Hannah Chappatte, Founder @ Hybr

Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. I'm joined today by Marleen, my co-host, and, uh, we have a very special guest, uh, founder of Hyber, Hannah. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, we could just, uh, start off by contextualizing your journey a little bit before you started Hyber. You're at the University of Bristol, and that's, I guess, where your idea began. How did you find Bristol? Was it— did what you were studying there— was the aim to then go into like corporate? What was like the idea for your career before you started Hyber?

Um, yeah, good question. So I kind of thought that anyone, um, smart goes into like law, banking, consulting. I didn't really think there was many other choices out there, so I thought like had to go into consultancy, that down that route. And I applied for every consultancy firm under the sun, did a few assessment centres and absolutely hated it. I felt like I was losing part of my soul, like really didn't feel like it was a good fit. So when I was like hating that process and forcing myself into it, at the same time me and my flatmate would spend all night speaking about this concept of what was to be Hyber and this gap in the market, and I was so excited and like energized when I spoke about Hyber and what that could be. And then when I was doing the consultancy applications, I was miserable. So as soon as I graduated, I spent that summer just kind of thinking through business models, talking to as many people as I possibly could about the concept. And then come September, I started, launched it myself, like one-man band, um, with the help of my flatmate at the time, and went from there.

Yeah, I think it's— I resonate about a lot where it's like, I think By sort of kind of faking that, you know, these applications and like saying, okay, everyone else is doing it, like, this must be the best next step for me. When you realize that that's not for you, like, throughout the process, like, it's kind of scary in a way. It's like, oh God, okay, so what do I actually do? Like, we're not really told much about any other options, but it means that if you all have got that entrepreneurial spirit about it, like, it's kind of like, I've got to make this happen at this point. Like, And I think that's a really powerful, like, motivating force for a startup, like that, that sort of spark between, like, ideating and, like, iterating your products and, like, never really, like, announcing it or, like, saying, I am now a founder. What was that, that moment then, like, for you, when I was like, okay, this idea needs to actually, yeah, come to life?

So my flatmate was a medic, and every year he'd live in a different house, and every year he was the one that had the idea, and he used he'd say to his different housemates, I've got this idea, like, what do you think? And when I lived with him, he would say he had the same pitch, like, what do you think?

And just for the viewers, what was the idea?

The idea was really simple. It's kind of the thing that so many people have the same idea of. Renting sucks. 2.9 million students in a year rent every year. 1.8 million rent privately every year and go through the same ordeal of absolutely hating it. Not knowing where to go, not knowing who to trust, and there is a lot of exploitation. So there's just no solution, there's no platform where you could go and have all of your kind of rental problems solved in one place, and you could find a property with your friends. That concept of like, where, where is the, where is the marketplace for student accommodation in the UK? So that was the idea, and I just became completely obsessed with it in like that moment he mentioned it, and we just kept speaking about it. And I think the The reason why it potentially had the, I don't know, the appetite for risk for actually going into it was because my brother at that point had already joined a startup. So I'd kind of heard more around this startup world that I'd had no exposure to growing up. That I think then gave me the, okay, there is a world out there that's offering a different path to what we were told at school. But yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think we need education around what are the other industries? It's not just the startup ecosystem, but it's understanding the creative industry, it's understanding being a playwright or being working in theatre, design sets. Like, there's so many options out there, but you have no idea and you end up just going down a very traditional grad scheme path.

Yeah, I guess it's like there's one thing is the awareness, and then the other thing is like the education of like what you're actually getting yourself into. And yeah, given that you're in the startup space now, how would you best describe like you know, for the people that you're hiring, like, what is, what is the startup lifestyle like? Like, what can people expect? Like, what's a realistic, like, reason for people wanting to be part of it?

