Micasa E245 final presentation

MI CASA – FINAL PRESENTATION

Rick Barber (MSCS)Dan Laufer (GSB)Byron Singh (MS&E)Kyle Tan (MS&E)

We spoke to 105 peopleSurveyed 98 people

2

Week 1: We want to revolutionize the home rental market

Initial idea: Become a fully integrated home and apartment rental platform for landlords, prospective tenants, and tenants

Initial target market size projection: $3B

3

Our team’s background

Rick Barber (MSCS)

• Univ. of Illinois Computer Science grad• Specializing in machine learning/data

mining in large networked datasets• Long-time interest in technology startups

Dan Laufer (GSB)

• Univ. of Virginia Systems Engineering grad• Former Bain consultant (3 years)• Former software product manager and

Director of sales strategy and analytics

Byron Singh (MS&E)

• Cornell Electrical Engineering grad• Facebook and Android application

developer• Digital circuit design engineer (2 years)

Kyle Tan (MS&E)

• Imperial College London EEE grad• Network analysis and engineering

program knowledge• Former IBM Strategy and Transformation

group intern

• Property Managers• Landlords

• Tenants

• Service Providers

• Realtors

• Streamlining process• JIT access to service p.• Better listing• Improve rent collection

• Streamline process• Improve searching

• Access to customers

• Makes property management easier for their customers • Web

• Realtors• Industry

• Web• Landlord

• Web• Direct

• Web• Direct

• Mostly Web / Automated service

• Direct for large players (ie. national realtors)

• Application Fees• Processing rental payments• Lead generation

• Computing infrastructure• Labor (Engineering & limited sales)• Marketing

• Web platform• Talent

• National realtors• Industry organizations• Payment processors

• Connecting customer segments

• Making process efficient• Adding transparency to

the system

Original version

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

5

We then spoke with Realtors, tenants and landlords

Segment Insight learned

Landlords • Bigger players (property managers, apartment complex owners) had lots of services available to them

• Smaller landlords were generally unsatisfied with current services

Realtors • Wouldn’t go out of their way to recommend our solution

Tenants • Biggest pain was in the search itself

• Eliminated realtors as a customer segment• Focused on serving landlords as primary customers

• Landlords

• Tenants




• Access to customers• Web• Realtors• Industry

• Web• Landlord

• Web• Direct


• Direct for large players


• Computing infrastructure• Labor (Engineering & limited sales)• Marketing & sales


• Industry organizations• Payment processors



the system

Updated version

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

7

We created an MVP, primarily focused on serving landlords

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We then tested distribution for landlords to this site

LinkedInMeetup

• Not to going to drive much traffic short term

• Can be helpful for developing a community longer term

• May be an indicator of interest/demand

Channel Overall results

Craigslist • Not a scalable or sustainable long term solution

AdWords • Very expensive and few searches being done

X

XX

Eliminated landlords as a customer segment

• Tenants • Better search of all

listings• Connected to other

services (i.e., insurance, rent payment

• Access to robust ratings

• SEO• Facebook/Twitter• Flyers?

• All Web based

• Lead generation• Processing rental payments• Eventually listing fees



• Payment processors and other verticals for lead generation

• Eventually REITs

• Building listings/search• Creating some virality

amongst ratings

Updated version

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

10

We created a new MVP, now focused on tenants

11

We ran multiple ads to test driving traffic

12

We concluded that we could successfully acquire customers

Advertising ($79.23)

New site visits (147)

Regist-rations (28)

$2.83/registration

• Facebook ads• Ad words• Craigslist emails• Craigslist ads

13

Finally, feedback from landlord interviews were very positive

Person WTP per successful referral

Quote

REIT executive $100-$150 “We know we’re not very good at online marketing. This could be a good fit”

Apartment complex owner

$50-$300 “I already pay for referrals. So why wouldn’t I do this too?”

Property manager

$100-$200 “I use craigslist, but would be open to something like this.”

Landlord $100-$200 “Lowering my turnaround time between tenants is huge.”

Competitor perspective

$12-18/lead (didn’t have to

close)

“REITs were desperate for social. They’ll be enticed by anything that smacks of being a social network.”

• Tenants

• Social connection during search

• Better search of all listings

• Largest breadth of listings

• Connected to other services (i.e., insurance, rent payment



• All Web based






amongst ratings

Updated version

• REITs• Landlords

• Simplified lead generation

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

15

Lessons learned along the way

1. It’s a crowded eco-system across the value chain

2. The search process is frustrating to everyone – users and landlords

3. We came to learn that consumers were looking for a search process that was exhaustive and trusted, which no one is doing adequately today

