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I'm a solo founder on www.rocketlease.com, which gives landlords an online rental application for screening prospective tenants. It's profitable but my total i

• giulianob 13y ago
  Small side note, your sites font on a Windows 8 laptop is very difficult to read since the font renders poorly.
  • ezl 13y ago
    Thanks giulianob. Added it to my ticket list to check :) That is probably not very good since IE usage is disproportionately high among my customer base (side note, I'm going to check my conversion stats by browser now...)
• thematt 13y ago
  Wow, good for you, I'm impressed. A quick Google search indicates that's a very competitive space (probably an understatement). What is your approach to marketing? As a landlord you're trying to reach, I'm curious how you're getting the word out. As a developer, I'm curious what you've found most effective.
  • ezl 13y ago
    Getting the word out: honest and probably in satisfying answer is that it's a huge slog. As an engineer, I kept looking for automated solutions that would be scalable and elegant. All the "growth hacking" talk out there makes you want to search for the "one secret trick" or the better placed share button, but for Rocket Lease I did/am doing just tons of unscalable, schleppy, inelegant stuff. I personally have made thousands of cold calls, found property management companies with errors on their websites and offered to fix them for free to get a conversation started, tried tons of online ad channels (Adwords converts for me now, but I can't buy that many clicks profitably and the viable keyword space is smaller than expected). Flyers, postcards, calling brokers and taking them out to lunch.... Basically all the elegant automated stuff I wanted to happen didn't. Dogged persistence has been the biggest winner to date. It's gotten easier and with domain age and more back links I'm starting to do better in organic search but it's still not that much (~70 hits a day). With more customers now I have some social proof and I'm starting to get more recommendations in but I think the tipping point for when that becomes a meaningful growth driver is still a ways away. Oh, and customer service. Unreasonably good customer service. Not because I have to but because I obsess about my business, I personally get to support tickets really fast, try to personally connect with the customer and understand their needs and figure out how to help them. If I think rocket lease isn't the best fit for their needs, I'll tell them and recommend them to a better suited competitor (this happens if, for example, the landlord wants online rent payments built in to the same system). Landlords really appreciate the quality service and personal attention. This is typically only necessary early on, and after the customer has used it a few times, it's pretty much auto pilot and they're a customer for life because of the great on boarding experience.
• iamwithnail 13y ago
  Really like that, cool idea. Come launch it in London? We paid £135 (EACH) for that service the last time I rented a flat here.
  • ezl 13y ago
    Thanks iamwithnail! :) There's a company on the other side of the pond that seems to be making waves -- check out rentify.com. I've never used them myself but their growth stats seem promising and they are vc backed. The founder, George S, is nice and we have spoken several times.
    • georgespencer 13y ago
      Thanks Eric!
  • georgespencer 13y ago
    Hey iamwithnail! Let me know if you're looking for a gig: Rentify is always hiring bright people who dislike the industry.
    • iamwithnail 13y ago
      Sure, email in your profile?
      • georgespencer 13y ago
        Yep!