Episode 516
Solving the Rental Management Puzzle for Independent Landlords with Ryan Barone
Ryan Barone is the founder and CEO of RentRedi, an end-to-end management platform for landlords and tenants. The journey began when Barone realized that the rental industry needed improvement, not just for tenants, but also for independent landlords. After interacting with them and hearing their struggles, he decided to create a solution that would benefit both sides. Rent Ready was born out of Barone's desire to make renting easier and more efficient for landlords and tenants alike. Over the past 6 or 7 years, Rent Ready has constantly evolved, with each feature or enhancement rooted in the real-life experiences and challenges faced by landlords. From applications and prequalifying tenants to signing leases and collecting rent, Rent Ready streamlines and manages the entire rental process. What started as a personal problem-solving quest for Barone has now become a comprehensive platform that improves the rental experience for everyone involved.
Connect with Ryan Barone: https://app.rentredi.com/signUp/JCH191 (sponsored link)
Key Points and Bullets:
Introduction and Background
- Introduces Ryan Barone from RentRedi
- Mentions previous advertisement on the podcast
- Discusses Jack's positive experience with the app
- Mention of previous platform used (apartments.com/cozy)
Development of Rent Ready
- Ryan explains that initial development was for personal use
- Independent landlords requested improvements, leading to the expansion of the app
- Focus on solving problems faced by landlords and tenants
- Evolution of Rent Ready into an end-to-end management platform
Growth and User Base
- Jack asks about the duration of RentRedi's existence (6-7 years)
- Mention of the team size (30 members)
- Number of units and assets managed on the platform (150,000 units, $12 billion)
Influx of Users
- Discussion on various influx points of users
- COVID-19 pandemic led more landlords to seek digital payment solutions
- RentRedi implemented features to encourage on-time rent payment and report payments to credit bureaus
Entrepreneurship and Support System
- Jack asks Ryan about his entrepreneurial journey
- Ryan discusses having a support system and belief in pursuing the venture
- Mention of working on Rent Ready alongside a full-time job
- Ryan's father joins him in building Rent Ready
Challenges and Stumbling Blocks
- Jack asks about the biggest stumbling block faced by RentRedi
- Ryan does not provide a specific answer to this question
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Transcript
We have Ryan Barone with me here today with
Speaker:RentRedi.com, and I'll make sure to have that link directly in the
Speaker:show notes. Ryan, I really appreciate your time. And
Speaker:for full disclosure, Ryan and RentRedi has
Speaker:advertised on the podcast in the past. And because of
Speaker:that, I always check things out prior. So I was using the application,
Speaker:and it's great. So I have stuck with it for
Speaker:Jeepers. I bet you I've been on that for I gotta be closing in on
Speaker:a couple years now, a year and a half moving from
Speaker:apartments.com/cozy, which
Speaker:was frankly becoming a bit of a nightmare, Ryan. I
Speaker:appreciate the app that you've developed. Hi. I
Speaker:appreciate you having me on excited that you've been using it for so long
Speaker:now. I try to find efficiencies everywhere I can,
Speaker:And I want to push as much of that off
Speaker:wherever I can, including, on the technology size and managing
Speaker:the rental properties. When it comes to ease of use, I
Speaker:just frankly, I don't know. And I'm not just blowing
Speaker:smoke, and I don't know if you really have a rival right now.
Speaker:I appreciate that. Honestly, a lot of credit to the people on the platform, a
Speaker:lot of the independent landlords and tenants that have been on the platform because
Speaker:Our approach for building it since day 1 has pretty much been give
Speaker:us the the problems you face, the ideas you think could fix them,
Speaker:and We'll go try to build it and make it forward for everybody. I'm really
Speaker:happy to hear you say that. I act I actually have to start things off.
Speaker:You're a fellow young guy. This would have been a project you would have started
Speaker:when you were still in college, if not coming out. Yeah. What
Speaker:caused you to typically, a rental
Speaker:Management platform would wouldn't be on a college kid's
Speaker:radar. It it wasn't, honestly. It wasn't on my radar.