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Listings Provider

Tenants

Landlords

PropertyManagers

Service Providers

Potential Landlords

Realtors

Web Info

Show, Advise, Valuate

Sell, Advise

MaintenanceFurnishing

Listings,ChecksRent Payment

Moving

CraigslistPadmapper.com

Rent.comApartment.com

Forrent.com

Credit ChecksSafetenantcheck.c

Erenter.com

Payment FacilitatorRentpayment.com

Clearnow.comOnline Cheque

Listings, ChecksRent Payment

Maintenance FindingZoospi.com

Redbeacon.comTaskrabbit.com

Schedule Tools

Yelp.com

Angie’s List

Setster.com

Find information

Servicemagic.com

Zoospi.com

Rentpost.comRentjuice.com

Buildium.comRentingsmart.co

Propertyware.com

Rentjuice.comPropertyware.co

Rentingsmart.co

Buildium.com

propertymanagemnt360

Maintenance Ratings

Trulia.com

PM Tools

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Users hate the search process and are not fond of any of the major incumbents

1 - painful

2 3 4 5 - easy05

10152025303540

How do you rate your search experiences?

% 21% 35% 34% 8% 2%

RE Agent

Padmap

per.com

Broke

r

Craigsl

ist.co

m

Word

of mouth

Rent.com

Apartments.

com

1

2

3

4

5

Total search satisfaction by preferred vendor

Only 10% of respondents were pleased with their rental search experience

And no single provider scored particularly well

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Customer archetype: Sara

How she searches Wants to be efficient (will use a broker if doing a

search on her own is too painful) Asks friends for recommendations

What Matters to Sara Wants to live in a fun place that is safe Doesn’t want to overpay Doesn’t have much time to hunt for a place Live with someone she trusts (moving to DC)

Influences Where friends go out/live Work location

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Within search there are three key value propositions for users

Quantity of listings

Ratings/reviews

Social/trust

VALUE

PROP

Making search easier by aggregating and filtering

Provide more information about a locality beyond what is listed

Get advice from friends, find roommates/sublets within your network

COMPETITORS

Padmapper.comApartment.comRentjungle.com

Forrent.comRent.comTrulia.com

Mapitat.comCravify.com

Livelovely.cominhabi.com

Cazoodle.com

Streetadvisor.comDonotrent.com

Apartmentratings.comRentwiki.com

Areavibes.comSmalltown.com

Outside.in

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We believe we can be #1 on each of these dimensions

Quantity of listings

Ratings/reviews

Social/trust

VALUE

PROP

Making search easier by aggregating and filtering

Provide more information about a locality beyond what is listed

Get advice from friends, find roommates/sublets within your network

COMPETITORS

Padmapper.comApartment.comRentjungle.com

Forrent.comRent.comTrulia.com

Mapitat.comCravify.com

Livelovely.cominhabi.com

Cazoodle.com

Streetadvisor.comDonotrent.com

Apartmentratings.comRentwiki.com

Areavibes.comSmalltown.com

Outside.inWe can already aggregate more listings than any current players

Currently no one offers the

trusted connection that

we plan to

Not our focus, but currently all of these services

provide low-quality

information; may be room for

future differentiation

here

21

We have 1000s of listings not yet mapped and are already comparable in quantity to the current #1 player

Padmapper

Mi Casa

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Testing our message of offering a trusted community seemed to resonate

• 6 facebook connects and 3 “sign up” registrations

• 25% conversion• 1.31 pages/visit• Avg. time: 01:37

Statistics:

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We’ll continue to iterate with messages and designs to track user interaction

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If our simplified unit economics prove correct (which still needs testing), then it’s a very viable business

• Customer acquisition: $1.41 per user, assumptions:• Historical cost (28 acquisitions for $79.23)• Every user invites 1 other person to the site (for recs, etc.)

• User referral lead generation: $75, assumptions:• 10% of users post referral• Of those, 20% convert into signed leases

• Site generated lead generation: $150, assumptions:• 5% of users (incremental to above) convert into signed

lease

Revenue

Cost

$1.50

Avg. customer value

$7.50

-$1.41

$7.59

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Do we plan to continue working on this?

Yes!

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Business model canvas weekly iteration

• Propery Managers• Landlords

• Tenants


• Realtors






• Web• Landlord

• Web• Direct

• Web• Direct









the system

Version 1

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

• Propery Managers• Landlords

• Tenants


• Realtors






• Web• Landlord

• Web• Direct

• Web• Direct









the system

Version 2

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

• Landlords

• Tenants




• Access to customers• Web• Realtors• Industry

• Web• Landlord

• Web• Direct


• Direct for large players




• Industry organizations• Payment processors



the system

Version 3

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key






• All Web based







amongst ratings

Version 4

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key


listings• Largest breadth of





• All Web based







amongst ratings

Version 5

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

• Tenants • Social connection

during search• Better search of all

listings• Largest breadth of





• All Web based







amongst ratings

Version 6

Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

• Tenants







• All Web based






amongst ratings

Version 7



Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

• Tenants







• All Web based






amongst ratings

Version 8



Landlords

Realtors

Tenants

Service providers

Key

Education

Micasa E245 final presentation