So I think if you're just considering as a— whether you're joining as like an employee, startups are incredible because they're a launch pad to your dream career. You get to fast-track your career trajectory and you get to learn about so many different parts of a business in one go. Like, you can be in the sales team, the growth team, you can learn about operations, you can have exposures to tech teams, exposure to senior leadership. We'll be in the senior leadership right after university. So the amount you can learn in that learning trajectory is— will be the steepest learning trajectory you ever get in your career. And you get to move and manage teams earlier on than you'd ever do going down the corporate, you know, ladder, going down that that route. So I think it's an incredible opportunity for anyone, and I think that's why I'm so passionate about the industry. And I think starting your own business, I mean, that's when you have to really challenge and question yourself on, like, am I ready for that? Because it's a huge amount of time commitment, it's a whole lot of stress and pressure, and you really need to know what you're getting yourself into. I think potentially part of the beauty of why doing after university is you have a lot of that naivety, so you don't quite know what you're getting yourself into, and you just kind of focus on the problem and building day by day. But yeah, it is a big commitment. It's not, it's not an easy, easy route in life.

So when you just graduated, you said like you spent your whole summer, you know, working out your business model, and then it worked out for you like right away in September. What do you think gave you the confidence to just kind of sit down and work out an idea that you had at uni rather than just maybe going to work for a startup first and then implementing your idea later on? Like, because you're still young, you're like 21, 22. Like, what, what do you think made you push through? Like, was there any people in your life that helped you? Or what, what, when you look back now, like, what do you think kind of made you successful with that?

I think it's really around— I think you know that you're doing the right thing when you're super passionate and excited. I think it was that direct comparison, something that made me really miserable versus something that I felt really excited. And I think it was just about putting— I felt like I had a lot of purpose as well. Like, I could— there was a problem that needed a solution. I could really visualize what, what that solution looked like, and I loved the process of mapping that out. Where did I want to be? Where are we today? And how do we kind of make that roadmap of how to get there? I found that incredibly satisfying. Satisfying. And I think that's another kind of great benefit of starting your own business. You have the creative freedom every day to be like, what am I going to work on? And how much impact that you can have in a day, I think that's just an incredible opportunity. And so I feel really privileged to do what I do. So I think there was just that excitement of, okay, this is the problem. I— the next step was cold calling as many landlords as I could possibly cold call and pitch them the concept. And they completely would, like, turn me down and said it was awful and why they'd never use it. And then you just write out, you know, a whole counter-argument, basically, and just using that constant feedback to build a model. Um, so that's kind of how it started.

Nice. And how has the idea shifted? Like, what was the initial, like, proposal that you gave to landlords, and how was that process, like, building it?

So the initial proposal was really kind of more of a lead gen tool, meaning just, you know, empty property, bring the students in. And now where we are today, it's a how can we remove the lettings function from institutional portfolios. Like, lettings teams are super inefficient. Their phones ring off the hook, emails, inboxes full of emails, lots of questions and customers back and forth. Tenants get rejected. It's an awful experience on both sides. And so really what we're doing is streamline that whole lettings function from marketing qualifying tenants to onboarding tenants, to accelerate lease-up, automate void management, and give all the marketing analytics of how you should, how you can basically scale your portfolio, and how you can really get the best rental yields and keep rents down, etc.

I find it interesting that you mentioned that counter-argument element, and how you were, you're a mentor at Debate. DebateMate, right? Yeah, yeah. So I guess, how did your experience there— like, you, it says you're a mentor, but, you know, often people say when you're mentoring people, you learn as much as, um, actually being a mentee. What did you take from that experience that you could apply to your, you know, your company and sales at the end of the day?

Yeah, I know, I'd absolutely love to shout out DebateMate because it's an incredible opportunity as well for students to get involved in. So when I was 18, I joined their team in Jamaica and lived in Kingston, and they had a really cool setup there where they're just teaching debating in schools. And then I continued when I was a student at Bristol, being a debate mentor and going into schools and teaching kids how to debate. And it's all the kids that didn't want to be in that class. They were basically kicked out of other societies and they had to be in the debating society, and it's really uncool and they didn't want to be there. So it was such a good opportunity to be really out of your comfort zone, having to get the attention of a class, how to make it super engaging, and teaching people the basics of like, you know, yeah, how do you lay out an argument, how to be articulate, how do you listen to the other side's point of view, and then how do you create an argument and make it personal so that you can really help them understand your perspective. And I think it just teaches empathy and teaches engagement and being able to articulate and storytell, which I think is like the biggest best skill set you can have as an entrepreneur is can you articulate your story in a way that people understand and they can relate to. And so yeah, I think to summarize, the storytelling ability that you get from debate mate is probably like the best thing I could have got from it.