Speaker:What was on my radar was honestly just being I did get my 1st
Speaker:internship. I was going to school here in New York City, and, I was
Speaker:excited to move into my 1st apartment. Move out of dorms, get my 1st
Speaker:apartment. And, I realized I was definitely not ready to
Speaker:rent that carpet. I've, there were a lot of documents I needed to get together
Speaker:to apply. And so initially, I was just developing an
Speaker:app for myself and friends to apply the units more easily.
Speaker:And what I quickly realized Was that the independent landlords
Speaker:that I just so happen to be interacting with came to me and said, hey.
Speaker:Our side is just as bad, if not worse. Can you make our side
Speaker:better so that it's easier for us, not just for you? And
Speaker:so at that point was where it it Pivoted to being both sides and, really,
Speaker:honestly, to the landlord first, and then they make a a better experience for
Speaker:their own tenant as a result of adopting RentRedi. And beyond
Speaker:that, over the past 6 or 7 years now, it's been this constant
Speaker:discussion. Pretty much everything on the platform today Comes from at
Speaker:least 1 landlord story, if not multiple stories around
Speaker:a problem they were having and a solution we could implement such that
Speaker:we became not just for applying to apartments, but
Speaker:actually syndicating that out to different places and prequalifying
Speaker:tenants and Signing your lease and collecting all of your rent on the platform and
Speaker:how you streamline and manage all that. So, basically, we ended up becoming this
Speaker:this end to end management platform, but, really, it's it Started with just
Speaker:how can I solve my own problems so that it's easier for me to rent,
Speaker:and then how can I solve the problems of the people that I knew personally
Speaker:because I was meeting these independent landlords and saying, how can it be better for
Speaker:both of us, everybody involved? Now that you've been doing this, How long
Speaker:has the platform been up? About 2019? 7 years now.
Speaker:6 or 7 years now? So with all of that, have you started doing any
Speaker:investing yourself? I have been totally focused on the
Speaker:management side of things, so I've been totally focused on building the
Speaker:platform, helping other landlords at this point. That's completely
Speaker:understandable. I can imagine that the way as as
Speaker:quickly as you're trying to reiterate this platform,
Speaker:It's probably consuming a lot of time. How big is your team now? So we're
Speaker:about 30 on the team today. Okay. And you manage how many
Speaker:units on your platform? So we have over a
Speaker:150,000 units over $12,000,000,000 in assets under
Speaker:management on the platform today. Did you find any kind of
Speaker:turning point that anything that happened within the industry that you
Speaker:saw an influx of users? Yeah. I think there there's definitely
Speaker:been multiple points where we've seen influx of users.
Speaker:One, honestly, actually, was during COVID even. At the very beginning, it
Speaker:was the opposite. But then after maybe that 1st month or
Speaker:so, one thing we started seeing was that a lot of independent
Speaker:investors who previously had managed everything on Pen and paper and
Speaker:spreadsheets started saying, hey. I don't want to collect a
Speaker:check or come to your house and get cashed in the middle of COVID. I've
Speaker:been thinking about maybe Adopting some sort of digital payments
Speaker:platform to make it easier for me to collect rent. And so we did see
Speaker:a lot of people start to Really take that leap and
Speaker:say, I'm gonna streamline it for both ends. And it ended up making it a
Speaker:lot easier for them because instead of driving someone's house to get
Speaker:cash Or having them mail a check. They were instantly having that
Speaker:update in terms of a tracking perspective when a tenant pays and
Speaker:Being able to just have that be automated in terms of late fees and payments
Speaker:and all of that. That's been a big part of it, and even honestly out
Speaker:of that has come features we had during COVID. On that same payment side
Speaker:of things, landlords at tenants say, hey. Could you
Speaker:encourage my tenants to pay on time? Or on the flip side of that tenant
Speaker:saying, Can you make it easier or or give me some sort of benefit for
Speaker:paying on time? And during that same time period, based on that
Speaker:feedback we got, we actually built the ability to Report tenants
Speaker:on time payments to credit bureaus so that they build the credit by paying rent
Speaker:on time. So I think some of those that was definitely a big influx period
Speaker:for us, and and even From that, it's helped develop the product further and add
Speaker:more things to to help both parties. It's curious as regarding the
Speaker:whole entrepreneur mindset. You came right out of college like
Speaker:this. Was this natural? Are you typically surrounded by
Speaker:entrepreneurs in your family or in your life that made you feel like you
Speaker:you could go for it? Yeah. I am. I I I
Speaker:have a very strong belief that having a support system that tells
Speaker:you go for it is really important. I definitely had that.
