Roomy is a social housing app that aims to make searching for accommodation easier and less stressful by connecting people looking for roommates through an interactive platform. It was created in response to a survey that showed a need for a more pleasant and easy way to find housing. The app focuses on the Dutch student market, with over 26,000 students in Enschede alone and 5,750 new students each academic year, and plans to expand across the Netherlands by 2024.
3. PURPOSE
Feel
secure
Ease of usage
An interactive platform to
place offers
Find suitable
roommates
Accesible
Relieve stress
Having clear
view of
people
interested in
their offer
There is one thing me and my teammates have in common – we decided to continue our study abroad. It is an amazing opportunity to pursue but it does not come without obstacles in the way.
One of the biggest difficulties we all have experienced was finding an appropriate accommodation for our study period. It was the most stressful and annoying time of our lives.
So as a company our goal is to help the students arrange their housing in the most secure and pleasant way.
ROOMY
A social housing app
Social media is evolving so we want to create an app that connects future tenants with landlords or other tenants.
Thus we have thought of a solution. -?
For students who are studying in Enschede and are trying to find appropriate housing for their study period, we will deliver an application that results in more pleasant and easy way to search and find accommodation. Differently than others, we make our services accessible and easy to use for students, as well as we provide fair usage and security, in order to gain profit while relieving some stress from the students.
And of course, besides helping students finding accommodation, we also provide landlords a platform where they can promote their rooms in a better way. They can view the tenants profile and responde to their liking.
When looking for housing, students have a lot of options, but surprisingly many of them find their housing on social media.
Although finding housing on social media seems to be the most convenient, it is also more convenient for scammers to rip people off.
Nowadays there are many trends concerning personal data and security.
That is why we want to make our application safe and secure, so to create a trusting environment.
Our primary focus is on students. We make the search for accommodation accessible, more convenient and secure.
Moreover, we also focus on students that are looking for the perfect housemate to fill in their empty room or want to move to another place that fits them more.
And finally, our service provides a wonderful platform for landlords that are searching for tenants.
How do we stand out?
While doing market research on our competitors we directed our attention on how student friendly are the housing platforms and what are the expenses.
Surprisingly, there is a very small amount of housing apps on the app store. And the ones that do exist, have low ratings.
Moreover, most of the student housing oriented apps are general accommodation providers.
There are no student focused housing platforms.
How our app works?
You sign up
The student chooses his preferences.
Further you get a list of recommended rooms that most fit your standards.
The user is able to see a detailed description of the accommodation and then decide to swipe left or right to like or dislike the room.
If the tenant and the landlord like each other, they have the option to start a chat.
We also provide a possibility for other students to post a free room and search for a suitable flatmate.
Our customer journey starts with awareness;
We plan to gain a partnership with higher education institutions in Enschede to promote our services.
The student creates a profile that later needs to be verified in order to provide security.
The same verification system applies for landlords.
After that the users will interact with our interface to reach their own goal.
The interaction between the potential tenant and the landlord is not always the most pleasant, because of first impressions and lack of responses.
However, our app makes it less stressful for our student users by stating that the user should have a profile already which, others can check out.
Our app gives users the oportunity to create one unique profile accessible to everyone to visit.
Because the rooms are verified, the user feels safe to transfer the money to the landlord.
Also we would implement a feature that would allow us to keep the money for some time until the student accepted all the conditions and actually transfers the money to the landlord. Which can potentially minimize the percentage of scams.
Our main income would be provided through the first exchange of money that the tenant and the landlord would agree on;
from that sum we would take a small percentage to ourselves.
We also bring profit to our business by offering student and landlords different beneficial features, such as having a room advertised in top,
so it is occupied faster or being recommended to the landlord as the first to get a higher chance of the landlord picking him.
In order to avoid spam, we limit the liking of a room ability. For a small fee you users can increase the limit.
To get this service up and running we would need a team of professionals, skilled in programming and customer service.
There are more then 3 million students in the Netherlands
The light blue indicates the profit
The navy indicates loss.
As our company scales up, the profit will come along with it.
We personally know how difficult, stressful and annoying it can be to search for housing, that is why we want to help other students.
We want to make this process more pleasant, more secure and less stressful when it comes to accomodation.
We belive that our idea is feasible, scalable and has a purpose to exist. If you share our believes and want to make a change in student lives, we would love to work with you. In order to make the idea come to life,we are seeking 100,000 euros to continue on what we started.
Thank you for your attention!