Yeah, then you apply that storytelling ability to the world of VCs and, and you—

exactly—

you managed to, to raise, um, a really impressive amount. Um, and obviously everybody speaks about like sort of trials and tribulations of VC and, you know, how stressful and tough it is to actually get that investment. And then like sometimes even once you've got it, like the complications that come with that. What's your experience with the world of VC been so far?

Yeah, I think it's very challenging, especially when you go into it again, like, straight after university, you don't have that network. So the pre-seed round we first did in 2022 was all about building that network from scratch. And a big part of my journey starting Hyber was grant competitions, so pitching at the Enterprise Competition, which is part of the University of Bristol, Prince's Trust, Um, there was quite a few more that I did, basically what got you in front of an audience, got you to pitch the business, and like judges tearing it apart, challenging on it. So it's really great for kind of business development and kind of challenging, questioning your model, but also it gets you used to pitching and responding to questions. So that was really experience I didn't even know I needed that really helped when I went to raise the pre-seed. Um, but no, it's, yeah, difficult. You have to build a relationship, you have to tap into the high net worth angel community, and then once you impress one, you get introduced to another, and bit by bit you start meeting different people. Um, but you have to be such a yes man, you have to go to every event possible and just be ready to pitch at any moment.

And what do you think, in, in the beginning when you started pitching your business and like meeting these high network people as a very young person in the field, that you sometimes feel like you don't quite yet belong? Because I imagine, you know, these people are much older than you, and also most founders are like 30, 40. So as like a young woman, what do you think made you persevere in that context? And did you ever feel like, oh, you don't really belong, like imposter syndrome? Or were you always like, no, I'm making my, my impact, and this my place. Can you describe that a bit?

Yeah, definitely. I think it's, um, because what I knew that before I went out to raise— so for example, a lot of founders will have a concept and then they'll go and raise money based off the concept. I knew that would never sit well with me because I'd find it too hard to pitch something I didn't have any proof that I could do. So for me, the first 2 years was hustle, you know, do things that don't scale, really validate that you can build a very basic business, generating revenue, loved products, buy-in from the demand and the supply side, so that we had the foundations and the evidence that it could work to then pitch the business. So I had made sure that I had all the metrics I would be confident to pitch before I went out to pitch. And then I knew I'd worked really hard to get that, and I completely believed in the model and what we could do with, with funding. So I didn't have imposter syndrome because I had done the work beforehand, if that makes sense. And I think that's kind of what you should do, is just make sure you have the confidence and the backing, and you've got enough evidence to say, okay, if I have this funding, this is how I can accelerate growth, because I've already validated that these channels work, I've already got buy-in and contracts from these landlords, etc.

I'd say from almost the opposite angle of the question that you asked, my I think everyone knows how important nowadays a personal brand is, especially for a founder. And doing something when you're young, have that like sort of youthful naivety, um, and like delusional optimism, um, about what you're, you're building. I think the ability to then generate like taglines around that, like, you know, let's say it's a 24-year-old woman who's, you know, taken over the VC world and is changing students' lives, like that you could perceive your situation as like a very like, oh, I'm, um, you know, I'm not born out here, I don't belong here. Or you could really empower yourself with that position you're in and like the novelty of what you're actually doing. I mean, yeah, how did you— how do you sort of— I mean, I guess when you first started to now, how's that like feeling about what you're actually doing and your mission changed?