Speaker:I, originally, when I graduated college, I was working on RentRedi on the side. Not
Speaker:too different than a lot of the independent investors on our platform that have a
Speaker:9 to 5, and Their properties are they're moonlight, gee. It's what they're doing
Speaker:to put a kit their car or make a little extra money. For me, it
Speaker:was I was working full time at PwC, I was working on RentRedi
Speaker:at at night, basically. And when I told my parents, hey. I
Speaker:think I'm, you know, gonna leave, and I'm gonna try to do this full time
Speaker:and Turn this into really something that helped a lot of people. Not only were
Speaker:they excited for me, and they told me that cheers to all of it that
Speaker:night, but also my dad joined me in And he and I have been actually
Speaker:building RentRedi for the past 6 years together. It's been
Speaker:really exciting to do together, but I it certainly means a lot. It's all it
Speaker:means a lot for someone to say, We support you. We think you should go
Speaker:for it. It has meant even more to say, not only that, but also I
Speaker:wanna do it with you. We do it together. So it's been great.
Speaker:As a business owner, there's always something that keeps you up at night. What has
Speaker:been the biggest stumbling block getting this platform moving
Speaker:so far? That's a good question. I think in the
Speaker:very early days, it was trying to figure out what's the right way to do
Speaker:it. There's so many different ways to manage your property, Especially, I wanted
Speaker:something that could help anybody no matter what size they are
Speaker:or what state they're in. We have landlords managing across all 50 states at this
Speaker:point. Some are in Rural areas, some are in metropolitan areas. I I
Speaker:really wanted something that was flexible enough to serve any
Speaker:size or any area so that someone I have to feel like, oh, because I'm
Speaker:not in the right area because I'm not the sat right side of the kit,
Speaker:use this. So I think in the very early days of us trying to figure
Speaker:out how do we get The perfect thing, what I came to realize
Speaker:was getting the perfect thing is not the right way to go about it, but
Speaker:getting feedback on what the best way that The
Speaker:crowd the wisdom of the crowd believes is to implement that
Speaker:and try to implement it and see how it works has been really successful for
Speaker:us in terms of Taking that feedback, building something,
Speaker:measuring, learning from it, and and iterating on that. I think that was probably one
Speaker:of the early stumbling blocks. But, honestly, now it's become a
Speaker:Core process for how we build anything in terms of
Speaker:anything we're trying to improve or add to the platform, how we should do it,
Speaker:how we should avoid it and just using that customer feedback and that
Speaker:iteration to make it better and better every day. One one of the things that
Speaker:I think is interesting about your platform is that there's a lot of integrations
Speaker:with third parties. Where do you draw the line as
Speaker:to where a 3rd party needs to be incorporated or when
Speaker:you add it as part of your functionality. And and did
Speaker:you take a moment and define your core feature set, and then
Speaker:that's what you're sticking to, or how did that look? Yeah. It's a great question.
Speaker:So the approach that we've taken in it is has been
Speaker:Hearing the the feedback that we get from our own customer, that's really where it
Speaker:starts even for those partnerships. If I take our maintenance coordination, for example,
Speaker:company, Lacto, that we partnered with there. That came actually similarly out
Speaker:of during COVID times. We had some, independent investors, some
Speaker:landlords coming to us saying, I don't want to do my maintenance myself,
Speaker:but I also don't have a teammate that I wanna add into the platform because
Speaker:you can add teammates if you already have somebody. Could you
Speaker:basically help me with if a maintenance request comes
Speaker:through, do you handle finding the right person and coordinating
Speaker:and the process for us initially was, does anybody out there do this and do
Speaker:they do it well? That's really our 1st step with a lot of these partnerships.
