From Scratch: Rentlinx

"Apartmentilicious! … Perfect for any palate! … Location is perfect for the "bookworm athlete!" You can find these and over 300,000 more dynamically described dwellings on Rentlinx, the rental housing multi-list website developed by entrepreneur Jeremy Schneider, president and founder of Ann Arbor-based Rentlinx, LLC.

Once upon a time, Schneider scouted for his Ann Arbor apartment the old-fashioned way – through the newspaper. "It's kind of a problem that I can go to any of six different websites and find an airplane seat that's available in real time … It seems like apartments should be an easier problem because they don’t change availability as often," he explains. "Knowing which ones are available online is something people certainly would want to do. Rentlinx was kind of born out of that frustration."

A Herculean effort

The company has its origins in the now defunct Hercules Solutions, a developer of custom software that Schneider, 27, a 2007 Crain's Detroit Business "20 in their 20s" honoree, started in 2003 while completing his master's degree in computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan.  Start-up costs were minimal – some credit card debt and $6,000 left over from a track and field scholarship to the University of Michigan (where he still holds the record for the 600-meter run) launched him off of the starting block. The company has never had outside funding, he says. "That $6,000 surplus after graduating from college basically allowed me to start a company on day one instead of getting a job on day one."

A rental housing database project for an Ann Arbor property manager led the fledgling software developer to burst out in a new direction. "It was shocking how much this client needed it, and how much better of a solution we gave them," Schneider recalls. "So instead of making different solutions for every client, [we said] let's just keep trying to solve this problem, which is how it turned from Hercules to Rentlinx."

Did he jump some hurdles during the raising of Rentlinx? You bet. Starting anew meant an empty piggy bank at first. "When we made the switch to Rentlinx, the year after that was kind of a tough year because you're telling 100 percent of your clients that you're not doing that work anymore, and developing a site that's largely free." But he advises that "you've gotta persevere, and we did it, so now we're doing much better than we ever did as Hercules Solutions."

He finds "being the sole technology guy," tough at times, lavishing many hours on software and graphics development and enhancements to the site. As the company outgrew its original web hosting provider, he made the call to upgrade. "It was a challenge to figure out, when do you get big enough that you need to do this kind of thing?" he poses.

In 2005, Schneider doubled the company headcount to two by adding his mother, Amanda Schneider, to handle sales, marketing, and customer service. Prior to joining her son in the business, the University of Michigan computer science graduate helped to build and sell her software consulting firm to MPS Group, currently a Fortune 1000 company. The co-owners are hoping to add a web developer this year.

Schneider's goal is to list every single rental property in the nation. It's a mighty one: the U.S. has over 34 million rental units, according to the 2005 American Housing Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. "The [online rental search] industry is kind of only serving these big apartment communities. According to the 2000 U.S. census, 80% of [renters] actually live in smaller units," says Schneider, who sees sky-scraping potential in the market.

Property owners and managers of all sizes can list their units with Rentlinx at no cost. The company distinguishes itself from other rental housing finder sites by sharing those listings with its partner websites, including local and state apartment associations as well as classified search sites Oodle and Google Base, among others.

"We're not trying to be an island," Schneider emphasizes. Many apartment finding sites don't affiliate and thus carry only a mini selection; but he likes the notion of virtual collaboration. "We want to pull all these different sites together and become the one source that can power and feed all these different sites, so we're not trying to just be some of the other noise out there. We want to be part of the solution that really connects all these other websites."

Show me the rent

One key client is the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, for which Rentlinx powers the statewide rental housing locator site, a searchable database of over 225,000 units. Rentlinx has forged similar partnerships with housing authorities in other states, from Alaska, Texas, Washington, and North Dakota, with more to follow.

Prospective renters can search any of the partner sites or the firm's nationwide listing site, Show Me the Rent. The Rentlinx database has more than 13,000 properties, comprised of over 340,000 units in 47 states and Washington, D.C. It had 1.3 million page views in February.

Revenue is still under $1 million, but Schneider expects to shoot past that target soon, since income, traffic, and the number of listings has been doubling every six months. 20 to 30 new property managers list with Rentlinx every day. While listings are free, about 15% of property managers use optional paid website update services, he says. "If we can get every rental housing unit in the U.S. listed, 15% is a pretty good number to sell optional services to."

School ties

Being headquartered in his alma mater city has its perks; a caboodle of renters and … football. The
"diehard" University of Michigan fan (with the tattoo on his leg to prove it) absolutely loves Ann Arbor. "It's the perfect small-sized city. I can walk less than a mile and be downtown, and go less than a mile in the other direction and be in the forest. There are rivers; it’s a young town. It's a pretty hot tech town too – Google's here."

Schneider shares common history with Google's co-founder, Larry Page; both are former presidents of the University of Michigan chapter of Eta Kappa Nu, a national electrical and computer engineering honor society. The ex-prez is also creator of the popular ASP.net FTP http://www.herculessolutions.com deployment tool used by developers world-wide.

But this young entrepreneur is hardly chained to his computer – he's into a medley of outdoor pursuits, including camping, sailing, and snowboarding. Come warmer days, he's beach-bound. "I measure my quality of life based on the number of hours of beach volleyball I play in a given week …" he explains.

And add "speaker" to his repertoire. In April, he'll be talking about marketing rental housing to different age groups at the Michigan Conference on Affordable Housing, the largest of its kind in the country.

Conversant in many domains, "Jeremy [is] the best software developer I've ever worked with, and I've had a career in software development," says Amanda Schneider. "He turned down a couple of very lucrative job offers, once he got his master's degree at Michigan, because he decided he wanted, really … to build something from scratch. That sheer determination and persistence, it's paid off. I'm just very, very impressed, as a business person, and as his mom."