Invite Only NYC Sublet Club

Swipe to see the story!

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

I had an idea to solve it since looking after a few people’s Airbnb’s so messaged 170 Airbnb landlords

I got rejected by everyone but one landlord agreed so my friends and I moved in for 9 months

It worked! My mates all over NZ wanted it too so I moved into my parents garden to save money and started working on it

This is where I learnt my first big lesson, covid hit, I didn’t listen and still wanted to launch (photo from my @home office)

Out sourced all the tech to some old man up my road (bad idea). With help from Indi and friends EasyRent launched on the 14th Sep 2020

EasyRent was failing, lost my life savings ($20k), mates wouldn’t use it, ex GF of 4 years Indi broke up with me. I met Mahesh, had that famous beer with Xavier then…

We started from scratch with only $2k throwing away everything we’d done, met Alex our eng (thank you for believing in me when no one else did)

Then it started working! We filled our first room (shoutout Doris & Emma) then filled 69 more in 4 months across New Zealand

Posted on LinkedIn looking for a co-founder, Jack was crazy enough to join, we raised $120k USD and both moved to Sydney to try prove it there

9th Feb 2022 we landed in Syd and tried everything to get it started, paid off Milkrun drivers, covered Bondi in 150 Tinder Swindler posters and stood in the rain with our stupid whiteboard

It wasn’t working so launched ‘invite-only’ and then had our first EasyRenter Janine, then 20, 50 and had a 100 homes filled party in May

It started flying. Cathy joined, hit 200, Chloe joined, hit 500 homes filled, Emma joined, slept overnight on Bondi beach.

On the 9th December we hit the biggie 1000 HOMES FILLED since launching 10 months ago with $0 paid marketing

Hit 1500 homes filled, literally couldn’t go 2m in Bondi or Coogee without hearing EasyRent, then it all changed once again another whiteboard session with Mahesh…

We decided to go all in on NYC, turning off Sydney, throwing a 420 person thank you boat party

Went from profitable, unlimited runway to 4 months, if we didn’t raise we were fucked, but moved to NYC and raised $6m USD biggest seed round in New Zealand’s history (welcome Sam & BB!)

Today: we’ve rebranded as ‘Kiki’. It symbolises the new way of living, a future world unchained from your rent, letting over a billion people to share with friends like them.