Speaker:Is there someone out there that does it Already, Mint does a good job of
Speaker:it. And if there is, then great. Let's partner with them and and integrate them,
Speaker:which was the answer in the case of Lateral. In other cases, if
Speaker:we talk to people and find that there isn't necessarily
Speaker:something out there that serves that need, we'll build it in house.
Speaker:If it's something that we feel can really help independent landlords
Speaker:manage their property or tenants to be more happy living in that
Speaker:property of that independent landlord. And so
Speaker:Essentially, if it falls under that category, it's something we consider whether we
Speaker:build or partner really just depends on if we can find someone out there that
Speaker:is doing it really well. If they are, then awesome. Let's partner with them,
Speaker:add them into the platform. In a lot of in a lot of cases, we
Speaker:can make it more seamless for them too because, even ex for
Speaker:example, with Latchl, we were able to streamline all of the
Speaker:onboardings from your perspective, enabling it. You're just Turning
Speaker:this thing on. And we handle creating all your properties and sending all
Speaker:your tenants over and syncing all of that information and everything like that. That's been
Speaker:an approach for us is trying to say, can we simplify it even if we
Speaker:do partner with somebody? If you don't mind me asking, what
Speaker:mechanism is in place for you to take those, those
Speaker:feedback from your landlords and your users so that you
Speaker:and and how do you measure prioritization? Yeah. I don't mind
Speaker:it at all. We've had live chat on the platform since day 1. Myself
Speaker:and Ed Parshare, we're doing it For the
Speaker:1st 2 or 3 years ourselves. So you wrote into the chat, you were talking
Speaker:to us directly, and our feedback loop initially
Speaker:was You wrote into us a chat, and,
Speaker:basically, he and I were talking. I was developing platform for the 1st couple
Speaker:years, And then we're building into the platform. We've grown a lot since then to
Speaker:a team of over 30, but that same idea still stands. So you
Speaker:might not be interacting directly with us in live chat, but you have somebody
Speaker:in live chat on the RentRedi team that understands
Speaker:either managing properties or renting in those properties, And they
Speaker:can basically provide that feedback to our team, either
Speaker:to one of our product managers or development team to basically say this is what
Speaker:I'm hearing. As we collect more and more of that, we start to understand, okay,
Speaker:the way that Jack would do this in his property in maybe Massachusetts versus the
Speaker:way that Ryan would do this in a property in Texas. How can we make
Speaker:this work for both of them? What does this look like? And then in some
Speaker:cases, we may even actually reach back out to those individual landlords if they're
Speaker:open to it and say, hey. This is Basically, what we've designed is what we're
Speaker:thinking of doing. Would this work for you? Would would you change anything in
Speaker:this? Would this be helpful? And, basically, that's then how we
Speaker:then go to develop it and release it and share it out. And we keep
Speaker:that tagged too. We could pull up in in the system over time, and I
Speaker:know there's a lot of A landlords on the platform that have been with us
Speaker:for quite a few years now that probably could tell you from their side. I
Speaker:was one of them that suggested that or that it be this certain way. I
Speaker:think it's an Exciting thing that it feels like we're building it all together. Has
Speaker:there been any requests that you've received that have surprised you? That's a
Speaker:good question. There's definitely been requests I didn't Anticipate.
Speaker:Right? 1 was, for example, in Texas.
