join the club
we're an exclusive invite
only sublet club in NYC
how do I get a code?
stay in the west village for $120 a night (yes, really)
how is this possible?
Kiki is invite-only, so it's like staying at a friend's place; you treat their home just like your own and leave a little gift to show your appreciation.
This way, you get access to apartments in top neighborhoods like greenwich village for $126 a night (average Kiki price).
the kiki community
how kiki works
1) joining the club
kiki is invite-only and there are two ways to get in
- a friend in the club shares their invite code
- if you don’t have a code you can apply to join here
2) booking and listing
to book browse all kiki's and send booking requests for the ones that match your dates best
to host upload your home, then list the dates of all your upcoming trips!
3) getting a match!
accept booking requests from the best-fit guests. after the guest confirms to move forward, you’ll both sign a sublet agreement.
after signing and paying the deposit, congrats! you’ve matched :)
4) staying at a kiki
before move-in, hosts leave their kiki ready with a ‘welcome’ gift
before move-out, guests ensure the kiki is squeaky clean & leave a ‘THANK YOU’ gift
it all began
7 years ago...
(swipe to keep reading)
Oct 2018
It began in 1st year college when my friends and I were 18. In this very dining room, we found out we’d lose over $100k on rent while away over summer…
Dec 2018
I had an idea to solve it after working for Airbnb cleaning toilets and managing places for 2 years so messaged 170 Airbnb landlords to try my idea…
Feb 2019
I was rejected by all but one. Jenny agreed and let my three friends and I move in for 9 months.
Nov 2019
It worked and we didn’t have to pay rent over summer! My friends all over New Zealand all begged for it, so I moved into my parents' garden to save money and got to work.
Mar 2020
Here from my @home office, I learned my first big lesson. COVID hit and I still insisted on launching. I didn’t go back and talk to potential users to understand what changed and instead just built “what I assumed they wanted”
Sep 2020
I outsourced all the tech work to an old man up the road (bad idea) and with help from my then gf Indi and some friends, EasyRent (name before Kiki) launched on 14th Sep 2020.
Mar 2021
EasyRent was failing, lost my life savings ($15k), mates wouldn’t use it, ex GF of 4 years Indi broke up with me. I met Mahesh, he absolutely ripped me apart then went for a beer (turned into 6 hours) with a friend Xavier when he said “why don’t you just rent out students’ rooms individually to other students on internships over summer?”. I replied “fuck why didn’t I think of that”.
Apr 2021
So we started from scratch with only $2k, sold my clothes and ate leftovers to pay for rent then met Alex our first eng who believed in me when no one else did.
Jul 2021
It finally started working! Our first room was filled (shoutout Doris and Emma). We then went on to fill 68 rooms in 4 months across New Zealand after almost 3 years of failing.
Oct 2021
I needed a co-founder, so posted on LinkedIn and found Jack who was crazy enough to join the journey. We raised $120K and both moved to Sydney to build EasyRent!
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 yet again. So we launched 'invite-only' and had our first EasyRenter, Janine. We then went on to fill 20, 50, and 100 rooms by May 2022. This is us celebrating with our first 100 EasyRenters.
Sep 2022
Then It started flying. Cathy joined, hit 200 rooms filled, Chloe joined, hit 500 rooms filled, Emma joined. I also slept overnight on Bondi beach to raise awareness for the housing crisis.
Dec 2022
BOOM! 1000 HOMES FILLED since launching in Sydney 10 months before with $0 spent on paid marketing. EasyRent was pumping.
Mar 2023
We then hit 1500 homes filled 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 (we’ll relaunch Australia once we’ve taken over the U.S)
May - Aug 2023
The crazy part, Sydney was profitable but turning it off meant we only had 4 months of money left to raise our seed round. We went all in on NYC, moved here, do or die, and raised an oversubscribed seed round. 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 2024
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
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
Hit 300 matches and hosted a huge 300 person rooftop party at our new office! (when we hit 1000 matches we’ll have to do something epic, taking ideas 👀)
Mar 2025
We hit 500 matches and couldn’t fit anymore Kikiers on our giant map so have capped it and are building a giant digital one!
Today (1st April) 2025
Almost 7 years later, Kiki has brought me some of my happiest and darkest days but I wouldn’t change any of it. We’ve built a cult team of incredible humans and are hiring atm! Thank you to every single person who’s been a part of this journey in helping us unchain the world from their rent (we might just pull this off). Love, Toby and the team x