Great start-ups aren’t built on marginal improvements. They’re built on asymmetric advantages—insights, technologies, or approaches that create exponential rather than linear returns. Unfair Advantage tells the stories of founders who aren’t just participating in markets, but reshaping them entirely. In this series, we dive deep into the unconventional strategies and unique insights that transformed their industries.
While the commercial real estate industry moves at a traditionally measured pace, Bogdan Nicoară and the Bright Spaces team are accelerating digital transformation through their leasing platform. By creating digital twins of commercial spaces that integrate exterior plans, interior configurations, and intelligent data, they’re reshaping how properties are marketed and leased.
1. What’s the most contrarian belief you hold about your industry that other smart people disagree with?
I believe that every commercial space in the world will have its own digital twin within the next five years. Most people in the industry agree that this shift is inevitable, but they expect it to happen over a much longer timeframe—10 to 12 years.
The reason I think it will happen much faster is the exponential pace of technological advancement. Just take a moment to reflect on how much has changed in the past five years—innovations we once thought were a decade away are now part of our daily reality. AI is the perfect example. If someone had told you five years ago how widespread and transformative AI would become in such a short time, would you have believed them?
The same applies to digital twins. The technology is ready, adoption is accelerating, and the benefits for commercial real estate are too significant to ignore. Those who assume it will take a decade risk being left behind.
2. What market signal made you absolutely certain this was the right time for your solution?
The biggest signal was the fundamental shift in the decision-making process for commercial leasing. We noticed that this process was no longer controlled by just a few key stakeholders—more people were being brought into the discussion, making it more complex and data-driven.
This transformation happened at the intersection of three major factors: COVID-19, the rise of hybrid work, and increasing vacancy rates. High vacancy isn’t just a temporary fluctuation—it’s the result of structural changes in how companies use office space. Large corporations are reducing their footprint per location, while small and mid-sized companies demand more flexible contracts and smaller spaces. This has completely changed the dynamics of office leasing in the past few years, making digital solutions like ours not just relevant but necessary.
3. If your biggest competitor acquired you tomorrow, what would they gain that they couldn’t build themselves?
They would gain the most comprehensive leasing solution on the market—one that uniquely integrates the exterior master plan of any project, automated interior space planning, and intelligent data streams into a seamless experience.
But beyond the technology, they would gain something even more valuable: five years of hands-on experience navigating the complexities of this industry. We built this company from Romania, in a market where the odds were stacked against us, and yet we managed to expand into six countries, implement our solution in 18, and serve multiple verticals—while weathering market downturns along the way.
Most importantly, they would gain the most resilient team in the market—a team that has proven it can innovate, execute, and adapt in ways that go beyond what any competitor could simply build from scratch. But let’s be clear—we’re not selling. We’re just getting started. Our vision extends far beyond what we’ve built so far, and we believe the best is yet to come.
4. Tell me about a key metric that surprised you – what did you learn from it?
The burn ratio has been a key metric for us. For over a year now, we’ve managed to keep our team agile and our costs fixed while more than doubling our revenue. What truly surprised us was realizing just how efficient we could be. If it weren’t for the market downturn forcing us to become leaner, we might never have discovered the full potential of our team and operational model. In a way, this challenging period has been a blessing in disguise—it has shown us what it really means to build a sustainable business. Now, we’re not just growing; we’re doing it in a way that ensures long-term resilience.
5. What’s a decision you made that looked like a mistake at first but proved right 6 – 12 months later?
Choosing to build a fully integrated solution—combining the master plan, interior space planning, and intelligent data streams—instead of focusing on just one standout feature. At first, this seemed like the wrong move because it required far more resources than if we had developed a single killer feature. A more complex product meant more resources. But over time, we realized that this was the winning strategy. The real estate industry is a laggard market—it doesn’t innovate quickly. That means landlords and developers don’t want to piece together multiple solutions from different providers. They want a turnkey leasing solution that simplifies everything. Over the past year, we’ve seen that the biggest players in the market need exactly this—an end-to-end solution, not fragmented tools. That’s when we knew we had made the right choice.
6. Which growth lever are you most excited about that isn’t obvious to outsiders?
360° sales. Unlike the typical SaaS approach, where sales teams are split into researchers, openers, negotiators, closers, and renewal specialists, we’ve built a full-cycle sales model where one person owns the entire relationship from start to success and beyond.
This approach is rare in SaaS, but it has proven incredibly effective in real estate, which is a highly network-driven industry. In this market, relationships matter more than transactional sales. The stronger the connection, the higher the chances of long-term success—whether it’s in new sales, renewals, or upsells.
This strategy has allowed us to deeply integrate with our clients, making it much easier to retain and expand accounts while positioning Bright Spaces as a long-term partner, not just another software vendor. It’s a perfect example of how we’ve adapted to the nuances of the real estate industry.
7. What’s the hardest decision you’ve had to reverse, and how did you manage that transition?
Finding the right balance between going wide and staying focused has been one of our biggest challenges. And we had to correct this multiple times—across verticals, markets, and even within our team.
- Verticals: We initially expanded into too many verticals before realizing which ones we could truly serve best.
- Markets: We attempted to officially open more markets than we could realistically support at that stage.
- Team: We built a broader team than was actually necessary, which later required optimization.
Reversing these decisions wasn’t easy—it meant making tough calls, streamlining operations, and learning to say no to opportunities that weren’t aligned with our core strengths. But in doing so, we’ve become far more efficient, strategic, and focused, ensuring that every move we make is sustainable and high-impact.
