Homesharing is a market dominated by large players like Airbnb and HomeAway. But Chicago startup Rent Like a Champion thinks it can fill in the gaps that the big guys can't cover: small towns that hold big-time sporting events. And Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca are betting on it.
Rent Like a Champion appeared on Shark Tank in late 2015 and got a $200,000 investment from Cuban and Sacca for 10% equity. The startup pitched itself as a homesharing platform for college football fans traveling for a big game. It operated in small college towns like South Bend, IN and Ann Arbor, MI where Airbnb has little inventory, and gave people in those towns a way to earn income by renting their homes during football games, and it gave fans an alternative to expensive hotel rooms.
In 2015 Rent Like a Champion was entirely college football focused, but since its appearance on Shark Tank the startup has expanded to other sports, providing housing at golf events such as the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Honda Classic, the John Deere Classic, and the 2017 BMW Championship in Lake Forest. It has also set up similar deals with NASCAR tracks, where it facilitates home rentals for race fans.
Rent Like a Champion has doubled the number of homes on its site since the Shark Tank Episode aired, CEO Mike Doyle told Chicago Inno over email.
"The benefit that overnight exposure to 6 million viewers provides to a company can't be overstated," he said. "Immediately, we had people listing homes on our site in towns all across the country. Additionally, we had rental requests coming in for all kinds of sporting events. Being able to tie ourselves to the Shark Tank brand also opened the door to tons of new opportunities."
The year before appearing on Shark Tank, Rent Like a Champion did $2.3 million in revenue. Today, the company has done nearly $13 million in lifetime rentals, and it has close to 4,000 homes on its platform, Doyle said.
Doyle said Cuban and Sacca have given feedback and made key introductions that've helped the startup gain traction.
"More than anything else, they have pushed us to think bigger than being simply a college football rental business," he said.
Rent Like a Champion, which currently has 12 employees, says it hopes to eventually have a presence at every major sporting event, from the Super Bowl to the Kentucky Derby.
"There is still a ton of space for us to grow in the event-based rental business," Doyle said.
Image via Rent Like a Champion
