Tom Staff

Co Founder Street Group

What is your career background?

I’ve always been very entrepreneurial and founded my first business whilst at university. After university, I founded my second company in Kendal in the Lake District which allowed local businesses to create offers only available to local residents. Looking back, it was similar to Groupon but limited to Kendal and therefore didn’t quite reach the same scale!

Soon after, I moved down to Manchester and began working at my dad’s estate agency where I worked for 3 years, introducing technology and automation into the company.

How did you come up with the idea to launch Street.co.uk?

Street.co.uk actually came after Spectre, and the first version of Spectre was actually me automating a process inside my dad’s agency! They regularly lost valuations to competitors who overvalued, so they manually kept track of these vendors in a spreadsheet and kept in regular contact.

I automated the tracking of the properties and wrote scripts to personalise the letters and tailor them to each vendor’s specific situation. Once we put the system into action, the results were pretty instant and it was clear that it could benefit more than just my dad’s agency. Compared to what Spectre has become, it was incredibly rudimentary but it was very effective at winning instructions!

Once we started Spectre, there was huge frustration in the group because we couldn’t integrate it with the agents’ current CRMs - we were constantly being asked by our clients whether we’d ever consider building a CRM. And to be honest, after my time working in an agency with a frustrating and inefficient CRM software, I thought, why not?
 

What’s your proudest achievement?

Having been an agent myself, I really wanted to tackle what I saw as the heart of the prop-tech problem… the Estate Agency software itself.

Building estate agency software is an enormous undertaking and it took us 5 years of relentless work to bring it to fruition. So I’d say that seeing it culminate in us being voted by agents as Best Overall Supplier at EA Masters last year would be my proudest achievement (so far!).

Which industry suppliers do you admire most?

I’d have to say Sarah Edmundson. I first met Sarah when she came into my dad’s agency to deliver training to the team, and her knowledge and genuine passion for the industry is unbelievable. She also does a huge amount to give back to the industry through her work with Agents Together and is always willing to give her time to bounce ideas off for our products.

Which estate agencies do you admire most?

Seeing as I started out making marketing software for estate agencies, I’m going to say Marsh & Parsons. I think what they have done with their marketing over the last few years has been amazing and totally different to what agencies have done before. 

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned from working with estate agents so far?

No two agencies are the same and everyone operates slightly differently. Making estate agency software, you learn this the hard way!

Stella Nicol

Head of Implementation 

What is your career background?

I’ve pretty much always been involved in the property industry in one way or another - apparently, I can’t get enough of it!

 
When I finished Uni, I joined Reeds Rains and started their graduate fast-track management program. I moved through the ranks pretty quickly, so I really got stuck into all aspects of sales, lettings, and branch management. I then went on to work as a Sales Manager for Barratt Homes, which I absolutely loved but couldn’t cope with never having a weekend off. Nobody wants to do anything with you on a Tuesday or Wednesday, which is the New Homes sector’s ‘weekend’, so sticking with the property theme I moved to a commercial development company.

How did you come to work for Street.co.uk?

I wasn’t even looking for a new job to be honest. I was working as the QA Manager for a large property development firm in Manchester at the time, and one of my colleagues had been applying for new jobs. One day, he told me he’d just had an interview for the business. The interview hadn’t worked out, but when he described the role and the company it sounded too good to miss. I made him give me Heather's number and went to meet them a few days later - they’ve been stuck with me ever since!

What’s your proudest achievement?

Work-wise, it’s definitely seeing the growth that we’ve achieved with Street.co.uk in the past couple of years. We’ve put a huge amount of focus and effort into making sure the product is as good as it can be and that our agents are properly looked after. The positive public feedback we’re getting about how well we’re doing in both of these areas is incredible. There is a huge team involved so I’m not in any way taking the credit, but to head up some of the team responsible for delivering what we’ve achieved still makes me incredibly proud.

Which industry suppliers do you admire most?

I think the team at Moneypenny do a phenomenal job. The culture they have created, the job opportunities for their local area, and the calibre and diversity of services they provide to agents are fantastic.

Which estate agencies do you admire most?

There are a few I really admire so I’m not going to name them, but for me, it’s the agents who are genuinely trying to operate in the future. I’ve spoken to so many who have maintained the same processes they were using 20 years ago, but it’s the agents that challenge their way of doing things and genuinely improve the customer experience that really move the rest of the industry forward and make a difference.

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned from working with estate agents so far?

It was only when I got on the supplier side of the fence that I realised how collaborative many agents are with each other. The way they are open to sharing ideas and helping each other grow their businesses, without ego or agenda, makes for a really great sector to work in. I recently took part in ‘Do it for Dom 2023’, which was a charity hike with about 60 agents and suppliers. The genuine friendships and camaraderie were so apparent, but I think it would really surprise people not working in the profession.

