About Us

The spark for Snapdoor began in 2016 when co-founder Bob Mathew ran head-on into the sort of issues that make people leery and distrustful of American real estate practices. Bob, a licensed agent in the Washington D.C. area, was representing a young family buying their first home. They were told they had the highest offer, but in the end the listing agent accepted the offer of another buyer who was represented by the listing agent's colleague.

Holding doctorates in law and economics from Harvard and Yale, Bob knew there was nothing technically illegal about this practice, but it was definitely shady, and worst of all, it meant the seller — left in the dark by their agent about the particulars — was unwittingly leaving money on the table. As Bob become one of the area's premier agents and started his own brokerage, he encountered many similar dismaying experiences, which made him want to find a better way.

After designing and testing a bidding system, in which buyers could compete on price and terms and sellers could see all offers, Bob reached out to his roommate from Stanford University, Dylan Kohler, to join him as a co-founder and turn the prototype into a working system.

Since his computer science studies at Stanford, Dylan had won an Academy Award for helping develop the world's first digital feature animation system, was the first technology hire for DreamWorks Animation, and had extensive experience in turning the complex processes of studio production into accessible digital tools. Extending the idea of transparency, Dylan suggested that the open bidding process could be just one step in a full real estate pipeline, a flowchart that allowed sellers and buyers to control and track the entire sales process. The result is Snapdoor, a brokerage built around transparency, efficiency, and convenience — ensuring that sellers get the most for their homes.

Snapdoor's mission is to demystify and open up the home selling process with digital tools. This approach actually makes the process far more efficient, so Snapdoor offers rates which are half that of traditional brokerages. To date Snapdoor has sold dozens of homes for satisfied sellers in the D.C. area, and has only just begun.