Robert Reffkin: Compass

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2021

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Robert Reffkin had a hard time fitting in when he was growing up: raised by a single mom in Berkeley California, he was both bi-racial and Jewish, and had to learn to "feel comfortable with being uncomfortable." Even though he was a self-described C student, he was admitted to Columbia and landed a series of prestigious investment banking jobs, but often felt like he was failing. Then in 2012, Robert was tasked with writing a business plan as part of a job interview, but the plan was so intriguing that he was encouraged to launch it as an actual business. So with a partner, Robert launched Compass, a real estate company that focused on building technology to make agents' jobs easier. Less than ten years after launch, Compass is a publicly traded real estate brokerage with about 20,000 agents, valued at around $6 billion. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	When you leave home, can you ever really go back?
0:12.0	Made a version!
0:13.0	Soccer legend Leo Messi and I both left Argentina as kids.
0:17.0	You know you're that piece of a puzzle that doesn't fit anywhere.
0:20.0	To so many immigrants, football is a way to reconnect.
0:23.0	Listen to the last cop in the embedded podcast feed
0:26.0	to hear the latest collaboration from MPR and Fuduro Studios.
0:32.0	The way I knew that it wasn't working is I was listening to the customer.
0:37.0	You can see there was too much frustration.
0:39.0	The most consistent feedback is it was more complex and it took more work on their part
0:47.0	than it would have otherwise.
0:49.0	So within about a year, it's a little less than a year.
0:52.0	I go to the team and I say this isn't going to work.
0:56.0	What are we going to do?
1:01.0	From MPR, it's how I built this.
1:03.0	Show about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists
1:06.0	and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:15.0	I'm Guy Ross and I today show how Robert Reffkin wrote a business plan
1:19.0	just to get a job, didn't get the job,
1:22.0	but turned the business plan into compass,
	...

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