PadSplit · marketplace for affordable rooms
Run a marketplace for other owners' homes instead of buying property
82 units at end of 2018 to ~34,000 in 40 states, owning none
Workedpositioning-nichemarket-selection
What they did
Founder weighed three models: marketplace (Airbnb), master lessee (WeWork) or owner (Invitation Homes). He compared scale: Invitation Homes owned ~60,000 houses vs Airbnb's ~6 million units, and chose the marketplace because his goal was solving the housing crisis, not owning real estate. PadSplit has never owned inventory; units come from third-party hosts, mostly mom-and-pop investors and increasingly owner occupants, and it can list anywhere in the US.
What happened
82 units at end of 2018 -> ~34,000 units in 40 states; largest US co-living marketplace
- Stage
- From founding (2017)
In their words
Top Founders with Nathan Latka · $30/Night Rooms Make Him $60,000 Per Day | PadSplit CEO Atticus LeBlanc“we've we've never owned the inventory and the idea was always this two-sided marketplace where the the people who were struggling to pay their rent could qualify for units and get in almost immediately.”
“Like did you want to be a marketplace like Airbnb? Did you want to be um a a master lessee like WeWork at the time? Or did you want to be the underlying owner like Invitation Homes?”
“And so, if my goal is to solve the problem and ultimately solve the housing crisis, then it's super clear, I'm going to go choose this Airbnb model because I don't need to own more real estate.”
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