Vik Tara, CTO of Technology Blueprint...

Who are you and what does it say on your business card?

I'm Vik Tara and on my business card it says CTO Technology Blueprint.

What's your company name and what does it do?

We're Technology Blueprint and we revolutionise lettings through tech.

What does that mean? We solve human business problems by building the most scalable technology for the lettings industry available on the market.

We also service other parts of the PropTech Space; Property Compliance being one and Lettings Agency being the other.

When did you first become aware of the power of technology?

I first became aware of the power of technology when I was eight years old. I had the shed in the garden and my friends from our street used to come round and it became our den, so we needed a record player in there. I figured out how to wire it up to the electrics in the house, so we had our own electricity and that’s how I became aware at a young age of the power of technology and how it works.

What's the first piece of tech you owned?

I’ve still got it! A BBC Microcomputer, which I started programming when I was 12.

I got it as a gift from my parents and they were saying, “What are you doing on the computer all time. Why are you playing games and wasting time?”

They knew that I was playing games on the computer because it's got this big speaker on it. So I drilled a hole in the side of it and I wired up a headphone socket. Then they couldn't hear it anymore! I used to stay up late programming and playing games and they didn't know, because they’d gone to sleep.

What made you want to create tech to transform the letting sector?

I took over my parent’s lettings business in the early 90s and arrived in the office on day one and they only had a typewriter. I’d cut my teeth on the BBC Micro and been heavily into building my own software and mods, but it was just a hobby. I loved to do it, but I didn't really have a use case.

When I got into the lettings business, I suddenly had a use case for my passion for technology!

We had thousands of students who would descend on us in a short period, once a year. At first, I just brought computers in, and we could actually word process and build a client database. Then I met Stuart Ledwich and Mark Howlett, who owned PropCo.

I started using PropCo to run all my own lettings. Then I decided that I was going to build a web platform so that we could do all the advertising to students online. This was in 1998. Most people weren’t using the internet in 1998, but all the students were!

My thinking was that if we put all our property listings on the internet, we’d kill the competition because students wouldn’t go into an office if they could just print off what they needed from the Internet.

That was my first big piece of tech, a web portal built for the lettings space, which I built to solve my own problem! Well before platforms like Rightmove, etc. that everyone takes for granted these days.

One thing that you would want letting agencies to know.

That our technology makes agents into superheroes for their customers. Be a superhero, yeah! Using a platform-based solution like PropCo means data siloes become a thing of the past, which truly transforms lettings agencies both operationally and in terms of enabling them to offer amazing customer service.

Country house or city apartment?

Well, I live in a country house, so that one’s pretty clear.

Roof terrace or traditional English garden?

Lovely traditional English garden, right there.

Favourite room in your home?

It's the first-floor landing because it’s a band rehearsal space. It’s only small, but you can fit a full band in there, I’ve got my guitars set up and it’s great to hang out in the evening and jam.