In the past month, Boston-based Buildium has surpassed 10,000 customers, crossed 100 employees and made its first acquisition. But the property management software firm didn't reach those milestones overnight. The company was founded in 2004—and even as its business has grown steadily over the years, Buildium has stayed largely under the radar in the Boston tech community.
"When you want something done right, do it yourself"
The company, based in Downtown Crossing, provides software that is now used to manage more than 750,000 residential units in 46 countries worldwide. Their product covers the whole process of managing tenants —including advertising vacancies, screening tenants and sending leases.
Buildium's story started in the late ’90s, when co-founder and CEO Michael Monteiro, a Boston College alum, decided to pursue his interest in real estate along with two co-workers in the tech department at Sapient. After the trio bought several multi-family properties in Providence, they quickly realized that it was nearly impossible to stay on top of which leases were expiring and which tenants weren’t paying their rent. Around 2003, they sought out software that could help them keep track of these elements. Unfortunately, all of the tools they found were for the desktop computer (i.e. offline), expensive and difficult to use. So they decided to built the Web-based option they were looking for—and in 2004, Buildium was born.
Monteiro tells me that Buildium began as a tool specifically for landlords, but the focus quickly shifted toward professional property managers, who have many of the same challenges but some other very unique pain points.
Growing the Boston footprint
Buildium consisted of just Monteiro and his co-founder Dimitris Georgakopoulos until 2008, when they hired their first customer service employee—and the company was also bootstrapped until 2012, when it raised an undisclosed amount of money to invest more into marketing. Between 2006 to 2008 Monteiro says that Buildium went from having 50 to 500 customers.
Now, the startup has made its first acquisition, of online marketing service All Property Management. Monteiro told me that acquisitions weren’t necessarily part of Buildium’s original strategy, but the buy was complementary to their mission: making software that makes property managers more efficient and profitable while also directly helping them to grow.
Buildium allows customers to manage their tenants, accounting and tasks. Some of the features include creating custom online rental applications and other forms, listing vacancies, conducting credit and background checks, and accepting and responding to maintenance requests, as well as then scheduling work orders and assigning them to staff. Buildium also offers a marketing website for businesses.
Now, Monteiro says the focus will be rolling out additional services that work on any mobile device. Since customers are increasingly doing things like maintenance services and collecting rent outside of the office, a shift to mobile-responsive apps problems makes sense.
With Buildium having achieved its recent milestones and on a solid path for further growth, marketing manager Sam Clarke said the company is looking to shed its approach of flying below the radar in local tech.
"We really do think Buildium is the quietest success story in the Boston tech ecosystem. And we'd like to change that," Clarke said.
Image of Boston brownstone via Shutterstock.
