We started with the rental experience
Our original idea was a platform connecting landlords and tenants more directly. We wanted to address the fees, unreliable listings, wasted inspections and lack of trust that could make finding a home difficult. The early product direction included verified listings, digital agreements, payments and tools for property owners.
Our validation work asked about the process on both sides: how tenants found their last home, what they paid beyond rent, how landlords found tenants and who controlled the decision to list a property. These were assumptions we needed to examine through research, rather than treat as solved because we had built an app.
Research changed the product direction
What we found during market research prompted us to revisit the original model. We began to focus on another part of the same trust problem: how someone understands a space before making the journey or committing to it.
That led Best Quarters toward property digitisation. Interactive tours gave us a concrete way to make a place remotely explorable. The wider direction also included keeping a useful digital record of a property, rather than leaving its information scattered across photos, files and messages.
By our July 2026 pitch, the proposition had moved from a rental marketplace to reality capture for property marketing and documentation. That was an important stage in the journey: we were narrowing the problem we could address through the technology we were developing.
From a capture to something people can use
The work involves visiting a property, capturing the agreed spaces, processing the material and building a connected walkthrough. We deliver tours through a client portal where they can be viewed, shared or embedded on a website. The client can also choose which properties to publish.
My work connects the capture and the experience people eventually use. A tour needs to help someone understand the layout, move between viewpoints and examine the spaces that matter to their decision. The finished experience has to be accessible enough to open and explore through a link.
Why hospitality became the focus
Our current work centres on hotels and serviced apartments around Abuja. In this setting, the direction is specific: let a guest explore the accommodation before choosing a stay, then connect that experience to booking.
Conversations with operators also shaped the business model. Some may want to pay for a tour they can use independently. Others are more interested in the bookings it could help bring. We are developing a model that can support both: optional tour hosting and use by the property, alongside a platform where our return is connected to bookings.
That shifts the emphasis of the product. Producing a good tour remains essential, and it also needs to sit within a useful accommodation-search and booking journey. We are building toward that connection; a delivered tour and a completed booking are different milestones.
Where we go from here
We are creating virtual tours, engaging property operators and building the virtual-tour-first hospitality booking platform. The work now is to bring the property experience, accommodation information and booking process together in a way that guests and operators find useful.
Looking back, the thread through Best Quarters has been helping people make property decisions with more confidence. The product has changed as we have learned. This journal will document that development: the decisions, the work behind them and what we learn from putting the experience in front of people.