the blog

RentWiki Changes Name to RentAdvisor, Gets Multi-Million Dollar Investment, and Launches Killer New Product

March 20, 2012 – Businesses don’t get better by chance, they get better by change.

“In the past 18 months we’ve worked directly with thousands of renters,” said Robert Turnbull, president and co-founder of the company. “We’ve learned a few things: First, ratings and reviews have a much bigger influence on the renter’s decision to visit an apartment community than anyone realizes. Second, what the Apartment Industry needs is a way to proactively tackle the apartment reviews and ratings proliferating the Internet.”

Recently a number of companies have announced what they are referring to as “reputation management” or “reputation monitoring” products. However, these services simply aggregate existing reviews whereas RentAdvisor has created a new product designed to actually enhance the online reputation of apartment communities and management companies.

“Now is the time to take action,” explained Jamie Gallo, CEO and co-founder. “When we launched RentWiki four years ago, our Industry wasn’t quite ready to embrace user-generated content and reviews. Since then a lot has changed. Every Apartment Industry event now has sessions, seminars and panels on how to handle ratings and reviews. Fortunately we have a four-year head start on any other company in this space.”

In short, RentAdvisor works directly with property management companies and properties to establish a baseline online ratings and reviews score. Then – through various and proprietary means perfected in the past 18 months – solicits a much more balanced rating and review set among renters. Finally, these more positive and balanced ratings/reviews are pushed to popular, well-trafficked sites, dramatically improving a property’s online reputation.

So why the name change to RentAdvisor? “We have often been equated to the travel site TripAdvisor due to the similarity of the user-generated content appearing on RentWiki,” said Gallo. “As fun as the name ‘RentWiki’ is to say, RentAdvisor is more akin to what we are actually doing.  We advise renters – and help other renters advise renters – on apartment communities and neighborhoods best suited to their needs.”

Finally, based on the intriguing new direction of the company, RentAdvisor was able to raise several million dollars in institutional and strategic investor capital at the beginning of this year to ensure viability of the company’s products and services long-term.

Chris Thorman, solid guy, is conducting a survey on how property managers are using technology.

The survey is a short one – only 15 questions – and will only take you a couple of minutes to complete. Our goal with the survey is to create a 2009 snapshot of how property managers are using the vast amount of technology available to them.

I’m interested in the results.  Here is a link to the survey if you have time.

This past week, I took a trip to Costa Rica with a few friends including Rahmin Sarabi, founder of unclasses.com, James Gross, VP at Federated Media, and Matt Jessell, Stategic Programs Manager at Federated Media.

With collectively over 15 years of web experience, most of our conversations were centered around how the web is changing media, consumer behavior, and our daily interaction – typical for a group of web guys on a vacation. Sorry, no bikini girls taking body shot stories here.

But in the context of a third-world country, heavily influenced by the US recession, the web seemed more relevant than ever.

It has become an equalizer; a channel of communication to connect and broadcast to anyone and everyone around a topic in real-time.

Before the leaving for the trip, James had connected with the founder of SurfingNosara.com, Erik Antonson. Erik has been experimenting with social media as a distribution and communication channel and wanted to meet with us to “get advice and talk strategy”.

What came next was a surprise. In an hour conversation with Erik, I realized that I had very little to offer. The specific strategies in using Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages, Blogs, Video, and other social media mediums are elementary. The technology is simple and the additional tools such as Twollow, TwitterHawk, Involver, etc can be found in online resource guides.

So how is it that a group of web dudes from San Francisco couldn’t give Erik a more concrete social media strategy?

Because he got it. Living in Costa Rica, thousands of miles from any technology hubs and in the middle of the jungle, he got it. He may not have the best SEO or SEM strategy, or may not be utilizing the best tools to scale his consumer engagement, but understood the foundation the social web was built on.

He knew to:

1) Focus on relevant and real-time content.

Erik posts regularly with interesting and engaging content. No automated content rss fed content from an api of twitter search with geotagged stories from ghost bloggers (I think I got most of the bs terms used). It’s real content from him and his crew.

2) Be authentic.

He’s not going to pretend to be a brand, or hide behind a logo. He is the founder, owner, the company, and a person you can ask questions and talk to.

3) Be passionate about what he is doing.

Erik is a realtor. But he actually cares about what he is doing, and it is easy to recognize that. It is apparent from in his posts, his videos, and the community he has built.

4) Use marketing channels as means to communicate, not sell.

He understood that these mediums are a means to communicate and engage around conversation. He actually cared about your experience, the relationship, and building an online community around Nosara. He makes it nontransactional. (Yes, he’s a realtor and yes, this is possible)

5) Make decisions as if he was 16.

He thinks about his life and his company as if he were a young, optimistic adolescent. He makes it fun, appreciates the process, and in the end, is doing more of what he enjoys. Why does this matter? Because making an extra dollar is not the end goal.

Again, the web has become as equalizer. Understanding the trends, tools, and fundamentals of the social web are no longer restrictive to those in the microcosm of San Francisco geekness. All too often we associate “living in San Francisco” with technological know-how. Sure, the entire globe isn’t using FourSquares or Vark, but Erik started with a solid foundation of focusing on content, his relationships, and his passion; and with these principles in mind, he is going to crush it.

Find Erik at SurfingNosara.com.

So my sister is moving to Los Angeles after two years at Harvard Business School. She sends me an email today:

Subject: False advertisement

Body:

1st picture is what we signed up for – 2nd picture is what we got…

Do you think the advertisement/picture helped or hurt the property’s end goal?

Lots of momentum in the valley around Eric Reis’ Lean Startup.  Though I find his advice particularly valuable to startups, I think there are other applications to the general principles.  If you haven’t seen it, here is his presentation from the Web 2.0 Conference.

 
In our industry, the traditional methodology of developing and implementing a new idea or service seems to stifle creativity.  At a typical property management group, the risk-profile is perceived to be very high.  Further compounding the problem, traditional mediums are viewed as efficient “enough”.

I’m not recommending you spend hours a day tracking and measuring leads, but putting some simple processes in place will help you identify which leads are converting from which sources.  Though the general goal is to drive the most leads possible, maybe it should be to drive the most qualified leads possible.  

3)  Reduce total time through the loop.

The general idea is the getting through the feedback loop as quickly as possible.  The faster you are at identifying what renters want or how to interact with renters, the more branding and lead generations opportunities you will have.  

I think a lean startup is about testing a variety of hypotheses, using feedback and data to identify consumers’ needs, and being able to quickly change strategy and iterate again.  This may be a bit of a stretch for property management groups and I know I am oversimplifying things, but I think some lessons can be learned and applied.  What do you think?