Kopa
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Kat Manalac

Kopa Housemate Finder - Find furnished apartments and housemates for 1+ months

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YC Female Founders Holiday Gift Guide 2017
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Kopa is the marketplace for furnished housing and compatible housemates. Kopa enables people to browse furnished rentals, find housemates with similar interests and lifestyles, choose beds, and split deposit and rent payments.

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Jack Forbes
Maker
Thanks @katmanalac for hunting Kopa! It feels great to be back, and we’re excited to share some huge updates to Kopa. This past year, we realized one of the biggest problems with any rental marketplace, including Koppa, was that finding housemates to live with was a nightmare. Renters end up finding a place they love on one platform and then switch to another platform to search for housemates, hoping they have the same budget, desired location, and lifestyle. The Kopa Housemate Finder directly integrates with our rental search so renters can see housemates who are also interested in the same listings for the same length of stay. Renters can view details about potential housemates, vote people into their group, claim beds, and request to rent the space together. We do all the hard work — like automatically splitting the rent based on room size and quality — so no one feels like they got cheated and everyone can happily move in together. Beyond the Housemate Finder, we opened up Kopa to support everyone who needs furnished rentals, not just interns. We’ve added more verification processes to make sure renters feel safe while searching on Kopa, as well as the ability to pay deposits and monthly rent online. At Kopa, we want to make moving more accessible by providing renters everything they need to find their home and feel at home once they get there. We couldn’t have made it this far without feedback, so please hit us up with any comments or questions!
Chris Buttenham
@thenameisforbes Congrats on the launch guys! 🎉🤘 Curious to hear the thought process behind why you decided to remove the focus away from interns?
Jack Forbes
Maker
@chrisbuttenham Great question! Lots of people were asking us if they could use PadPiper for all these other scenarios like being med students on rotations, business consultants on longer projects, traveling nurses, founders in a startup accelerator, digital nomads, etc. We realized our own use case of struggling to move to San Francisco after graduation, too. All these were valid problems that we wanted to solve for.
Chris Buttenham
@thenameisforbes Awesome!! I could definitely see myself using PadPiper for business travel. Last question: do you think the needs of all these use-cases will be fairly consistent? How will you be able to provide an excellent experience if you're not focused on one group?
Jack Forbes
Maker
@chrisbuttenham That is great to hear! We do think these will be fairly consistent use-cases since they all involve 1-12 month stays in furnished rentals, at an affordable price, with the need to find people to live with in most scenarios, and without the ability to tour the space in person beforehand. Our focus goes even further with showing people how long their commute will be to work since most use-cases involve commuting. Providing an excellent experience is our number one goal so we're working hard to achieve that for all use cases :)
Alexio Del Gobbo
This is awesome! What would you say has been your biggest struggle so far?
Courtney Sabo
Maker
@gobbz Like any other marketplace, the chicken-egg scenario is tough, especially in conjunction with target cities. We tend to build up supply (houses) in a city, and then find renters who are moving there. The tough part is the latter — it's difficult to know where renters are moving from exactly, so marketing to them is challenging. HOWEVER, we're super fortunate to have grown via word-of-mouth, so we hope as we grow, this marketing challenge will become much easier. :)
Noni Purnama
@gobbz @courtney_sabo have you tried ads that target parents of soon to be grads?
Courtney Sabo
Maker
@gobbz @noniypurnama That is a great idea that we have not tried yet!
Alex Bouaziz
Looks great!! Congrats on the launch -
Jack Forbes
Maker
@bouazizalex Thanks Alex! It's exciting to be spreading the word after so many months of heads-down work :)
Courtney Sabo
Maker
@bouazizalex Thanks so much!
Kate Swanson
@thenameisforbes Curious to know whether you (PadPiper) own the properties you're renting out?
Jack Forbes
Maker
@kate_swanson We do not own the properties! We enable landlords and property managers to list their space on PadPiper. We verify every landlord by their government-issued ID, phone number, and email address to ensure we maintain the community of trust. It's been exciting to see the new spaces that are listed on PadPiper and how unique each one is. From landlords that live at the space with their dog, to property managers who offer entire homes that are newly renovated.
Thomas Gilmour
I love how applicable the housemate finder is. but I'm curious, why is there only furnished rentals?
Jack Forbes
Maker
@thomas_gilmour We're currently focused on helping renters who require furnished spaces since those tend to be shorter-term stays in which renters can't visit the space in person beforehand. Unfurnished spaces are certainly something we can look into in the future :)
Mike Mahlkow
Finally! My friends and I have been moving from city to city over the past couple of years and we have always struggled with the whole logistics of finding and sharing apartments. Looking forward to using a much easier option
Courtney Sabo
Maker
@mikemahlkow Exactly! That's exactly the use case we want to solve for! :)
Joshua Kell
@mikemahlkow @courtney_sabo not working in Chicago. Just keeps me giving me Bay Area listings! :(
Courtney Sabo
Maker
@mikemahlkow @joshuakell Unfortunately, we're not in Chicago yet. We're in the Bay Area and Toronto and trying to expand. We'll come for Chicago soon enough!
Noni Purnama
It feels like I can just move in with my tootbrush and clothes. Definitely saves renters a lot of hassle when you can find a place with utilities installed and meals prepared 😱😍👍
Jack Forbes
Maker
@noniypurnama Our thoughts exactly! We spent too many internships buying and renting furniture that we made it a requirement to have everything you need to start living at a PadPiper home :)
Kanchan Kumar
Congratulations on the launch Jack! This is just so perfect for my needs. I look forward to using this to book my next trip in Bay Area this month.
Jack Forbes
Maker
@kanchankumar Thanks, Kanchan! That's great to hear.
Patrick Johnson

Used PadPiper to find our accommodation in December, when first moving to the Bay Area for Y Combinator. The experience was extremely simple and our interaction with Jack have been great. He's incredibly helpful - especially when getting set up.

Pros:

Love the simplicity. Get reminders when to pay rent Rent payments are easy Finding the right place was easy

Cons:

Would love automated payments (i.e I don't have to log in to pay each month)

Harry Tong

I like that padpiper is designed specifically for me to find housing on my internship and not a site like airbnb or craigslist that doesn’t really suit my search

Pros:

Convenience, exactly targeted to my needs

Cons:

More selection, better pricing

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