SC

Strategy Canon

Buildium: sourced choices

32 product and go-to-market choices, oldest first. Back to the case study

  1. 2004Product · Founding team Michael Monteiro and Dimitris Georgakopoulos, former Sapient employees who owned rental properties in Providence, founded Buildium in 2004 to manage their own units. BD3
  2. 2004Product · First product The founders found only desktop software from long-established vendors and built a simple online system that tracked tenants and leases and had a tenant-facing piece. BD1
  3. 2005Product · Launch The software launched in early 2005 with the founders as its first customers. BD3
  4. 2006Go_To_Market · First customers The first 50 customers took about two years to win. BD2
  5. 2007-03-29Product · Accounting core The 2007 release offered double-entry accounting with a property chart of accounts, cash or accrual books, standard financial reports, tenant and homeowner statements and a move-in wizard. BD6
  6. 2007-03-29Product · Three editions Property Manager, Landlord and Association editions served small landlords, professional managers and condo and homeowner associations. BD6
  7. 2007-03-29Product · Payment options Checks and electronic funds transfer were offered as payment options in the 2007 release. BD6
  8. 2007-03-29Go_To_Market · Price schedule Monthly plans ran from $9.99 for up to 5 units to $174.99 for up to 650 units, with custom pricing above that, a 15-day free trial and no long-term contract. BD6
  9. 2008Product · ePay Buildium launched its ePay online payment service in the United States in 2008. BD9
  10. 2008Go_To_Market · First employee Buildium reached 500 customers in 2008 before hiring its first employee; revenue at that point was a few hundred thousand dollars. BD3
  11. 2009-07-27Product · Tenant screening Buildium introduced tenant screening through a partnership with TransUnion. BD22
  12. 2012Product · Card payments Credit and debit card payments were added to ePay in 2012. BD9
  13. 2012Go_To_Market · First outside capital After eight bootstrapped years Buildium raised $20 million across two rounds from K1 Investment Management in 2012 and 2014. BD4
  14. 2012Go_To_Market · Reason for raising Buildium raised capital only once competitors with similar software and more funding appeared. BD2
  15. 2013Product · Scope widened A standalone tenant portal disconnected from the landlord's software proved insufficient, so the product was widened into a full management platform. BD1
  16. 2013Go_To_Market · Early outreach Early customers came from pounding the pavement and talking to property managers the founders knew; later ones found Buildium through search. BD1
  17. 2015-02-05Product · Owner leads Buildium bought All Property Management, a Seattle online service matching property owners with managers that generated over $50 million in management contracts a year. BD7
  18. 2015-02-12Go_To_Market · Scale in 2015 Over 10,000 property management companies used Buildium; it had about 100 employees and had doubled headcount in 2014. BD7
  19. 2016-01-07Go_To_Market · Growth in 2015 Revenue grew 90% in 2015; Buildium served more than 12,500 customers with nearly one million units. BD8
  20. 2016-06-08Go_To_Market · Price range 2016 Prices ran from $45 to $1,800 a month by unit count for portfolios under 5,000 units. BD4
  21. 2016-06-08Go_To_Market · Growth round Sumeru Equity Partners led a $65 million investment with existing investors and management and took two board seats. BD5
  22. 2017-01-25Product · Payments in Canada ePay reached Canada through Forte Payment Systems, collecting rent, association fees and application fees through Buildium's portal. BD9
  23. 2018Product · Add-on services Add-on services consisted primarily of third-party providers performing tenant screening, payment processing, mailing services and insurance. BD17
  24. 2018Go_To_Market · Results 2018 Revenue was $40.7 million, sales and marketing $10.3 million and the operating loss $4.0 million. BD17
  25. 2018-06-28Go_To_Market · Revenue leadership Chris Litster, formerly Constant Contact's chief revenue officer, joined as Chief Customer Officer in January 2017 and became CEO on July 1, 2018; growth was above 30% a year and customers exceeded 15,000. BD10
  26. 2018-07-30Go_To_Market · Channels Google AdWords, word of mouth and inbound blog content about customers' interests beyond the software were the growth channels. BD2
  27. 2018-07-30Go_To_Market · Plans Core and Pro plans were priced by units managed, like a cell-phone plan, with add-ons such as payment tracking. BD2
  28. 2019Go_To_Market · Units per customer Buildium's customers averaged about 90 units against about 300 at AppFolio, and it was underpenetrated in value-added services compared with RealPage. BD19
  29. 2019-11-06Product · Planned additions RealPage planned to add leasing, utility fee recovery, payment processing and insurance capabilities to Buildium. BD12
  30. 2019-11-06Go_To_Market · Sale RealPage agreed to buy all of Buildium by merger for about $580.0 million in cash; the acquisition closed on December 18, 2019. BD11
  31. 2019-11-07Product · Ease of set-up The acquirer's CEO described an easy user interface and self-provisioning that supported multifamily, single-family, association and vacation rental owners. BD13
  32. 2019-11-07Go_To_Market · Customer size Buildium sold best to customers with 30 to 200 units and offered 24/7 phone support as standard. BD13