AlleyCorp Founder Voices: Adeel Mallick
Adeel Mallick is CEO and Co-Founder of Humming Homes, an AlleyCorp incubation which recently raised a $5.6M Seed round.
Introduction
We’re thrilled to share that Humming Homes, an AlleyCorp incubation, has raised a $5.6 million seed round. Founders Adeel Mallick, Kyle Carnes, and their team are using technology to revolutionize home management and the home service industry. The funding round, announced last week in The Real Deal, was led by Greycroft, with participation from Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, New Valley Ventures, Abby Levy Miller (Founder of Primetime Partners & Former President of Thrive Global), along with continued investment from AlleyCorp.
Our excitement in the real estate tech space only grows as Humming Homes joins AlleyCorp portfolio companies Blueground, Great Jones, Properly, and Valon Mortgage as innovators in this high-growth, high-potential sector.
This month, we are thrilled to feature Humming Homes’ Founder and CEO - Adeel Mallick - on the AlleyCorp Blog, to talk about his journey so far, this exciting raise, and what’s next for the company.
— The AlleyCorp Team
Adeel Mallick, Co-founder and CEO of Humming Homes
Tell us about Humming Homes and the unique opportunity you’re building for.
For most families, the home is their most important asset — both as the place where so much of life takes place, and as often their largest financial investment.
But while so much of the world has gone online, the management of the home and home services has stayed offline. The average household spends between 1% - 2% of their home’s value on home services every year, from gutter cleaning and repairing appliances, to making small home renovations and improvements. But despite this sizable expense, most homeowners are navigating home management alone, often with an overstuffed binder on the kitchen table as their only “official record”. Until recently, only the most affluent could have an estate manager bring professional expertise to navigate this process.
We’re building Humming Homes for the next generation of homeowners. We’re currently seeing the youngest average cohort of homebuyers on record, with 42% of those buying homes doing so for the first time, and 40% of homebuyers under the age of 40. Additionally, more than two-thirds of homeowners today are dual income households. Today's owners are unaccustomed to managing their home, having previously rented, where a super or property manager handled upkeep. As dual career households, many of today’s homeowners are short on time, and would rather spend it enjoying their home and families, while leaving proactive and reactive upkeep to the experts.
Humming Homes is an end-to-end home management solution powered by software for single-family homeowners. With a digital-first experience, dedicated in-person home management teams offering a single point of contact, 24/7 live support, and data and insights to avoid reactive and expensive home maintenance issues, the system is designed to overhaul what it means to own and maintain a home.
What’s the founding story behind Humming Homes?
In many ways, Humming Homes is a culmination of everything my partner Kyle Carnes and I have ever worked for. It’s also a reflection of every life experience I’ve had growing up in a first-generation immigrant household. Being the son of an entrepreneur, I’d like to think that I have some founder DNA.
That said, the genesis of Humming Homes began when I was in business school at MIT Sloan. Beyond the classroom, I spent all my free time exploring the world of real estate technology, having worked at Katerra and invested in real estate tech companies at Sound Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. It was those experiences that allowed me to see so much of the category broadly and make meaningful connections to help further all the ideas I initially had.
After being introduced to Kevin Ryan, I started digging into the macro trends around homeownership and the broader home services industry. I found it remarkable that there had been such little innovation in one of the largest categories of household spend.
I was then introduced to my now-partner Kyle through a mutual friend. He had just hit his five-year mark at Instacart, having helped scale the rapidly growing company as an operations leader, and was looking for an opportunity to go from 0 to 100 with another offline industry. As we spent more time together exploring the home services market, a clear and massive opportunity began to present itself.
The platform we had been brainstorming was the answer. It became clear to us that a new, innovative approach could radically transform the ownership experience by saving homeowners time and delivering peace of mind.
What challenges surprised you as a founder?
There are definitely challenges you expect as a founder. Starting from scratch, taking something from zero to one, building a team - that’s really difficult. But everyone knows that going in; those are table stakes.
One challenge I didn’t understand before I was a founder was that all of your flaws as an individual are highlighted when you’re building a company. The way you handle stress, the way you communicate, the way you manage up and down, how you motivate early members of a team, all of that comes to a head.
I now believe one of the most important things any founder can do is to be very thoughtful about coaching and personal development. I’d suggest investing in a career coach or a therapist, basically to get somebody who can help enable you to be the best version of yourself for your team and for your customers. That should not be the responsibility of a spouse or a partner, that’s something that you need to separately invest time and mindshare into.
Humming Homes has grown rapidly. Tell us about your journey from founding to today.
Over the last 18 months, we’ve taken Humming Homes from a sentence about home services to a company with close to 15 employees (and growing - we’re hiring fast!) and have raised over $8M in venture funding. Since launching services in October 2020, we’re now operating in markets across the tri-state area and managing over $500M in home value.
This is all a testament to our team and partners from day one - who rolled up their sleeves during uncertain times in the world (COVID and housing markets), supporting the business and our mission to transform the home services industry. With the support of my co-founder, Kyle Carnes, all of our early team members, Kevin, Wendy and the rest of the AlleyCorp team, we have taken this company from an idea to a reality. I’m incredibly proud of that and we’re just getting started.
You’ve built an incredible early product and team, you’re rapidly bringing in customers, and you’ve raised another significant round of funding. Tell us about what you’re thinking about in the upcoming months?
Over the next year, we’re focused on three core mandates internally: 1) hire the best operators, technologists and leaders in a competitive hiring market 2) sign up more homes and show extensibility across regions and 3) further build out our operations and technology offering to iterate and innovate based upon what homeowners need and want from Humming Homes. Our number one priority is to have the best people on the field, who believe in the mission and want to go after this problem. That’s what I believe will make the difference here - being almost flawless at execution!
Our long-term vision is to be the world’s most trusted home services partner. We want Humming Homes to be a marker of standards and quality so much that one day in the future, a new home buyer wouldn't think of buying a house if it’s not a Humming Home. Our North Star is to create a world where more people can make the leap into owning a home, and enjoy the personal and financial benefits that come with that, rest assured that their home's quality and value is bolstered by Humming Homes.
A Note from Wendy Tsu, Partner at AlleyCorp and Humming Homes Board Member
“It’s been a great journey to see how Humming Homes has grown since we first launched the company. For me, Humming Homes is a company that has the ability to impact all types of homeowners - those who are aging, who are new parents, who are living alone - who need an extra hand. I am excited for the day that Humming Homes is available to my parents as they age and can look to a trusted home partner.”