Episode Details

DGS 84: Roof App with Tyler Hayes and Joao Ritter

Published 7 years, 2 months ago

Description

Love 'em or hate 'em, most of us have lived with roommates at some point. You probably split expenses and chores, including rent and taking out the trash.

Today, I am talking to Tyler Hayes and Joáo Ritter of Roof, which helps roommates resolve problems to live peacefully together and landlords easily collect rent and connect with tenants.

You'll Learn...

[01:48] How a college hobby project created a company: A group of friends who love to design and build things, like apps, got together to foster productive communities.

[02:21] It's good to have friends with different skill sets to make a product even better.

[03:17] Roof: A company all about people who share and make a place feel like home and landlords who make space available to those tenants.

[03:55] Property vs. Tenant Management: Does your landlord treat you like a human being or asset? Problem-solving by landlords improves relationships with their tenants.

[04:45] Pairing up to build an app: Eager to work on meaningful, real-world projects and continue to invest in them.

[06:00] What is Roof, and what does it do?

Landlord: Gets paid, makes sure home operates as expected, and creates positive renting experience for tenants.
Roommates: Share reminders, shopping items, expenses, and anything else they want to exchange while living together.

[07:28] Target Audience: Landlords handling a small portfolio of college housing; who know all their tenants by name and care about communicating with them.

[08:13] Landlords recognize that renting experiences and services they provide for tenants reflect back on them and their reputation.

[08:39] Societal trend toward people moving in together for the sake of economic efficiency; people try to live together, share spaces, and live more cheaply.

[09:26] Recipe for Disaster: Relying on one to communicate to entire household.

[10:00] Roof app revolves around sharing space between people who all share responsibility for that space.

[10:54] Common Challenges: Roof helps solve communication issues and responsibilities masked as reminders for people sharing space.

[18:09] People love interacting and inspiring one another to take risks, make the move, offer encouragement and support - Roof's team is part of conversation/common goal.

[22:57] Plans to integrate with property management software that lacks Roof's roommate functionality/communication platform? Too cost prohibitive for small investors.

[27:53] Future Feature: How Roof decides which features to focus on or throw away.

Tweetables

Does your landlord treat you like a human being or asset?

Roof revolves around sharing space between people who share responsibility for that space.

There's always going to be bugs, tweaks, changes—that's just the nature of software.

Resources

Roof ($20 of transaction fees for free, use code: 3875 DoorGrow)