When Morgan Carey launched Real Estate Webmasters (REW) in April 2004 in his hometown of Nanaimo, BC, few could have imagined the massive growth and success the company would achieve.
In just over 10 years, Real Estate Webmasters grew from an SEO and web design start-up to the world’s largest custom technology provider in the real estate industry, with more than 200 employees in-house at the company’s offices in Vancouver BC, Nanaimo, Montreal and Buffalo, N.Y., serving over 40,000 customers on 4,000-plus systems in the U.S. and Canada.
Early Focus
When Carey looked to the real estate industry for his first clients, he identified a dire need for search engine optimization, in addition to the industry’s desire for elegant website designs. Out of this observation, Real Estate Webmasters was founded. REW’s premise was clear from the first day: to go into a niche, to go deep, and to be the best at it. This focused approach soon started to pay off, and the company grew rapidly.
Profitability Is Key
Real Estate Webmasters managed to be profitable from day one, and has been ever since. As a matter of fact, the company hasn’t had a single negative quarter over the last 12 years. Being profitable has allowed Real Estate Webmasters to experience a large degree of freedom by not having to rely on investors’ money to facilitate growth and development.
Appearance on National Television
In 2014, Carey appeared on CBC’s “Dragon Den,” where he pitched his company to venture capitalists and made a deal with Jim Treliving and Michael Wekerle to the tune of $2 million for 4 percent equity—the largest deal ever made on reality TV. Carey’s appearance on the popular show, spiked Real Estate Webmasters popularity, resulting in a never-seen-before amount of traffic to the company’s website and registration of new leads. Stories about Real Estate Webmasters and interviews with Carey were soon featured in some of Canada’s most prestigious magazines, helping attract new customers and facilitating the acquisition of executive-level staff members.
The company’s intention was never to appear on television solely for the money, but for the mentorship and contacts. When being cast for the show, Carey was asked by one of CBC’s producers, “Are you just here for TV?” to which he replied, “I’ve taken this company to a hundred people. Do you know how to take a company from a hundred to a thousand people?” The producer said, “No,” and Carey responded with, “Neither do I. That’s why I need the advice and leadership that the Dragons would bring to the table.”
Awards
Real Estate Webmasters’ marketing team almost never misses an opportunity to apply for awards and company rankings. Most prominently, Carey was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
The company has also been featured in Canada’s Profit 500 Ranking of Canada’s fastest growing companies three consecutive years. Achievements like these are huge motivators for any company’s staff members, since they represent an acknowledgement of the team’s accomplishment by a non-affiliated third party.
Regardless of this great marketing success and company growth, none of this would have been possible if Real Estate Webmasters didn’t deliver world-class products. As Carey notes, “Our core technology and our ability to customize our products allows us to provide tools that adapt and enhance our clients’ business processes, rather than trying to convince them to change their processes due to our software limitations. For large enterprise clients, we think this is a huge differentiator.”
Anton Nikl is chaos coordinator at Real Estate Webmasters Inc.
For more information, visit www.realestatewebmasters.com.