Ben Brown

Head of Product

What is your career background?

I worked in sales, marketing and product development roles for a multinational FMCG company before moving into Cyber Security Tech Sales and Channel Management. I realised I wanted to become a Product Manager due to the central nature of the role in most companies - working with sales, marketing, support and product teams often full of amazing people. I have since worked at one of the fastest-growing FinTech companies in the UK, a B2C FinTech that raised over £100m, and a digital agency that operated in many different industries building cutting-edge digital products for innovative companies.

How did you come to work for Street.co.uk?

Whilst working at the digital agency, I bought my first home and was really frustrated at how poor the experience was as a buyer. We experienced all of the typical issues - lack of transparency, uncertainty around the completion date, no proper guidance as to who does what in the process, and a lack of urgency from other links in the chain. 

On the back of that, I set about thinking about products that could solve some of the issues we experienced, and a friend (by chance) landed a job at Street.co.uk who were looking to find a solution for this process - so I joined with a view to solve those problems!

What’s your proudest achievement?

As a company, we have significantly grown the team and added several new successful products to our range. Having worked at other scaling companies that have struggled to make the transition from a small team working on one product, to many teams working on several products, I have seen how companies struggle to continue being effective and build successful products through growth.

I’m proud to say that since I joined, we’ve built Street.co.uk for sales and more recently for lettings, a data migration product bringing data into Street.co.uk, a mobile app for agents and a consumer app for our agencies. We’ve built Street Insights, a powerful data discovery and digital marketing tool, and rebuilt many parts of Spectre to ensure it offers an incredible user experience, leading to more growth and happy customers! Our teams have to be empowered to make that amount of progress in a couple of years - so I’m probably most proud of that! 

Which industry suppliers do you admire most?

I really like FixFlo - the product provides customers and end users with slick and accessible UX, and a third-party marketplace for contractors. I also really like some of the work Goodlord does in the pre-tenancy space. Some of the online mortgage brokers such as Habito have really impressive user experience and have transformed part of the mortgage application journey. 

Which estate agencies do you admire most?

I’d have to say Redbrik who are based in Sheffield. We’ve worked really closely together throughout the past two years as we have developed Spectre and built Street.co.uk, and they have been incredibly supportive and patient when we have needed time! 

Their team is often at the forefront of innovation when it comes to services offered by estate agents… they’re pioneering ways in which to reduce fall through rates and increase customer confidence in the sales market, they’re flipping property management on its head to offer a higher quality of service through asset management, and they’re looking to find efficiencies and improve customer experiences through digital journeys (in part, why they use Street!).

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned from working with estate agents so far?

Estate agency is still a very personal service and will likely continue to be so. When I first came into the industry, I was really interested in the impact of online agencies and how they could become a more dominant force - but I have since realised how limited they are in their service and knowledge of the market, and how important it is to have local people managing agencies.

Alex Cicchirillo
Senior Customer Support Manager

What is your career background?

I’ve been with Street Group for 6 years now, working on all our products at one time or another. Previously, I worked in car rental after graduating from university with a History Degree. 

How did you come to work for Street.co.uk?

I felt a little stuck in a big corporate company and thought a change was necessary to develop my skills and career. At the time, Street Group (or Agent Software as it was then known) was just building momentum with Spectre - and it was the type of environment I knew I’d thrive in. I started as the fifth-ever Street Group hire, and I’ve never looked back since! 

What’s your proudest achievement?

I’d say building out the Customer Success team on Spectre, before taking on a new challenge within the Street.co.uk team. I’m proud to say that I feel like an expert in all of our products, and it’s nice to feel that I’ve helped shape these products with the help of our customers over the years.

Which industry suppliers do you admire most?

I think I’d have to say Moneypenny. The culture, office, and people I’ve come across there are second to none. It’s also a really useful service for agents. 

Which estate agencies do you admire most?

It’s difficult to pick just one! My favourite single-branch agency is Alex Jones Estate Agents. They have really bought into Spectre and Street.co.uk, and are receptive to our advice. They’ve established a successful business over the past few years and it’s nice to feel a part of that. They also sold my house, which probably makes me a little biased!

It’s been great working closely with the vast majority of our customers over the years.

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned from working with estate agents so far?

Whilst the goal for most estate agents is (usually) the same, the methods by which they achieve these goals are often different. Our products are flexible enough to design a customer success plan that fits the estate agent’s needs, simply by listening to how they want to achieve their goals.

Click here to find out how Street.co.uk can help your agency.