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What made you realize there was an opportunity to help the apartment industry with renewals?
Hayden: We noticed a lot of people talking about building long-term relationships with residents, but they had no plan for how to combat the fact that basically 50% of their customers move every year. Essentially, everything broke down at renewal.
Also, everyone was talking about renewal as a binary, single-unit concept, i.e., “re-sign this lease, in this apartment, or not". Meanwhile, these are executives that managed portfolios of 10-, 20- and 100,000 units. So, we started asking people, "What if you had a tool that let you ask a resident to renew as your customer regardless of the product or geography they need?" And, "What if you could use elegant software to transform and optimize the entire renewal process, meet your customer where they are, and drive a meaningful impact to your bottom line?"
Our solution enables operators to go on “offense” at the renewal moment. It empowers them to bring strategy and automation to the renewal process to transform the experience for all involved - particularly residents - and deliver powerful business results to apartment owners and managers.
How did you come to partner with co-founder Kevin Murphy on this new company? What are the strengths you each bring to this endeavor?
Hayden: We worked together for more than four years at Jetty and know each other very well. Kevin is an apartment industry lifer, having worked at RentPath for nearly a decade, as well, and I’ve worked extensively in the start-up and venture capital space. So we complement each other very well.
Above all, we both have a deep appreciation and love for the multifamily industry, and we understand that a new solution in the space has to work for all parties involved. So many startups want to make an impact for renters, as they should. But they often disregard the critical truth: you have to consider the impact on all of the many people who are integral in operating the properties in which renters live.
Anyone from the industry can attest to the fact that multifamily is unique. Your solution has to work for residents, owners, managers, C-suite executives, regional managers and site teams alike. If you ignore one link in that chain, it all falls apart.
You didn't rush to market with your launch. Instead, you took two years to work on your solution and strategy. Why was it important to take that time?
Hayden: Renewals are massively important – for renters it’s the biggest financial decision they make all year, for operators it’s the number one driver of customer lifetime value. We needed to make sure this was a solution that worked for all stakeholders - both residents and everyone involved with operating apartment communities.
We needed to take the time to get it right - and not just in free pilots. We wanted to have consistent proof points of piloting and to see success, full-portfolio rollouts and tangible ROI. We’re happy to say that we’ve seen all of that on a consistent basis.
What are some of the business benefits apartment owners and operators can experience by optimizing their renewal strategy and tactics?
Hayden: Renewals have long represented an unrealized business opportunity for apartment owners and operators. Traditionally, they have neglected to give this part of the resident lifecycle the time and strategy it deserves. The result is an unsatisfactory process for residents that yields nearly 50% churn and leaves money on the table.
An optimized and more automated process results in happier residents, happier site teams and happier executives, who finally get true visibility into renewals. It can both increase renewals and spur faster renewal decisions. That in turn leads to reduced vacancy loss, improved occupancy forecasting and better real-time pricing decisions. At the same time, a modernized process allows operators to think of resident retention more broadly, meaning they have an opportunity to move a resident who is leaving one of their properties into another community in their portfolio.
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