Portfolio founder spotlight: Sarah Werner, Husmus

Husmus, a tech business providing landlord and tenant insurance, closed their pre-seed round through South East Angels and are now raising again. We interviewed the founder, Sarah Wernér, to learn more about why she founded Husmus, the advice she would give to other founders and her plans for the future.

Let’s begin with - what is Husmus and why did you start it?

Husmus provides tech that can deliver home and rental insurance based not just on the attributes of the home, but also on the behaviour of the occupants. Our custom behavioural algorithm makes decisions based on public and privately sourced user data such as Open Banking.

What that means is that landlords can now get access to insurance-backed tenants while tenants are free from the security costs that they usually have to pay, such as deposits and advance rent payments.

I started it because I wanted to create a world where all tenants can get access to homes in a way that doesn't risk the landlord's revenue.

So this is a tech product that’s serving what looks like two different sets of customers, how do both tenants and landlords interact with Husmus?

Landlords come to Husmus to buy their general landlord insurance that most landlords buy. But in today's world, landlord insurance doesn’t do much for them. What Husmus is doing is positioning the insurance as a partner for your business - So you buy Husmus landlord insurance and we help you solve your biggest key question, which is, who to rent homes to. We then give your tenant a great experience by allowing them to access your home without those typical upfront costs.

It's landlord led at the moment, but we are raising to diversify that into embedded experiences within property portals.

What would you say are some of the challenges that your sector's facing and how does your solution fit in?

Well, we sit in between insurance and property, and nobody likes buying and interacting with insurance, let's face it, you don't get great experiences. And that's what we're looking to change.

Historically with insurance companies, they're not close to the customer because usually, they've sold the insurance to a wholesaler who then sold it to a broker, who then talks to the customer. So the product is quite distant from the actual customer.

But Husmus is changing that because now we are able to literally get to know the customer, and price insurance personalised for them based on their circumstances. That’s a huge change compared to typical insurance industry players.

Accessing homes is certainly relevant for now with the intensity of the current rental market in general - so this is quite a grand challenge from a societal point of view as well?

A hundred per cent. In today's world for landlords, with the best will in the world, when you do come in front of a tenant, you put your own judgements on them - whether that’s someone who’s got a pet, or has an occupation that is less lucrative or secure. We're just trying to remove that initial bias that people may have against people just because they don't know them.

And as a founder starting on this journey and trying to grow a business from just an idea, what's been some of the biggest surprises so far?

Hand on heart, the biggest surprise is actually how difficult things are. I’ll put my hands up, I’m an overachiever. You know, I was head girl in school, I went to Imperial, was top of my corporate career, all of those things. So when someone said, “oh, starting a business is hard” I'm like how hard can it be? It can't be that difficult. But this is actually the very first thing in my whole life where someone said to me, “It's difficult”, and I've actually found it to be.

So I think one of the key challenges for me has been, galvanizing all of the things that I need to move this thing to fruition. Obviously, you can have the idea and that's perfect, but then now you have to create this thing and you have to find the people who have complementary skills to what you have and a ton of other things.

When starting, you are only one person and you can only do so much. So it's about finding people who can help you drive your business forward. And that is both a challenge, but also fun!

It’s definitely a tough but hopefully rewarding journey!

You obviously impressed our investor members in your last round. What aspects of your plans for Husmus do you think other investors would be most interested in hearing about?

One of the things that's lucky for me is that a lot of investors tend to also have property portfolios. So I find a lot of times when I'm speaking to investors, they're coming at it literally from a landlord view as well, and they hear about what we do and how we make things easier for them, and really engage with that. They know what it's like to have to filter out 50 people to figure out “who's the best tenant for me”, and they see how Husmus helps instantly in that area.

But I think our greatest success really has been with impact investors. These are the investors who care about social injustices that happen in housing accessibility. When you have certain types of jobs, for example, gig economy, or your domestic situation is a single parent on benefits perhaps, you typically are at the end of the line, so you probably won't get the home that you wanted.

And that's what we're trying to change. We're trying to make it possible for everyone to get the home of their choice the first time, without having to jump through so many hoops to get access to it.

You raised pre-seed funding from South East Angels, what advice would you give to other pre-seed founders raising their first round?

First of all, get to understand the space. I think a lot of founders will come up with an idea, decide they want to do it, and then say, “oh yeah, I need some money”, and then just go ahead and start speaking to people about money.

But I think actually people should take a step back first, and take some time to understand the investment world, what it means, and what people are looking for. Angels are great, but not every business is backable for angels. I know they say that a lot about VCs, but the truth is the same for Angels. 

So spend time figuring out who you are trying to raise from - Is it someone who's looking for a hundred times exit or is it someone who wants your company to be purchased later on? All of these things are things to think about before you start asking people for money, I think that will save you a bit of a headache. 

Let's say you do get that exit from Husmus and you've got some cash to put into various different things. Do you think you'd explore angel investing? And if you did, how do you think you'd approach it?

One hundred per cent. One of the key things that I've discovered in my startup journey is that there are not a lot of founders that look like me, that get backed either from an angel perspective or a VC perspective, for whatever reasons.

And so I want to be part of that change. And it's actually one of the key drivers for me. I feel like I have to make Husmus a success, not just for my own needs and for my family's needs, but also because I really do want to help other people and see that they also get funded. Because most of the time you just need someone to take a chance on you and that would open the doors for other people to give you a second look as well. So I think I will definitely be focusing on the impact space, but also, on underrepresented founders. 

Check out husmus.net, and Sarah on LinkedIn