Um, I think The, probably the curse and the blessing is that you move the milestones every time. So I think it's really important to try and celebrate all the milestones as you kind of build to where you want to get to. But the problem is that you always move that flag. So as soon as you hit a milestone of your first 100 customers, your first, you know, raising your first part of capital, the break-even week, the break-even month, then you just keep on moving those milestones and then you're obsessing over the next milestone. So it's really hard to reflect and, and, you know, be really proud of where you've come because at the moment I'm just entirely fixated on where I need to get to next. And, you know, you're never quite happy with where you are. It always could be better. And I think that that's actually quite a useful mindset because it means that you're hungry and it means that you're not just sitting there like applauding yourself for all the work you've done. You're like, no, this could have such a greater impact. And I'm so excited and, you know, focus on getting to where I want it to be. Does that make sense?

Yeah, of course. And I think it's interesting, the different motivations behind actually, like, pursuing a company, especially when you're young at university, because you see so many ideas get lost because maybe you're not, like, as annoyed as, you know, the other person that your solution doesn't exist. Like, like you said, it's not the idea that was crazy, because everybody identified that as just a really horrible process. It was just like you were driven by like, how does this not like have a better solution? Maybe more than anyone else. Was that, you know, it probably, it's probably fair to say that your passion wasn't in like housing, like student housing. Yeah, who has that? But like, so it's your—

No, I didn't think I want to grow up and I want to be an estate agent. Yeah, yeah. Not that we are estate agent, but you know, that's not, it wasn't my dream industry. But I knew that I wanted to work on something I was super passionate about, and, you know, elevating student living, changing the way that young people rent forever, I mean, it's a pretty big hefty mission, and there's so many parts of that that make me so excited and why I want to commit myself to that. And it all just started with a, oh, there seems to be a really obvious gap in the market in Bristol, let's explore that and see where it leads to, and, and just kind of followed that path.

And sort of, of course, first it felt a bit like a one-man show, I imagine, like just you working on your startup and pulling all the strings. And then you got VC backed, and like suddenly you're— how big of a team now?

How many? We're 15.

Yeah, 15 people. I'm very curious, like, what does it feel like to lead such a big team? At your age as well? And what sort of— did you feel like you had like skills beforehand that really helped you do that now? And how do you kind of manage that? Because I think it's very different to just being like one person, you kind of work just by yourself, right? So what's that like?

An incredibly steep learning curve every day. And yeah, I mean, every week I look back and I'm like, I can't believe I thought that last week. So it's just— and then a month is like a year. And so startup land, um, so everything changes all the time, and I'm learning an incredible amount around like who to hire, what culture that we want to create, um, and yeah, I think it's now really all around making sure that you have that balance of people that you bring in the team that are super passionate about the mission and what you're doing and really buy in, as well as having that like hunger to learn and, you know, team players and particular expertise for what they're doing. And it's just been a balance of trying to find people that fit all of three of those.

Yeah, I think just going back to the point you were saying about the mission being like actually such a big one, when you, when you sort of, when you step back and think the effect of giving someone housing easily, like what that does on a bigger scale, I think again that's probably a massive motivator. Yeah, um, you know, it's similar like with With this podcast, for example, it very much started off as me addressing my own problem that I had no idea what I wanted to do, and just interviewing people I thought could help me find that out. And then it does become this thing where you start thinking like, well, actually, mental health issues and probably even financial issues come from people just not feeling like they're empowered, or like or feel like they've got that purpose in life. So if you can play any part in solving that, it's like— but get into that next, like, that, that sort of feeling, that sensation. Like, that's the tough bit, that bit in between where it's like you're just working off that one, like, you know, that one piece of good feedback, or that one person said you've got this, or that one person believed in you.

Yeah.

Until that it kind of resonates in your own head that what you're doing is, is bigger. Like That initial process, which I think for the student audience listening, which is most relevant to them, like, what are some like practical tips actually staying on track on the mission when building a startup in the early, early phases?