Speaker:We had a landlord in Texas that called up On Friday night
Speaker:and said, hey. Unfortunately, I'm going through an eviction proceeding. And in my
Speaker:particular area, if they pay $1, it resets the eviction
Speaker:clock. So can you allow me to block partial payments by tenant? And this
Speaker:was a little bit earlier on. And so, basically, we
Speaker:did not anticipate you needing to either block partial or
Speaker:entirely blocked payments for just 1 tenant on the
Speaker:platform, because maybe you wanna get a certified check for them if you're going into
Speaker:a a legal proceeding. And so we did build that, pretty much
Speaker:overnight for that landlord so that they could have it. We released it to everybody,
Speaker:so everyone has this part of the platform still today. But that was definitely one
Speaker:where We didn't necessarily anticipate needing something, but that feedback
Speaker:led to knowing what we needed to do, how we needed to do it, in
Speaker:terms of answering the question, should you allow us on Tenant basis or unit
Speaker:basis or property. And so honestly, that type of feedback really
Speaker:does. It makes it that you don't have to necessarily know every answer yourself.
Speaker:You happy, like, to listen to the people that that have problems and have
Speaker:a solution for it and then implement what they share with you. Just to remind
Speaker:everybody, we're talking to Ryan Barone with Rent at ready.com.
Speaker:Click that link in the show notes to head over there. And if you like
Speaker:what you hear so far, why don't you do us a quick favor and share
Speaker:it with one of your investor friends? So, Ryan,
Speaker:I'm curious regarding your on the entrepreneurship
Speaker:aspect of this. Since you've been in this now for 6, 7 years,
Speaker:You've probably have learned a ton of lessons. And even though we might not be
Speaker:in the similar type of business, you're doing a
Speaker:SAS product versus us doing rental properties and
Speaker:what have you. I'm sure that there's some cross pollination
Speaker:with some of the lessons you've learned on how to be an entrepreneur. Is
Speaker:there any lessons that you can share? Definitely. One of them
Speaker:that's One of my favorites is honestly just to get
Speaker:started. I think this I I've seen this both from the
Speaker:entrepreneurship perspective with software business, and I've
Speaker:also seen it even with independent investors we work with. It gets really easy to
Speaker:get stuck in that analysis paralysis stage of how do I
Speaker:find the perfect thing, analyze the perfect thing, build the perfect thing, whatever it
Speaker:is that you're trying to do. It gets really easy to get Stuck in that
Speaker:stage or feel like you have to have the perfect plan. In most cases, you
Speaker:need a plan, but you don't need the perfect plan. You need a good enough
Speaker:plan to get started and to be able to be flexible enough to change as
Speaker:you get more feedback from whoever your customer is or whoever,
Speaker:the person Buying your product or service or renting your unit might be. But
Speaker:in a lot of cases, being able to have a a good enough plan, open
Speaker:ears, and and just Start working on it can honestly get you a lot
Speaker:further, a lot faster than necessarily waiting for that, that perfect plan
Speaker:or perfect deal or whatever it might be. I can't stress that enough,
Speaker:especially when it comes to investing. There is a level. It
Speaker:seems if we could somehow measure it, there's a much higher percentage of
Speaker:people stuck in analysis paralysis than any other industry
Speaker:that I've run into. Yeah. I totally agree with you. I think more
Speaker:people Don't reach their goal because they don't start. Then
Speaker:people had started and then didn't have enough a good enough plan
Speaker:to reach their goal. So I I really do think getting out of that
Speaker:stage as quickly as you can is is
Speaker:better. You can always learn along the way, and certainly, I have
Speaker:Continue to. With as many investors using
Speaker:your platform as you have, I'm sure. Do you have any
Speaker:insights? Have you been able to collect reports or
Speaker:industry information that you could maybe share that
Speaker:kind of. Stoods out regarding trends or anything like
Speaker:that. We actually do. So there's the company,
Speaker:Shandon Economics, which is a a real estate economic research firm
Speaker:that we partnered with. And, basically, we release a a once a month
Speaker:report on, overall rent collection across the US to give an
Speaker:idea of what that looks like for the independent landlord segment.
