii Money 24 September 2020 07:30 AM

This is Bertrand Russell's teapot! Give me a real-life Proptech example of solving a problem that doesn't exist yet? I think you can identify a problem and build an education piece to highlight the problem which then has a possible solution through technology as this requires an acknowledgement that the problem exists in the first place. I suppose you can say that a technology has been created and what are the Proptech implications but again, this is not about timing and it would still have to tilt towards solving the problem. You can eliminate the "chicken and egg" situation by having a problem-focused technology methodology and no carts or horses will be hurt or damaged during this process!

From: Where Is The Monii Money 23 September 2020 11:47 AM

Just wear the f****** masks! The arguments about doors locked, highstreet presence, commercial categorisation are irrelevant. Get some branded masks. Leave them on appraisals, drop them through other agents properties but more importantly, wear them and show YOUR customers that THEIR safety and the safety of your STAFF is being taken seriously. Rant over...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 23 September 2020 10:29 AM

It's an interesting take and I'd like to add a couple of points. ONS data says that 42.4% of business fail within the first five years. If nothing else changes, the figure of 424 would reach 3,468 failed companies. That's not "because", it just "is". Someone much more clever than me once said, "...the only reason for any purchase is to solve a problem or to have fun..." Timing is a hard one to measure but solving a problem isn't. Technology either addresses the issues or doesn't. I suspect that particularly in PropTech, businesses tend to focus purely on the delivery of the "new" and fail to solve the problem.

From: Where Is The Monii Money 23 September 2020 10:18 AM

I think the phrase is something like, "...it's not the hours you put in but what you put into your hours..." Again, focusing on one data point fails to provide anything meaningful. The only situation where this has any value is if a) people charge by the hour and b) what that hourly rate is. Even that's flawed but it's better than this irrelevant nonsense. Rayner Personal have done a couple of these pieces now and if they continue in this way, it'll just damage their brand...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 23 September 2020 09:36 AM

I'm reminded of a Basil Fawlty rant where he says, "...next contestant, Basil Fawlty, answering questions on the bleeding obvious..."

From: Where Is The Monii Money 17 September 2020 09:14 AM

Robin is spot on. The engagement rate is a better measure. Any analysis that is only looking at one metric is inherently flawed. Consider that unhappy clients also follow. May be this is a measure of how many people these agents have upset!!

From: Where Is The Monii Money 28 July 2020 09:02 AM

Next time you speak to Oliver, ask him about the missing £180,770 from Monii. Trust is very important if you're going to start recommending products...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 12 February 2020 11:11 AM

Next time you speak to Oliver, ask him about the missing £180,770 from Monii. Trust is very important if you're going to start recommending products...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 12 February 2020 11:10 AM

Next time you speak to Oliver, ask him about the missing £180,770 from Monii. Trust is very important if you're going to start recommending products...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 20 January 2020 09:48 AM

Interesting read. My view has always been that the role of technology is to automate the boring and/or routine allowing us to focus on the more interesting and ideally more rewarding work.

From: Where Is The Monii Money 15 January 2020 08:14 AM

In a similar vein, and supporting the "...controversial crowdfunding site..." label, Oliver Gleave, the founder of Jupix, also used Crowdcube to raise over £180,000 in his new venture Monii Ltd and ceased trading 64 days later. The Crowdcube valuation was in excess of £600,000. Not bad for a company with no viable product and no customers! Just Google Where Is The Monii Money...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 26 January 2019 11:04 AM

Bracknell. Prospects Estate Agents. 1992. £350 + VAT. We should be celebrating 25 years of a fixed fee service...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 15 June 2017 09:56 AM

Is this really news? A complaint is made. It gets investigated. A conclusion is made. It's the final result that matters, not the probing.

