LETT

Date: August 13, 2015

Name: Founder’s story – How we turned RentMoola into BC’s next billion dollar company

Presenter: Philipp Postrehovsky

Many entrepreneurs discover ways to solve people’s problems. With enough dedication, the solution can become a profitable business. The Non-Technical Entrepreneurs Meetup invites Philipp Postrehovsky, the Co-founder of RentMoola, to share his story of building a company from zero into BC’s next billion tech company. This presentation is moderated by Vicki Li, the CEO of LETT. In addition, entrepreneurs will learn the motivation, inspiration and experience behind Philipp Postrehovsky’s vision of helping people to solve their rent problem.

Philipp Postrehovsky is the CEO of RentMoola. Aside from his own business, Postrehovsky is also the Founder and the Ambassador of Grind For Kids program for BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. RentMoola is a company that provides online global payments for tenants and property owners. Postrehovsky has the passion on building brand, communication and social media strategies for foundations and companies. With over 9 years of experience of online marketing, Postrehovsky has the confidence to help making complicated problem into a simple solution.

Philipp Postrehovsky started his vision in 2010, where he discovered his brother in Shanghai was struggling to pay rent on time. Because of foreign exchange and the labour of writing out the cheques, Postrehovsky had a vision to help people simplify the procedure. In 2011, Postrehovsky was dedicated to the idea of helping people reducing the process of writing cheque and paying their rent online.

In 2012, Postrehovsky incorporated the business company. In order to have buy in from property managers, Postrehovsky needed to figure out the needs and other pain points from various of tenants. Postrehovsky partnered with a mobile payment company and started to build, test, and sample the beta version of RentMoola. During this year, Postrehovsky focused on feedback and modification.

In 2013, Postrehovsky officially launched the business. Postrehovsky mentions that if there is something he can do different, he wishes he could hire a technology advisor that provides honest feedback. During 2013, Postrehovsky hired his first employee. The company kept on growing and expanding.

In 2014, Postrehovsky hired his own in-house development team instead of outsourcing to external companies. He managed to expand the team into Vancouver, Toronto and Lindon.

Postrehovsky believes RentMoola has the potential to become the next global opportunity. Postrehovsky is honoured that RentMoola is recognized in BC Technology Industry Association.

Question and Answer

The value proposition from RentMoola is to eliminate the idea of writing rent cheques. Postrehovsky introduces the alternative way of cash payments. As for property manager, they can utilize the system to reduce stress on the process of processing cheque payments. Many people prefer online instead of cheques. Most merchants will absorb service charge and RentMoola will help tenants to negotiate the fair rate. Therefore, RentMoola introduces MoolaPerks program to reward their customers. MoolaPerks will help tenants to save time and save money

Postrehovsky shares his experience of approaching his first developer is important to his growth of company. Moreover, the first developer supports his vision and accepts the equity to grow the company. In the end, the developer becomes the advisor for RentMoola.

Postrehovsky has a clear vision already since the first day of the launch. Nevertheless, he is considered as the gatekeeper of his company. RentMoola has seven in-house developers to work on the next integration projects. The company will release new features, enhancement and user-friendly reporting structure. Nonetheless, the system is PCI compliance with strong security  protocol to protect tenants information.

Postrehovsky wants entrepreneurs to know it is important to hire a team to handle press release. Press release provides the excitement to the crowd and the audience. It also delivers the simple idea that people can relate on. Entrepreneurs need to understand that investors are looking for teams that can accomplish press release. Moreover, investors want to see how company can grow in the market. Financial technology is significant and customer acquisition is also important.

Postrehovsky shares if he can start over his business journey, he will try to do everything in-house at the beginning. Outsourcing can be risk, especially oversea. Therefore, Postrehovsky suggests entrepreneurs to do business with local as much as possible.

The perfect team comes from referrals, relationship and trust. The main quality of the team is to have the right culture fit. In the future, RentMoola will target their focus on integrating their system with other accounting systems. Postrehovsky believes Vancouver is an established tech hub for many tech startups. Vancouver is ranked number 19 in the world in development of startup tech companies. In addition, the government supports innovative technology startups with tax deduction and government grants.

“Have idea is great, but execution will get you there and you will be ahead of 95% of people. Remember, do not just talk about it, do it”