Speaker:And it's been really helpful. We've had, landlords
Speaker:that have told us it's been helpful for them to understand, Like, how things are
Speaker:going in their particular an area they want to invest in. We've also even
Speaker:seen some interest on the policy level. It's one of those things where There's not
Speaker:a a ton of policy that's made, unfortunately, for this independent
Speaker:investor market or independent landlord market. And part of that is because
Speaker:Everyone on pet insurance don't happening, and so it's hard to make regulation around that.
Speaker:We've seen some interest even in that report just from the aspect of understanding
Speaker:how, for example, COVID impacted Independent landlords as opposed to maybe
Speaker:massive property management companies or or mid level property management
Speaker:companies. And it's one of those that I I hope we'll be able to do
Speaker:more of in the future. I really hope it'll help both the investors on the
Speaker:platform or those getting started on the platform, as well as just
Speaker:Overarching group across the US with more macro
Speaker:perspective of those reports. Going back to the third party integrations that
Speaker:we were chatting about. Are there any upcoming integrations or
Speaker:improvements that you have planned that you could share with us. There are
Speaker:definitely some big big updates Coming, I think probably the most recent
Speaker:one that came out was that we did a big partnership with Bigger Pockets. And
Speaker:basically that now anybody that is Already a pro member on there
Speaker:becomes 1 on there. Could basically just link over into RentRedi
Speaker:included. So that was a huge one for us. Biggerpox has
Speaker:honestly been one that we've talked to for a long time. We've known the team
Speaker:over there for years, but to actually get that, level of kind of
Speaker:endorsement in terms of Them supporting us and vice versa, partnering
Speaker:with them, I think has been a a big integration on the platform. It's it
Speaker:definitely excited a lot of people in terms of Being able to connect
Speaker:those 2. Yep. May maybe I'm missing some of the integration features
Speaker:as well. So I'd I'd be curious. Do you have
Speaker:Some like Zapier or any Asana, any of those
Speaker:type of integrations currently or planned?
Speaker:We don't currently do a Zapier one on the more Asana task
Speaker:management side. We do have tasks built into the platform, So landlords
Speaker:can add any tasks that they have for themselves or teammates and share with
Speaker:those, but not yet. Maybe it's one that should be on the list, though. I
Speaker:like it. Yeah. I had to put you on the spot for a second.
Speaker:So, you know, with we chatted a little bit about all of these
Speaker:aspects regarding the integration and the third parties and everything
Speaker:else. But one of the things that I have noticed with
Speaker:my tenants is having that app
Speaker:on their phone has been a big change.
Speaker:Like a lot of the other platforms don't just have a standard
Speaker:phone app that Right. Especially in my I have
Speaker:properties in the rural communities. This has been a actually a pretty
Speaker:big selling point for most. If
Speaker:if when it comes to landlords versus tenants, have you
Speaker:seen, like, a pretty big swing, especially when it comes to adoption?
Speaker:Yeah. I I think a lot of people are are similar to yourselves in terms
Speaker:of liking the that mobile app. And and it's funny. That was where
Speaker:I initially, when I was developing it for myself, I started with just a mobile
Speaker:app for myself and friends. And so it was looking at it even from the
Speaker:perspective of what would I want to use, what would be easiest for me to
Speaker:interact with things I need to do with the language. So I I think you're
Speaker:you're definitely not alone there. There's quite a few, on the platform that I've
Speaker:expressed that's a a huge benefit for them in Terms of
Speaker:the easier it is for a tenant to pay rent on the platform or sign
Speaker:their lease or submit the application to just get through the pipelines being able
Speaker:to rent unit be a good tenant for you, the better. So,
Speaker:that, the ease of use is definitely a piece of importance
Speaker:for us. And I think you're definitely right. The the mobile app, Especially in
Speaker:certain communities, especially today, you may be more likely to have a
Speaker:smartphone than you do a home computer at this point. So Being able to
Speaker:just meet people where wherever they are, if they have only a smartphone,
Speaker:no problem. You can still do everything you need to do there. You don't necessarily
Speaker:have to go get a hold of a computer in order to Pay your rent
Speaker:or do whatever else you're you need to do for that unit. Is there a
Speaker:feature in your platform that that people might be surprised
Speaker:that is included? I think one that I I haven't
Speaker:mentioned and they might be surprised about is honestly on the accounting side of
Speaker:things. So that was another integration, another partnership that we did.
