Elevating the move-in experience
Roomie's 3D-mapping technology delivers a highly realistic digital model of a room or apartment, enabling renters and students to confidently plan their move-in and purchase new furniture and home decor. Traditionally, property managers and owners have relied on 2D renderings, often supplemented with virtual staging. Roomie's solution ingests architectural files to achieve precise measurements down to the inch, eliminating the need for invasive building scans. Their product allows users to virtually plan their move-in, design their space, and make informed purchases without physically visiting the property. This not only enhances the move-in experience but also saves property managers time and introduces a new revenue stream through a revenue share model.
In this blog post, we present a Q&A with Roomie's founder, Brett Harrison, who discusses the company's origins, its expansion into the multifamily sector, and provides a brief product demonstration.
What problem is Roomie solving? Can you speak to some of the core product features that solve that problem?
Brett Harrison: Roomie really helped solve the livability question for tenants and property owners or managers alike. Roomie works with the property owners or managers to make a live property map that pulls dynamic availability from their property management system. Whereas most property maps stop there, Roomie goes much deeper, showing prospective tenants a two-scale 3D model of a unit that is based on architectural files. It's accurate down to the inch, and prospective tenants can then take dimensions of any surface or area they want. Within the models, these prospective tenants can also virtually stage the unit to change the question from, “Will a king bed fit in the bedroom”, to “How it will fit”. Once the tenant then signs the lease, they can actually shop for the space with items from leading name-brand furniture retailers. This year, we will begin experiencing or piloting experiences where incoming tenants could have the items waiting for them upon move-in. So, you could see a CB2 sofa in the space, buy it, and then we work with the property manager owner to get the item in prior to move-in. Additionally for the managers and the owners, a lot of money is being left on the table in furnishing purchases or for other goods and services, so we're trying to create a new revenue stream where we can actually split this revenue from the sales of commerce with the property manager or the owner in a way that actually moves the needle.
Where did you get the idea for Roomie?
Brett Harrison: Roomie originally started as a furniture rental system for college students. We were working with many leading universities; The Harvards, Princetons, Yales of the world. Then with COVID, many of them didn't return to campus, so they had empty rooms for the first time ever. We approached our partners and said, “How can we make lemonade out of some pretty sour lemons?” We had this idea that at the time sounded a little bit crazy. I had seen for the first time Matterport tours right around 2019, 2020, and noticed how within a Matterport tour, because the camera uses LiDAR, you could take dimensions. So, I thought, “Why can’t an artist use that dimension tool to measure the space and create a to-scale 3D model of the space?” Because these campuses had empty rooms, they were willing to be our guinea pigs, and we went in with a kind of Matterport on steroids, a different kind of camera, and started scanning all of these unique residential spaces at universities. The idea was that students could then see their room in 3D, take dimensions, answer planning questions, and then design the room. They could buy everything in a one-stop shop and have it waiting for them when they moved in. As we raised our first round of financing, we got introduced to a lot of multi-family folks like Stellifi who pointed out that it actually made more sense to use a tool like this for multi-family properties that were unfurnished because incoming tenants are purchasing big, bulky pieces of furniture, and it would be a lot more useful to see if your sofa, whether you're bringing it or buying it, fits into your new space.
What does the customer base look like today? Who is your target customer? How has your target customer changed over time?
Brett Harrison: Originally, we started with really focusing on blue chip campuses. We had a wish list of 50 campuses that were based on the number of students on campus and the socio-economic characteristics of those students. We were typically looking for a wealthier student base. Of our top 50 campuses on our wish list, we have signed 25 of them. So, think campuses like University of Michigan, University of Madison, Wisconsin, big campuses with a wealthier student population, and thereby higher housing costs and bigger budgets. Recently, we started demoing campuses that are 500th, 600th on our wish list, and finding that they are really excited about our subscription price, and they see it as a reasonable cost on the multifamily side. Our ideal customers are Class A or Class A minus units with roughly 200 plus units on the property. Most of the properties that work for us are properties with pools, so a garden-style apartment complex in the suburbs that has a pool probably has 200 plus units. A large tower in an urban environment probably has a pool and enough units where it really makes sense for us and for the property manager. We found that, generally, our ideal customer, whether it's a campus or a property manager or owner, is tech-forward and really wants to give their tenants a next level modern experience.
How does Roomie make money? What's the business model?
Brett Harrison: We make money in one of two ways: First, we offer a reasonable subscription cost and onboarding fee to make sure that our partner properties as well as campuses are invested into the idea and the program. It's usually about 40 cents per unit per month, or on the campus side, we typically charge 35 cents per bed space per month. Second with shopping, we receive affiliate commissions from our retail partners. Oftentimes, especially on the multifamily side, these partnerships yield 25% of the cost of the item or more. So, for a $2,000 sofa, that's $500 or more. We want to create a new revenue stream for our partners. We split this revenue with them in a meaningful way that actually moves the needle.
How does Roomie compare to other tools in the market? Do you have any other direct competitors?
Brett Harrison: On the campus side, there's really nothing. The next closest competition would be companies that come with a Matterport camera and take a couple virtual tours of a standard room. They charge $4,000 or $5,000 to come to campus to pretty much just take some photos. On the multifamily side, the other providers are largely focused on property maps and more static virtual staging. We combine the best of both worlds. Most property maps show dynamic availability and allow users to see what's available and where it is on the property relative to other amenities. Typically, these solutions provide no content on the unit level, and it's up to the property manager or owner to upload floor plans into the unit or videos, photos, et cetera. Then those dynamic property maps allow the prospective tenant to contact the property, apply, or learn more. Roomie actually takes it to the next level by creating the unit content as well, which improves conversion rates and generates higher quality leads for the property. On the virtual staging side, what other companies in the space are doing is creating, effectively, static renderings of different furnishing options. These renderings are photos or drawings that are done in a panoramic format to give the illusion of three dimensionality. But they're actually just two dimensional. They're just photos wrapped around to create a 360 experience. So we are the only provider that I have found that has both the property maps and the dynamic interactive virtual staging where you can drag and drop items, and property owners can really dynamically change what they want to show.
What do you see as the next step for Roomie? What's on the company roadmap?
Brett Harrison: On the multifamily side, we're working over the next couple of weeks to really improve our mobile experience and start testing out the commerce options with multifamily pilots that we have going right now. There have been some requests to help on the facility side through documenting maintenance requests and such. It’s this light in the room that is broken, but we are really focusing on getting our case studies for our proof-of-concept partners. Additionally, we've been working with campuses to create campus maps that are next level and beautifully modeled. We'll also want to bring this to our property manager partners, because it will just aesthetically set us apart in terms of our property map, which is the first introduction to Roomie, as you see the property map and then you can drill into the unit level. Making a property map that's like nothing else on the market is what we’re striving for.
This post is part of a series covering Stellifi’s portfolio companies.
