A Chicago startup is creating tailored apps to keep apartment and condo tenants more informed on what's happening in their building.
Mobile Doorman, which launched its beta last fall, is set to debut building-specifics apps for six apartment and condo complexes in the next 30 days. The apps allow users to pay rent, make and track maintenance requests, and approve guests to be checked in before they arrive to the building. There is also a built-in Criagslist-type feature where residents can sell items to others in the building. But the core function of the app is its messaging feature, which creates an easier way for tenants to stay connected with building-wide announcements, community events, and resident-specific messages, said Bob Matteson, co-founder of Mobile Doorman.
"I started realizing how little technology there is in real estate," said Matteson, who began his career in real estate before jumping into the tech scene. " I've lived in a few high-rise buildings and was still getting hand written notes on my mailbox saying I had a package and I still got building announcements slid under my door ... There was an opportunity to bring a much improved mobile experience for residents to manage their apartment needs."
Mobile Doorman's business model focuses on three types of housing: luxury student living, high-rise apartments, and high-rise condos. Four of the company's initial clients are multi-family units in Chicago and its suburbs, and two are student housing buildings in Texas and Oregon.
The company's apps are tailored for each building--from the features each complex decides it wants to the building's name and logo in the App Store and Google Play. Mobile Doorman charges the building a fee, which they declined to disclose, to use the app and users are able to access the app by putting in log-in information provided by the apartment. If Nexdoor is a private, hyper local version of Facebook, Mobile Doorman is an even more hyper local social network.
"What we do is take the resident portal to a new level," Matteson said. "There's a lot of efficiencies that can be realized when you adopt the technology your residents are using."
Mobile Doorman has bootstrapped until now, but it plans to aggressively target potential investors in the real estate space after the initial launch, said fellow co-founder Graham Gilbert. The company's next steps are to get its apps into more buildings, but the next set of features from Mobile Doorman could be its coolest yet. It's eyeing sensors to be placed in fitness centers so people can see how crowded the gym is before they go, along with similar technology in the laundry room so tenants avoid trekking down several flights to find all the machines are taken.
"The payment is the tip of the ice berg," Gilbert said. "This app does a lot of the things you want it to do in managing your apartment needs ... (But) from a development standpoint we know there are other features we want to add."
"Graham and I are longtime friends," added Matteson. "We've known each other since we were four. We grew up in Lincoln Park. Chicago has and always will be home. We're both passionate about contributing to the Chicago tech scene."
Images and screen grabs via Mobile Doorman