I think finding local small competitions is such a good route because that really helped build my confidence, applying to so many different competitions where I'd pitch the business. Firstly, it gave us equity-free funding in the early days to start hiring a team. So before I scaled up the team post-investment, I'd already had small teams because of the grant funding, which gave me access to freelancers, and it just gave me experience to dip my toe into managing teams before I was actually, you know, had a big team around me, which is a really important kind of baby step to take. So I think finding different competitions and finding different ways to test out your idea to put yourself out of your comfort zone and really build out that model, put your first financial model together. So business model, the financial model, and then standing up and pitching is a great experience. And then also you can test and see, like, does this feel right? Is this what I really want to do and invest my time into? Do I really believe in the business and where this can go? Um, and you're also getting feedback because no one tells you, congratulations, you've done a really good job. So Getting feedback and winning a small award is a really good, you know, green flag of, you know, you're on the right direction, you're doing a good job, some people believe in what you're doing. Or using social media as well, like building out a small community where you can test the idea and you can get users to shape the product in the early days. Again, it's getting that feedback and telling you you're not flogging a dead horse, you're on the right path.

Yeah, I think maybe the reason that you won these grants is because because, you know, it shone through at the competition that you had genuine intent with what you're building. And I think, like, in a similar light, when you're hiring people, um, it, you know, someone could have the same CV as the other person, but there are— and it's quite hard to articulate into words exactly why one person just strikes you more than the other to be part of your team. But, like, as you— what you do now does involve building a team, what is it you're actually looking for in a student to actually, yeah, push you ahead of the other people in terms of just like, if your CV says how capable you are, then how do you like, again, tell that story that you're, you're the person for the job?

In like an interview process?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think it's really like the characteristics people look for actually more than, and this is what I had to learn the hard way, it's so much more than this think what you have on your CV and actually how you come across in the interview. So our CEO calls it like the no dick dickhead test. Number one is like, are you going to be a good person to work with? Question we always ask people is like, when is it a good time, when is a good time to lie? Like just really trying to get to understand people's values, what they stand for, because you want to make sure that you're working with good people, especially when you're like a social impact or like mission-oriented business. So I think, you know, as a young person interviewing for different startups, it's make sure you're going in and you're being sincere, you're being yourself, and you're showing that you really care, you're eager to learn, and you really care about the business. Because everyone knows that you can learn skills, you can learn skills if you're hungry and you, and you're motivated, driven. So just by showing that you've got fire in your belly and that you really care, that's way more important than, you know, what university you went to and how many internships you got through family, friends, like actually showing that hustle. And actually, that's another thing, I love it when anyone did anything entrepreneurial at university, like whether that was being part of their, I know, running events, DJing, you know, working for the local paper or whatever it is, just like showing that you put yourself out there, that you were trying new things, you were earning money on the side, Depop, whatever it is, OnlyFans, whatever you're doing, just like showing that you're trying to look at alternative routes to, um, yeah, to make some money and also just like develop skills is super important.

So, um, when you— I'm curious because obviously like I think now at university there is more like this entrepreneurial push. If you put yourself in the right spaces and meet the right people, like you can find some people that like, yeah, I'm gonna like maybe not pursue like a classic corporate career and have my own startup, or at least want to work for startup. Like, when you were at Bristol, did you feel like there was a lot of support from the uni, or was it more like the students like made the networks? And like, looking back, do you think— because I, I think you mentioned you met EZA like at Bristol, right? So what was it like being together with like different founders or like people interested in startup back at uni? And did you feel it was like a collaborative environment, or did it feel more competitive? Because you were competing at these different, um, competitions and pitches, right? So what was your feeling there, like, looking back as a student? What, what was that like for you?

