Case Study
Compliance peace of mind, and shared brand ethos
How The Stow Brothers manage onboarding across six offices.
About The Stow Brothers
The Stow Brothers are a standout name in the London property market. Founded in 2014 by brothers Andrew and Kenny Goad, they have grown into a high-volume, multi-branch agency with six offices and 90 members of staff. They are the kind of agency that takes both service and standards seriously – growing fast, but never at the expense of the experience they deliver to clients.
They are an independent agency in the truest sense: founder-led, culture-driven, and deeply invested in the quality of every transaction they handle. If you have ever wondered what a modern, ambitious, scaling independent looks like in practice – Stow Brothers is a good place to start.
The challenge
At the volume Stow Brothers operate at, the cracks in a manual process do not stay small for long.
The team were juggling a patchwork of disconnected tools – paper, piecemeal emails, attachments, and Excel spreadsheets. “just really messy,” as Kenny put it. The weight of that admin was landing on the shoulders of their onboarding and curation team, the people responsible for getting properties to market and delivering the client experience Stow Brothers had built their reputation on.
For Andrew and Kenny, the worry ran deeper than inefficiency. AML compliance is non-negotiable – and doing it wrong at their scale carried real consequences. The stress of that falling through the cracks was not something they were willing to carry indefinitely. Staff were feeling the pressure too, taking on the burden and risk of a process that simply was not built for the volume they were doing.
It got to a point in our business where we weren’t able to do… we were able to pull the pints anymore you know we’d take a step back and have a bigger overview of the business but it enabled us to kind of look at the business holistically and think where are the pinch points how can we improve things that’s what Kotini came in,
Andrew Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
A big struggule with us because we quite high volume agent was just getting through the paperwork day to day putting a lot of stress and operational burden onto staff so a lot of paperwork I mean obviously that’s when things get missed standards start to slip and some pretty drastic repercussions if you don’t do the AML part of our job.
Kenny Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
Why Kotini stood out
As the business scaled, Andrew and Kenny were able to step back and look at the operation more holistically. With the distance of directors rather than day-to-day operators, the pinch points became clearer.
They had already tried a few products before landing on Kotini. The priority was straightforward: win back time for the team, and take the compliance burden off the people who should not be carrying it.
What sealed the decision was not just the product – it was the relationship. From the very first meeting, Kotini’s founder Kieran understood what Stow Brothers stood for.
Kieran just got it he got what Stow Brothers was about he understood what we’re trying to do he understood the brand he was probably our target audience actually and I think that that really encouraged that that helped us to make a decision because there was an understanding
Andrew Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
Time and energy back for the team
The impact showed up in exactly the right places. The onboarding and curation team – the people who had been buried in admin and carrying the weight of compliance – got their time and energy back.
It’s meant now that they can spend more time doing what they are good at… the onboarding and curation team can spend more time doing brochures curating property particulars doing the more fun stuff that people actually see and let’s be honest the bits that people care about the customers
Andrew Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
For the client experience, the shift was equally important. Kenny was clear about what he looked for in an onboarding journey – and what he refused to accept.
Do you know what I like about Kotini? Frictionless. There’s nothing more frustrating when you when you’re when you’re doing a new onboarding process over it’s like car insurance or whatever it might be you’ve got to log in you’ve got to download an app you’re probably only going to use once… this is very frustrating it just creates friction… but but what Kotini is it’s that there’s no downloading of anything is all online so and quite intuitive the way that you go through the different processes
Kenny Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
Frictionless.
That frictionless experience matters at both ends of the market. Stow Brothers serve a largely tech-savvy client base, but not exclusively – and the fact that the platform worked for everyone reflected well on the brand.
From a leadership perspective, Andrew found something just as valuable: visibility and control without micromanagement.
Having an onboarding platform from a leadership perspective is really important because it gives you comfort and and understanding that things are being done as they should be… the comfort that it provides is is it is a godsend really
Andrew Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
The integration with Alto added another layer of efficiency, reducing manual steps and keeping the team’s workflow where it should be – inside the systems they already use every day.
What about charging for AML and onboarding?
Tasks that once required chasing emails, downloading attachments, and manually managing paper trails now move automatically. The team sends onboarding invites, ID and AML checks happen in the background, compliance is documented, and everything lands in one place. The admin that used to sit on people’s desks – and people’s minds – has been removed from the equation.
It streamlines your day to day but it also enables you to have an oversight over what’s happening at a click of a button
Andrew Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
I think starting as you mean to go on I think it’s really crucial yeah and Kotini can scale with you as well
Kenny Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
Use it from the start
Stow Brothers are not just users of Kotini – they are advocates. And importantly, they can see the bigger picture: the habits built now are the foundations for the business they want to build next.
If we were opening now we would we would start with a Kotini type platform from the moment we opened we want to get into good habits we want to make sure that with that we’re safe that we secure that we’re compliant
Andrew Goad, Founder of The Stow Brothers
For a high-volume independent like Stow Brothers, Kotini has been the platform that kept their standards high, took the pressure off their team, and gave their directors the confidence to focus on growing – not firefighting.