Zirrow Properties
Dragged Ethiopian real estate out of WhatsApp chaos and into something that doesn’t scream 1998.
Because property hunting shouldn’t feel like decoding hieroglyphics in a group chat.
Zirrow: The Not-So-Humble Attempt to Drag Ethiopian Real Estate Out of the Group Chat and Into the 21st Century
It all began ... like most noble disasters, with a friend of a friend of someone’s cousin who said,
“Hey, there’s this real estate thing. You design, right?”
What they meant was:
“Come fix a housing market that’s somehow powered by WhatsApp, voice notes, and blind trust.”
Zirrow wasn’t just another app idea, it was a full-blown urban UX rescue mission.
A rebellion against unsearchable listings, price tags pulled from the sky, and brokers still using notebooks from 2007.
The goal? Create a platform that screamed:
“Hey, what if finding a house didn’t feel like emotional roulette?”
And just like that, I was knee-deep in Ethiopia’s real estate chaos, with a Figma file, three stakeholder calls, and a vision to make finding a home suck a little less.
The Market Landscape: A Glorious Dumpster Fire with Just Enough Wi-Fi to Hurt More
If you’ve ever tried to rent or buy property in Addis, you already know:
Disorganized. Sketchy. Offline.
That’s the vibe.
Listings? Scattered across WhatsApp like lost treasure maps.
Brokers? Navigating by gut instinct and rogue spreadsheets.
UX? Straight out of 2004, with the user rage to match.
Zirrow’s not-so-subtle mission?
Make property search suck dramatically less. That meant:
Centralized listings
Clear, honest pricing
A real platform that didn’t feel like a group project gone wrong
All while keeping it culturally grounded, because even digital disruption needs to respect the neighborhood.
Stakeholder Analysis: Meet the Cast of Our Real Estate Reality Show
Before fixing the system, we had to meet the people keeping it barely alive:
Basazen – The founder with the “What if Zillow, but Ethiopian and not emotionally draining?” vision. Bold. Slightly stressed. 100% in.
Brokers – Street-smart power users with major Nokia-era energy. Simultaneously vital and wildly unpredictable.
Buyers & Sellers: Just out here trying not to lose money, time, or hope.
Dev Team: Actual magicians juggling three jobs, two deadlines, and one rapidly mutating scope.
Investors: Obsessed with ROI. Blind to timelines. Basically the boss level in startup mode.
TL;DR: Everyone’s got a role. Some are helpful. Some are... character development.
Assumptions That (Shockingly) Didn’t Age Like Milk
Not all our guesses were chaos-fueled. Some… actually worked:
People crave transparency – No more “price upon inquiry” roulette or shady side deals.
Bad UX ≠ cultural norm – Turns out, users do notice when your platform feels like dial-up.
The market’s ready – Ethiopia didn’t need convincing. It needed a platform that didn’t feel like it came free with Windows XP.
Lesson? Sometimes your instincts are right. Just don’t get cocky.
Market Research, UX Headaches, and a Crash Course in Reality
What we found in the wild:
Brokers were drowning in paperwork and “just trust me, bro” workflows.
Buyers were dodging scam listings and navigating interfaces last updated during the MySpace era.
Sellers? Hitting Post and crossing themselves.
Everyone was irritated. We weren’t here to be another painkiller ad ... we were here to be the actual aspirin.
From MVP to MVP: Minimum Viable Patience
We flirted with cloning Zillow, but Ethiopia’s housing market quickly humbled us.
So instead, we got smart:
Localized everything ... language, logic, and listing behavior.
Simplified flows so users didn’t need a PhD in interface design.
Solved real problems instead of pitching Silicon Valley daydreams.
Because real innovation starts where assumptions go to die.
Usability Testing: Where Our Design Got Grilled and Roasted to Perfection
We threw Zirrow into the fire willingly, and let users go full Gordon Ramsay on it. Spoiler: it needed the roast.
🔥 Problem
😩 User Reaction
💡 What We Did
Image uploads = mind melt
“Why is this JPEG cursed?”
Added image compression. Found a .js library or two. Who would have thought ...
Filters were a hit
“Can I save this tho?”
You bet ... ‘Save Search’ now exists
Steps felt like a maze
“Where am I? Who am I?”
Simplified the flow, added tooltips
General UX vibe = chaos
“Here’s everything I hate…”
Built an actual feedback loop (finally)
And yes, it works on everything ... from fancy MacBooks to your cousin’s 2013 Samsung S2 with a cracked screen, 3% battery, and 7 open tabs of regret.
Research Round Two: When “We Know Our Users” Turned Into “Oh, So We Didn’t Know Anything”
After the first round of feedback cooked us medium-rare, we decided to go full chef’s table on usability:
Ran deeper interviews (the kind that make you rethink your whole design).
Replaced our “gut feelings” with actual user quotes. Radical, we know.
Turned our Notion doc from a digital graveyard into a living, breathing feedback machine.
Bonus revelation:
🃏 Card design = Silent MVP
If that home listing card didn’t hit immediately, users swiped faster than brokers dodging platform fees. Lesson learned: first impressions aren’t just for dates.
Final Design Reveal: From “Please Don’t Judge Us” to “Okay, This Actually Slaps”
The end result?
Clean enough to make minimalists nod in approval.
Fast enough to not make you question your internet.
Intuitive enough your auntie won’t call for help.
Light enough it won’t bully your storage like a 2010 Android app.
Zirrow finally looked and felt like a real product. Not just another Craigslist clone in cultural cosplay.
Preview My Mental Breakdown …
The Plot Twist Nobody Asked For: When the Client Pulls a Houdini Just Before Takeoff
Right as we were prepping for launch (poof) ... the client disappeared like a bad Tinder match. No handoff. No farewell message. Just one unread Slack ping and the haunting echo of “Delivered.”
But we didn’t walk away empty-handed. We left with:
A sharp, polished platform design that deserved confetti.
A PhD-level experience in navigating UX chaos with grace (and coffee).
Enough takeaways to run a whole UX therapy circle.
Lessons from the Edge of Chaos: What Ethiopian Real Estate (and a Vanishing Client) Taught Me About Design That Actually Works
By the end of the Zirrow saga, complete with plot twists, stakeholder soap operas, and UI built on zero sleep ... I walked away with more than just a clean Figma file.
I walked away with a brain full of brutally useful lessons:
Context is everything: You can’t just Ctrl+C Silicon Valley into a market where houses are listed via Telegram and cousin group chats.
Stakeholder syncs are therapy: Miss one, and you’ll find yourself designing for ghosts and guessing their pain points.
User testing isn’t optional: It’s not a nice-to-have, it’s oxygen. Breathe it early and often.
Always save your receipts: Not just for tax season, but for that day when your client ghosts and all you’ve got left is a portfolio piece (and maybe a little trauma).
Because even when the launch doesn’t happen, the learning always does.
Crafted with ❤️, fueled by a ton of coffee ☕ and not enough 💤... (Believe me)