I didn't know anything about the Entrepreneurial Society, the Enterprise Society, Innovation Society. I had no clue existed. Everything— I only worked all of this out and found it once I'd committed to Hyber post-July 2019, so once I graduated. And Bristol is an incredible ecosystem for startups. I had no idea, so I had no exposure to it. So I wished I'd been involved in it. When I did the application, the processes of like the pitching post-graduating from uni, I spent a lot of time in Bristol because it's where I launched the business, and it's an amazing environment. It's not competitive. It's all about collaboration. I think the best, I think a lot of people agree with the mindset of view everyone as a partner, not competition. There's space in the market for all of you. And actually, if you're really mission-oriented, then you should be using each other to try and solve whatever problem you're solving. There is space for most people. So it is much more collaborative, and I really love it. But it's really sad that I didn't know about that at all. Instead, I did get involved in like the— is it called JSOC? I'm not sure what it's called, like the committee at University of Bristol. We had like a committee within our halls that ran events. So like I ran events within the halls and then I was involved with Student High Street, which was like a paper. And then I was involved with the Red Bull Wings programme. And then there was like one or two smaller things that I also did that was like good. Experience of how can we mobilize student communities to increase brand awareness, and how can you engage students who are the first touchpoint in that consumer life cycle. And I found that really interesting, and that was all more exposure that potentially led to wanting to start Hyper.

Um, before we started the podcast, we had a little conversation about like marketing and how it might have changed from the beginning to where it's at now, and You say a lot of it is now sort of more like technical, or like maybe behind the scenes might be the right word for it, instead of like guerrilla. Um, with, you know, social media and the direction it's going, like, what are you sort of aiming to do with your, your content going forward? Like, how are you— because obviously, like, I think one thing that you've got obviously on your side is that you are the leading company in your space. But like not getting complacent and like keeping pushing yourself forward, maybe without that like direct competition. Yeah, like how are some ways you're trying to like innovate your marketing process, for example?

So we want to do a lot more on the campus marketing this year. So if anyone's listening and wants to get involved in London, Bristol, Manchester, and actually Liverpool as well, so students in those cities that want to join ambassador schemes or create the ambassador scheme We're really on the hunt for entrepreneurial students that we will give the budget and they can own it, obviously with the guidance and any requests and marketing materials from our growth team in London. But we're really looking for those people that want to dip their toe into the startup life and understand whether this is something that they want to go down and get exposure. And they can run on-campus events, they can run referral schemes, they can partner with local societies, with the university, and it's all about creating noise on campus. I think everyone knows, well, most people know about Thursday and how they kind of exploded in their early days, and it was all guerrilla marketing and how do you get loads of press and how do you get everyone talking about your brand. And there's a lot of stuff we want to do, like, in a similar vein. So yeah, we're really looking for students because it's also so important for us that we've always got students working with Hyber so that they can instruct the product and shape our thinking and make sure that we're not ever becoming out of touch, it's the last thing we ever want. So yeah, it's really important as we've always got interns working for us who are students, and it's a big part of this year is making sure we've got that on-the-campus presence as well as doing, building the scalable growth engine that understands content marketing and SEO and social media. So it's always a balance of both.

Yeah, I actually had a question about that because I think we've touched briefly upon like the more landlord side, who are your customers, right? And then like students would be more like your user, users, but they're not the ones paying you. Is that right in terms of the business model?

Or everything is students?

Oh, everything is students. So if I'm a student, like, why should I go through Hyber? Like, what do you think was the real difference between like me going on, I don't know, SpareRoom or Zoopla and like trying to find a place? What, what is the customer pathway that you kind of built?

Yeah, yeah, great question. So The big issue for when I wanted to— why I wanted to start Hiber was like 70% of the time when students use Rightmove, they'll never hear back after they make an enquiry. And that's because they get deprioritised against professional renter, or just because it's such an inefficient process that the agents can't possibly get back to every enquiry. A property averages around like 40 enquiries on Rightmove. So there's just no— and if there's a portfolio of 50 just in one portfolio, 50 properties, you can just imagine the overload. So it gives a really awful experience as a young root user when you don't know, you're still having to walk up and down the high street, speak to local agents where they only have a small amount of properties that you can compare, and it creates a lot of panic. Everyone panics and rushes into finding a house, which leads to people being exploited, scammers, etc. So it's just a really stressful, anxiety-inducing experience. So what we're doing at Hyber is we're aggregating all available homes. So we're talking about a landlord with 1 property to 5 properties, investor-backed larger landlord portfolios, live-in landlords to the private rental sector, which is the large apartment blocks full of a co-living environment with mixed use. So young professionals as well as students. Or the purpose-built student blocks where they're just more student residences. So, and even service apartments, apart-hotels. We have a wide range of accommodation with different budgets and kind of price points. Short-term tenancies, long-term tenancies, all in one place, all vetted landlords, so that as a young user you can come on, you can say you're looking for just yourself, or you're looking to join a house share because you haven't managed to find friends and it's been not— maybe first year was a bit shit because it's quite shit for everyone. Or you've come with a really big group of people and you want to live with 10 people. It's about that curation and that personalized experience so we can match you to the right property through a supportive journey that understands what you're going through and what you're looking for.

