Oct 2018

- It began in 1st year uni when my friends and I were 18. It was in this very dining room that we found out we’d lose over $100k on rent while away over summer…

Dec

- I knew a lot about the world of Airbnbs as I had been managing and cleaning Airbnb homes for 2 years. I had an idea for hosts to provide shorter leases and so I messaged 170+ Airbnb hosts to try my idea.

Feb 2019

- I was rejected by all but one. Jenny agreed to let my three friends and I move in for 9 months.

Nov

- The solution worked and we didn’t pay rent over summer! My friends across New Zealand begged for it, so I moved into my parent’s garden to save money and got to work.

Sep 2020

- An old man up the road made our website (bad idea) and with some help from friends and then GF Indi, EasyRent launched on 14th Sep!

Mar 2021

- EasyRent failed and I lost my life savings. I met Mahesh (now my mentor) and he ripped me and the business apart. I then went for a beer with my friend, Xavier, who said “why don’t you just rent out student’s rooms for internships over the summer?”. I replied “fuck why didn’t I think of that?”.

Apr

- So we started from scratch with only $2k, sold my clothes and ate leftovers to pay for rent and then I met Alex, our first engineer!

Jul 2021

- It finally started working! After almost 3 years of failing, we got our first match (shoutout Doris and Emma). We then went on to match 68 rooms in 4 months across New Zealand.

Oct 2021

- Jack joined as co-founder. We raised $120k and moved to Sydney!

Feb 2022

- We landed in Sydney on 9th Feb 2022 and tried everything to get it started. We paid off Milkrun delivery drivers, covered Bondi in 150 Tinder Swindler posters and stood in the rain with our stupid whiteboard.

Apr 2022

- It wasn't working again. So we launched 'invite-only' and had our first EasyRenter, Janine. We then went on to match 20, 50, and 100 homes by May 2022. This is us celebrating with our first 100 EasyRenters.

Sep 2022

- Then It started flying. Cathy joined, we hit 200 matches. Chloe joined, we hit 500 matches, and then Emma joined. I also slept overnight on Bondi beach to raise awareness for the housing crisis.

Dec 2022

- We hit the biggie - 1000 MATCHES since launching in Sydney, 10 months before expected, with $0 paid marketing. EasyRent was booming.

Mar 2023

- We hit 1500 matches and literally couldn’t go 2 mins in Bondi or Coogee without hearing ‘EasyRent’. Then it all changed once again over another whiteboard session with Mahesh…

Apr 2023

- We needed to go bigger if we wanted to change the way the world lives. We needed to go all in on NYC. This meant completely turning off Sydney. We threw a 420-person boat party to say thank you and planned to relaunch AUS after America!

May - Aug 2023

- The crazy part was Sydney was profitable. But turning it off meant we only had 4 months of money left. We went all in on NYC, moved there and raised an oversubscribed seed round. where we welcomed Sam & Blackbird to the team. We then went home, got visas (really hard for kiwis) and permanently moved to NYC. Was an insane 4 months.

Sep/Oct 2023

- After 5 years of being EasyRent we rebranded to ‘Kiki’ + a pretzel logo and had a pre launch party with 100 New Yorkers in our friend Ollie’s loft!

Oct - Dec 2023

- We doubled the team, launched NYC, and ran it for three months. But we could feel that things were not working like they did in Sydney. We needed to rebuild our fundamentals, focusing on connection over transaction, and turned off the marketplace (again).

Jan 2025

- We decided the best way to focus on connection was to launch a social club first for our 80% women user base before then relaunching subletting to everyone in the club. We had over 700 people apply to join and over 50 coffees/meet ups! Many of our first sublet matches came from people in this social club!

Apr 2024

- After 2 months of running the social club, we relaunched an invite-only sublet club. The idea was to focus on ‘connection’ with our users to ensure people would be comfortable having someone stay in their home for the first time (i.e. only mutual friends, no strangers)

Apr - Oct 2024

- I went on 120 coffee dates, then we allowed those 120 people to vouch for friends to get in! We hit 100 matches in Jul and 200 in Sep. We then went on a hiring spree and the team became, Toby, Ela, Michael, Aleko and Nick!

Dec 2024

- We hit 300 matches and hosted a huge 300 person rooftop party at our new office!

Mar/Apr 2025

- We hit 500 matches and $1,000,000 earned by Kiki hosts in NYC!!!!!

May/June 2025

- Shut down by NYC. After having our biggest month in 7 years, in April we had to stop all operations in NYC. This was absolutely heart breaking and the team brain stormed every possible scenario to be able to stay. This really sucked as not everyone in the team could leave NYC and sadly we had to part ways, saying bye to some of the most incredible people I’ve met in my life.

July 2025

- Said goodbyes, left NYC and landed in London As you can probably imagine after 7 years this was a lot. But honestly I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. We gave NYC everything we had. Now that we’re in a city that allows us to grow and operate with no restrictions, I cannot wait to give that to you guys in London. I’ve met some of the most remarkable people on our coffee meet ups and London is already on track to be our fastest growing city! Tems has just flown over from NZ to join the team! I’m so excited to keep building this with you guys and we will see you all on Friday! Love, Toby x