1. Block 5
Lessons Learned™

2. » Vision: An end to end solution for landlords and
tenants to manage their relationship online.
» Kind of market: 2 sided network; landlords and
renters.
» TAM: Overall opportunity is about $150 billion.
» Focus: Non-professional landlords, the ones for whom
this is not a primary business - about 50% of the
market
» Type of business: Service with a website and mobile
access (applications)

3. Mug Shot Name Experience Role on Team
Oji Udezue Product Leader; Microsoft Chief Product Officer
Derek Andersen Finance Leader; Amazon, Head of Finance
Newscorp
Tara Martinez Operations Leader; Head of Operations
Sequenom, Abbott
Robin Kwok Business Dev Leader; Applied Head of Business
Materials Development
Kash Iftikhar Sales Leader; Dell, Force 10 Head of Sales

4. Key Partners Key Activities Value Props Cust Rel Cust Segment
• Banks • EZLease • Convenience • Personal profiles • Multisided
• Payment gateways platform • Vertical integration • User generated platform for
• Listing services • Marketing • Screening + data renters and
• Service providers Reputation • Community and landlords with 1-4
• Online contracting forums units
• Payments
• Design
Channels
• PR
• Online ads
• Website (SEO)
• Larger REITS and
property
management
firms
Cost Structure Rev model
• Platform • Usage fees
• Marketing and • Brokerage
marketing • Site ad revenue
intelligence • Referral
revenue

5. » 100+ in person surveys – 20+/team member
˃ Bay Area, Seattle, New York
» 117 online survey respondents
˃ Checked value proposition
˃ Checked willingness to pay (wtp) – Really GOOD!
» Engaged with all feedback from advisors (Thanks
Jonathan, Jon, Bhavik, Oren!)
˃ Tom Cervantez, founder’s den, Jonathan, Nico, lots more!
» Competitor analysis
˃ Rentlord, Rentjuice
» Started building a product
˃ www.ezleasr.com
» Stopped!!

6. » We discovered new potential value propositions
+ Archiving rental agreements, Renter-Landlord matching and pre-filtering,
Scheduling tools for viewings, connect to service providers
» Some of the value propositions we tested were viewed
differently by our customers than expected
+ Contracting online -> didn’t resonate but archiving contracts did, Payment
transactions -> More interesting to tenants than landlords
» We’re competing against the status quo, which is a
fragmented but inexpensive set of solution
+ Integration, price and convenience will be our key value propositions
» We Are Not Alone in this Space
+ Rentjuice – $6.4 series A; Rentlord – Techcrunch Disrupt, seed funding

7. Key Partners Key Activities Value Props Cust Rel Cust Segment
• Banks • EZLease • Archiving rental • Personal profiles • Multisided
• Payment gateways platform agreements • User generated platform for
• Listing services • Marketing • Matching and data renters and
• Service providers scheduling services • Community and landlords with 1-4
• Issue management forums units
• Screening + • Flexibility in the #
Reputation of units.
• Design
Channels
• PR
• Online ads
• Website (SEO)
• Larger REITS and
property
management firms
Cost Structure Rev model
• Platform • Usage fees
• Marketing and • Brokerage
marketing • Site ad revenue
intelligence • Referral revenue

8. » Customer facing website
˃ Interactive website ~$2000
˃ Facebook Page
» Driving traffic (Craigslist, Adwords, Facebook)
˃ 47,000 impressions from all online channels,
˃ 0.1% CTR from Adwords
˃ 10% CTR from Craigslist
˃ 4 sign-up a day!
» More research and validation
˃ School residential market - 3 School’s student real estate reps, 100
customers to revalidate value props
˃ Is this applicable in international markets?
» Industry Experts
˃ 10 industry experts in online real estate and related fields
˃ Debrief disgruntled ex-competitor

9. » Focus, focus, focus
˃ The initial product was still too complicated
˃ We need to narrow down to a single value proposition
˃ We ways to test and see if customer would agree with our simplified
value proposition
» This is mostly a marketing challenge
˃ Advisors in the industry said “Great, but you’re going to have a tough
time finding your customer!”
˃ They were right! No easy proxy for non-professional landlords – we
searched high. And low!
» Our team is missing a key ingredient
˃ We understand our product but have ZERO coding skills
» We need to get involved in the industry
˃ Double down on understanding and networking in this industry

10. Key Partners Key Activities Value Props Cust Rel Cust Segment
• Craigslist other • Launch website • Matching and • Personal profiles • Multisided
rental portals and • Test Ability to scheduling services Postponed platform for
listing services Drive Traffic and • Screening + • User generated renters and
Get Responses Reputation data landlords with 1-
• Marketing • Community and 4 units
forums • Flexibility in the #
of units.
Channels
• Direct marketing
• Online lead gen
Cost Structure Rev model
• Platform • Brokerage
• Marketing and
marketing
intelligence

11. » Don’t Fall in Love with Your Idea
˃ Everyone we talked to thought our idea was a good one, including us! Real
customers told us we were off base on certain critical items. Testing your
hypothesis, no matter how brilliant you think you are, is critical.
» Focus is Critical
˃ We had a big vision of creating an all encompassing eco-system. While that
may be the right vision at some point it is hard to develop and explain to
customers. Simple and focused is easier to build and market.
» Launch early, Learn, and Improve
˃ We started with a “build it and they will come” strategy. This would have
bankrupted us. It is far better to get something up and iterate.
» Identify Gaps in the Team Early
˃ We are building a web based service and none of us can code. We should have
considered this skill gap and resolved it upfront.
» Identify and Focus on What is Critical for Success
˃ We learned that our business is more of a marketing challenge than a
technology challenge. We should have realized this sooner.

12. » We would go faster
˃ Research, surveys, and refinement of the plan consumed too much time.
» We would address the skill gap (coder) earlier in the
process
˃ We should have just hired someone, found another team member, or learned
to code ourselves at the outset.
» We would have project planned more aggressively
˃ We were at times paralyzed by the scale of our vision relative to the time and
resources available within the time frame of the course.
˃ If we rationalized our plan earlier we could have built more!

13. » The demand for our core value proposition is as
high as we thought
˃ SAM is ~ $15bn
˃ Response rates on our marketing exceeded expectations
˃ The level of enthusiasm in customer emails is impressive
» The Complexity and Cost of Building a Commercial
Product is Lower than Expected
˃ Most of the complex elements of the service can be delivered with simple
API connections to existing 3rd parties
» Early Results Indicate We Can Acquire Customers at
ROI Positive Cost Levels
˃ Conversion rates on our marketing tests are very high
˃ We need to test at greater levels of scale to be sure

14. » Yes!
» Next Steps:
˃We need a few weeks of vacation first
˃Working on how we will each contribute over time
˃Currently speaking with potential engineering/coding
leaders to fill our skill gap on the team.
˃Getting active in the industry to gain more knowledge
˃Scoping costs to determine financing strategy; bootstrap
may be possible
˃Real work begins in the new year!