Yeah.

And as we near towards the end of the episode, I've got one more question before my final question I ask every guest, which is, um, so, uh, recently you just announced that you're a partnership and collaboration with a care home. Um, what is that? Am I right saying that?

Um, it's Senior Living.

Senior Living, yeah. So I guess when you said about having to be a yes man in the VC world, there's a weird turning point where you have to suddenly start thinking about what you say yes and what you say no to in terms of like partnerships, your, your company, which is something that I'm like beginning to experience even in like early stages, it's like learning how to say no becomes as important as like the confidence to say yes. So like, for example, that partnership, why did that feel right to you? Like what, what made that make sense to you?

So one part of our mission at Hiber, which is to support young renters and ensure there's a house that's relevant for everyone, is to open up housing in the UK market. And we're in a housing crisis where we are supply constrained, meaning there's not enough housing for students. So I very passionately believe that there should be no empty spaces. You know, we're at a housing crisis, there should be no empty rooms. So I'm really a big proponent of mixed-use living, which means co-living. It means whether the half the building's a hotel, half of it's longer-term booking, or any type of young professionals with students. Our matchmaking algorithm takes into account the tenant's criteria are they looking to live with students, are they looking to live with older people because they want a place to study and focus, like, what are you looking to get out of the house, and then matching you to the relevant building. So we want to bring on as many rooms as possible, and Senior Living are some of these incredible new apartment blocks, I can't tell you how nice they are, like, you know, we're talking like restaurants and gyms and cinema rooms, right, really close to some university campuses. And it's a really lovely way to say to maybe a student that wants to be a nurse or a student that was come from, you know, some other country who was really close to their grandparents and feels a bit nervous about, you know, living with young people for the first time. It's about finding those people that match that building and bringing the energy and youth of young people into a building full of wisdom and older people to create a really nice dynamic. But it's only— it's not for everyone, it's for certain people, and that's why the matchmaking is so important.

I love that. And I guess, like, when you offer so many different options, like, taking something on like that for, like, a very particular group, as you said, like, that's just gonna increase user satisfaction. And they're like, you know, some people might look at that, it's like, oh, that doesn't really make sense in my head, but it doesn't have to make sense to everyone. That's not exactly why you did it. Um, and yeah, my final question to you, uh, yeah, which I ask every single one of my guests, is when you first arrived at Bristol and maybe when you were doing your applications to consulting companies, you would have had a certain idea of what success looked like for you and your career. Fast forward and you've done a lot with Hyva, made a lot of learnings, built this team. What is your idea of a successful career?

Really great question. I think my idea of a successful career is one where you're really excited about what's in front of you So whether that's looking up to a manager or the boss and thinking, I want that position. And so there's a really clear trajectory of like, I'm really excited about where this is going, and you feel passionate and excited to get up in the morning, and your alarm goes off and you don't think, fuck this, like, there's nothing more— like, I want to go on holiday. You think, I'm so excited to go to work because I'm doing something that matters. I think those two things are super important. And obviously the third is like be able to sustain the lifestyle that you want, like whatever that is, so that money doesn't become absolutely everything. So I think like those 3 things are like a way to sustain a lifestyle that you personally want, which is entirely up to you as an individual, something that you can be passionate about, and you're on a trajectory where you can learn and you're excited.

Love that. Thanks so much for coming on. I really love that one. Um, and Molly, thanks very much for co-hosting.

Thanks.