Speaker:It's been really, really successful in terms of people being excited
Speaker:about having it, using it, continuing to to use it. Basically, we
Speaker:partnered with a a company, REI Hub, that Does, landlord
Speaker:accounting basically, we sync all of your we we were already collecting all
Speaker:of your revenue data for the rent that you collect. So being able to sync
Speaker:all of that, all of your properties, everything over to there and be able to
Speaker:actually connect the 2 platforms so you can come into RentRedi. And from
Speaker:RentRedi, access any of these the things you need on the accounting side of things.
Speaker:It's been a huge help for a lot of landlords because they can get P
Speaker:and L by property, for example, right out of the box from enabling this rather
Speaker:than if you were doing it in even in QuickBooks. You typically are setting up
Speaker:sub jobs to basically be able to get that P and L by property or
Speaker:by unit. So I think that's maybe one that I
Speaker:I don't necessarily talk as often about right off the bat, but I
Speaker:think it's one that a lot of people get very excited about once they try
Speaker:it out. I I can imagine that being the case when it comes to any
Speaker:kind of accounting and taxes and and anything for that
Speaker:matter, Any path of least resistance is welcomed. I
Speaker:just wanna remind everybody one last time, rentredi.com. We've
Speaker:only scratched the tip of the iceberg regarding the functionality
Speaker:in Ryan's, application there. So again, it's
Speaker:rentredi.com so you can get a detailed list of
Speaker:what this is available. And I think with
Speaker:I I even have a, affiliate link that I I probably
Speaker:include. So, to take advantage of whatever promotion that
Speaker:is being run at the moment. But, with that, Ryan,
Speaker:I warned you the the rapid fire questions were coming. Are you ready for
Speaker:them? I'm ready for them. Let's do it. I'm I'm gonna open
Speaker:this a little broader for you because not being directly involved in
Speaker:rental properties. I'd be curious if there is a business
Speaker:or real estate myth you'd like to bust here today.
Speaker:Yeah. I I think I would choose a a real estate and
Speaker:technology one that cross over, which would be honestly that
Speaker:you have to be a certain size or in a certain placed to be able
Speaker:to have technology make it easier to either manage or rent
Speaker:a property. Yeah. I think with technology, there's this feeling that
Speaker:once you get to X amount of units or X amount of doors or
Speaker:whatever it might be. Then you can use this thing that will help you.
Speaker:And even in, in our particular case, but certainly in others In
Speaker:the space. There's a lot of technology out there that can help you even if
Speaker:you have 1 single family unit, regardless of where you are in the
Speaker:country that you wanna manage and make easier for yourself. I can't
Speaker:agree more. In fact, it's surprising that especially
Speaker:investors such as the people that I work with,
Speaker:the amount of time that they will spend evaluating a property
Speaker:and and assessing the return on investment. But then they don't take a
Speaker:moment and just think about that return that can be
Speaker:garnered through a software
Speaker:or whatever. Every, everything can be justified through an ROI.
Speaker:Just Mhmm. Take a second. Do you have a book recommendation
Speaker:or what are you reading right now? I do have a book recommendation. Mine
Speaker:would be 0 to 1. It's one of my favorites. I go back to it
Speaker:all the time. I think it's a great book. I'll have to check that one
Speaker:out. I think I actually have it in my audible library. I just haven't queued
Speaker:it up yet. I love it. So every time somebody's on my
Speaker:show, I add another book to my Audible library. And I I don't know if,
Speaker:at this point, if I have enough time left in my life to listen to
Speaker:all. You need the the double speed. It's the only way to get
Speaker:through it all. So have you ever heard of that Blinkist? I think there's
Speaker:apps now that will summarize the books for you. I have. I've heard of
Speaker:it. It seems interesting. I haven't tried it myself yet, though. Yeah. I
Speaker:haven't tried it. It's but I can understand why people would use it.