From: Where Is The Monii Money 05 May 2017 09:02 AM

It has nothing to do with the good of estate agents. It's a pure-play revenue generator by a founder who refers to estate agents as "lazy and inept". (end quote) The NAEA claims to have 10,500 members. If CIELA had those kinds of numbers, it’s annual turnover from membership alone would be £4,410,000! That’s an 18 fold increase on the founder’s property software business! Put another way, CIELA needs only 596 members to replace its other revenue interests! There’s around 18,000 estate agency businesses in the UK, so if I say there are two directors for each company, there are at least 38,000 potential people that meet CIELA’s criteria of being either a shareholder or director. To match the revenues of the founder’s property software business, only 1.56% of their potential audience need to become paid members. Not looking to burst anybody's bubble but when you know and understand the personalities involved, you see CIELA for what it really is...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 04 April 2017 10:48 AM

So CIELA have a problem with some of the wording and claims of PB, but the very independents they represent have been fined for running a cartel (https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2017/3/four-estate-agents-pay-370-000-after-admitting-price-fixing). PB don't fit the criteria for membership when it comes to CIELA so why is there the continued need to attack them? Surely you'd focus on the positives of the agents you represent rather than the negatives of those you don't. And don't for one moment think that independents don't make misleading claims. Local to me, Marriots claim 30% of the local market and Rightmove says it's 5%!

From: Where Is The Monii Money 03 March 2017 12:33 PM

CIELA has nothing to do with standing up for the independence and everything to do with revenue generation. The annualised cost for joining CIELA is £420. (ARLA/NAEA is £260). Total market size is around 38,000 in terms of independent estate agents who are registered directors at Companies House. If CIELA was ti reach NAEA membership numbers, is annual revenue would be £4,410,000. An estimate of Easymatch’s revenue is around the £300,000 mark and declining. CIELA is an opportunity to replace Easymatch’s revenue. CIELA only needs 714 members to replace its existing revenue or 1.87% of the 38,000 total market. I’ve written quite an extensive piece on the whole CIELA premise that I’ll be publishing soon…

From: Where Is The Monii Money 03 March 2017 12:26 PM

Interesting article. Taking the ZPG acquisition of Hometrack, have you considered that ZPG could be lining up to go direct? Other proptech investments by ZPG (Vieweet 360 being one) seems to indicate more consumer based products rather than agent focused. Both MoveIT and uSwitch provide additional consumer data that marries well with Hometrack. Doing some very quick and dirty maths, ZPG only needs around 5% of the UK residential sales market to cover all the revenue lost by no longer being a portal. I've been watching Trussle for a while and I suspect they will have a greater impact on the housing market than all the other proptech gadgets and gizmos put together. I actually think there's already enough products and services for the high street agent to successfully leverage technology for commercial advantage. There's a raft of CRM's, valuation, messaging and marketing options to piece together a coherent and connected property experience. But, the agent is only one pillar of the property process. Finance and legal are the other two. Trussle could be the start of an emerging market that simplifies the financial side of buying and selling. Legal is a bigger challenge as it's an industry stooped in tradition having been pretty much the same for hundreds of years. There's a company called Juro who are using artificial intelligence to create employment contracts. It's not too much of a stretch to see this extended to conveyancing. Digital house contracts created in seconds is a real possibility. Why is this relevant? One of the investors in Juro is also an investor in ZPG! So with a strong property website, CRM technology, price comparison software, self-instructing technology and an interest in AI contracts, ZPG only needs finance to over a complete instruction to completion model with or without estate agents. What's the betting that Alex Chesterman's already got Ishaan Malhi on speed dial...?

From: Where Is The Monii Money 08 February 2017 11:07 AM

This has more to do with revenue generation than improved standards in the industry. I have a firm recollection of my meeting with Charlie in March 2015 where he eluded to his next big financial opportunity...

From: Where Is The Monii Money 22 January 2017 18:27 PM

Morning Simon. I've just sent you a LinkedIn request as I have additional information and views on CIELA. Hopefully you'll accept.

From: Where Is The Monii Money 21 January 2017 10:28 AM

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