8. What’s something you’ve built into your company culture that initially seemed inefficient but has paid off significantly?
Encouraging people to become multidisciplinary. At first, this might seem like a distraction—spreading people too thin instead of letting them specialize. But there’s a fine line between losing focus and unlocking true out-of-the-box thinking by empowering people to learn and do more.
We’ve embedded this philosophy across multiple areas:
- Marketing, PR, and Investor Relations—Instead of treating these as separate functions, we integrated them to create a unified narrative for all stakeholders.
- 360° Sales—Our sales team doesn’t just sell; they handle customer success, support, renewals, SDR, closing, and negotiation—building stronger, long-term relationships.
- Architecture, Project Management, and Delivery—We combined these roles to ensure a seamless transition from concept to execution.
- Tech Teams in Front of Clients and Investors—Instead of keeping developers behind the scenes, we put them in direct contact with clients and investors, fostering deeper understanding and better solutions.
This approach forces collaboration, accelerates learning, and makes our team more adaptable. It may have seemed inefficient at first, but it has proven to be a major competitive advantage, helping us move faster and innovate in ways that siloed teams simply can’t.
9. What will it take for your solution to become the industry standard in 5 years?
Clients and funding. 🙂
On the client side, we are already working towards a zero-churn policy—deeply analyzing the key moments that lead to churn and recalibrating both our product and approach to proactively prevent it. This starts as early as the sales stage, where we are refining our process to better qualify or disqualify clients who aren’t yet ready for a long-term partnership. For growth, we are doubling down on partner-driven expansion. Many of the companies using our solution today can introduce us to new clients, and we’re investing more in these network effects to scale efficiently.
On the product side, automation and AI will play a crucial role in accelerating onboarding, product iteration, experimentation, integrations with other solutions, and even content creation that adds value for our clients. The faster and smarter our platform becomes, the easier it will be to solidify our position in the market.
And then, getting the right investors on board. We believe that investors can do much more than provide capital—they can open doors, bring strategic insights, and fuel the right kind of growth. However, in today’s market, startups don’t have many choices when it comes to funding. That’s why we are positioning Bright Spaces as a profitable, high-growth, and innovative company—one that stands out and attracts the right investors, not just any investors. We got lucky with Fortech Investments, and we want to replicate that by bringing in partners who align with our vision and can help us scale to the next level.
10. How has your definition of product – market fit evolved since your last funding round?
One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is that product-market fit isn’t just about the product—it’s also about market readiness.
When we first launched Bright Spaces, we assumed the market was already prepared to adopt a solution like ours. But we quickly realized we were ahead of the market, and that wasn’t just our challenge—our competitors faced the same struggles. However, the landscape has now started to shift.
With the evolution of Class A office leasing—smaller spaces, shorter lease terms, a greater focus on flexibility, and a wider mix of tenants beyond just large corporations—the market is becoming much more aware of its need for solutions like ours. We’re also seeing increased demand from tenants, who now expect landlords and brokers to present spaces in 3D, further validating our approach.
Another key realization? Simple is better.
At first, it might seem contradictory—especially since our solution covers master planning, interiors, and intelligent data streams, more than most competitors. But we’ve learned that simplicity doesn’t mean fewer features—it means a more seamless, intuitive experience.
Our industry doesn’t consume tech solutions—it consumes business solutions. That means whatever we build needs to be:
✔ Fast
✔ Reliable
✔ User-friendly
✔ Easy to embed
✔ Easy to integrate
✔ Capable of solving multiple problems at once, without unnecessary complexity
Early on, we believed we had to do everything—cover all possible use cases, match every competitor’s feature set, and push the product in multiple directions at once. Over time, we’ve realized that true product-market fit is about focus—choosing the right problems to solve, doubling down on what truly moves the needle for our clients, and delivering it in a way that feels effortless.
11. What convinced your first enterprise customer to take a chance on a startup?
In our case, it was a combination of factors that led Skanska to take a chance on us. First, winning their internal hackathon gave us credibility and put us on their radar. But beyond that, it wasn’t an overnight decision—it was a nine-month-long relationship, built through consistent communication, trust, and continuous product evolution. During this time, Skanska saw how our solution was improving, how we were responding to feedback, and how committed we were to making it work for them. They were also aware that we were in discussions with other companies in parallel, which likely reinforced their confidence in our market potential. Ultimately, it was a mix of trust, product evolution, and external validation that made them confident in our ability to deliver.
12. Which metrics do you watch obsessively that others in your space might be ignoring?
One of the most important metrics we track—and one that many in our space might overlook—is the number of client feedback interactions per quarter.
In the enterprise world, it’s easy to assume that as long as a client is happy and using the product, everything is fine. But we’ve learned that the frequency and depth of feedback from a client is one of the strongest indicators of long-term success. We don’t just look at whether they report bugs or request new features—we analyze how actively they engage with us, whether they share insights from their own customers, and whether they see our product as something they can shape to fit their needs.
By extrapolating this data, we’ve found that the clients who engage with us regularly—almost as if they’re part of our team—are the ones with the lowest churn risk and the highest long-term engagement.This has led us to rethink traditional investments in quality assurance, market research, and feature development. Instead of relying solely on internal testing and guesswork, we’ve built a continuous feedback loop where clients feel heard, see their input implemented, and, in turn, become even more invested in the product.
By tracking this as a key metric and ensuring feedback is both frequent and actioned, we’ve seen stronger client relationships, better retention, and a product that continuously improves in ways that actually matter to the market.