Speaker:What is your biggest business mistake you've made, and what did you learn from it?
Speaker:I think that one would probably be going back to the just start. I think
Speaker:the biggest mistake I made was trying to build Something that was
Speaker:perfect before I let anybody use it. And what I really found was that once
Speaker:I let people start to use it, I got back
Speaker:far more Feedback ideas than I possibly
Speaker:could have gotten without it. And I I think the same thing applies to almost
Speaker:any business that the more that you can Garter any sort of
Speaker:feedback or put something out there and and start to get some
Speaker:response on the better. So I think that's been one of the big ones for
Speaker:me is just In terms of starting and collecting that feedback and iterating
Speaker:on it. If you could go back in time and give your younger self one
Speaker:piece of advice, what would that be? I think it would be Implementing
Speaker:the we this method of build, measure, learn, which actually comes from 0 to 1,
Speaker:is one that's been really successful. Using that from the beginning would
Speaker:be, I think really helpful, and I think it applies to anything you do
Speaker:even outside of business, just in life. But in terms of learning from
Speaker:something, Putting it into action in any sort of way,
Speaker:measuring the impact of that. Did it work? Did artwork? Why? Learn that
Speaker:again And and repeat that process. It can be really successful in terms
Speaker:of ultimately getting to wherever you wanna go, whether it's
Speaker:manager Software business or properties or play guitar
Speaker:or anything. You have 60 seconds, and you're gonna give everybody 1 piece
Speaker:of advice they can implement today to make a impact on their business.
Speaker:What would it be? I I think the the biggest one would be would
Speaker:actually be that build, measure, learn. It seems so simple, But if you but
Speaker:even before you as you are building, think about how am I going to
Speaker:measure this? What does success look like for me if I'm fast forwarding 6 months
Speaker:or a year from now? How will I look back and say, I did it,
Speaker:smile, be happy, whatever it is to help me get to that point,
Speaker:defining that measurement, Then implementing something and starting to see,
Speaker:am I making progress towards that goal, or do I do believe that's right? Is
Speaker:there anything I can learn from what I've done so far? And then
Speaker:iterating on that as I go. I I think it can really apply to
Speaker:truly anything you do, and I think it certainly helped me a
Speaker:lot. Definitely stealing from 0 to 1 in that in that respect,
Speaker:but I really do think it helps no matter what you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker:That's the whole point of this show is one of the our taglines is
Speaker:you can either put in the 10000 hours and become an become an
Speaker:expert or learn from somebody who's already made that investment. And that's exactly what
Speaker:you're doing in that situation. So, Ryan, this has been a great
Speaker:But is there a question or concept you wish we would have covered here today?
Speaker:The only one that I will ask is your landlord using
Speaker:RentRedi yourself. What would be your suggestion? Or
Speaker:the I we've talked a lot about things we build into the platform over time
Speaker:based on the feedback of independent investors on the platform and Things
Speaker:they have. What would be your what would be your top ask or your top
Speaker:suggestion of something you don't have today, but you'd love to see in the future?
Speaker:You put me on the spot, but I go back earlier. I think one of
Speaker:my questions actually foreshadowed one of the things I would
Speaker:ask is the, like the Zapier integration
Speaker:of some kind so that I can, but you're talking to, I I don't
Speaker:know if I can classify myself as a traditional landlord in
Speaker:in the fact that I'm a bit of a nerd. So that type of
Speaker:stuff doesn't scare me off like it might for others. I
Speaker:don't I don't see that as a low bar of entry. Definitely for me. I'm
Speaker:gonna do some of that, that type of thing. The other thing, anything
Speaker:else would be something I probably would share with you
Speaker:outside of the recording. I like it.
Speaker:So I really appreciate your time, Ryan. Again, it is
Speaker:rentredi.com that is ready with an I,
Speaker:I'll make sure to have that as a clickable link in the show notes, but
Speaker:thanks for your time, Ryan. Thanks again for having me.