Business

Website Lets Collegiate Renters Rate Landlords

The clicking of computer keys. The slip-slide of computer mice. The sipping of coffee. The sorting and arranging of line upon line of computer codes late into the night.

Those are the sounds and activity in the Union Square office of 22-year-old Ofo Ezeugwu, creator and chief executive officer of WhoseYourLandlord.com. The site lets college students rate the persons to whom they pay rent and aims to help them find a decent place to live.

“I knew people who had issues with their landlords at Temple,” said Ezeugwu, who graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia in 2013 with a degree in entrepreneurship. “I realized there was a need we could address here. And I felt technology was the best way to go about it.”

His college experience and previous tech jobs laid the foundation for his landlord rating and information service. Ezeugwu had been the CEO of Untapped, Inc, which helps young entrepreneurs promote their businesses, he said.

For Whose Your Landlord, Ezeugwu, then a junior at Temple, teamed up with Temple classmates Felix Addison, chief operating officer and vice president, and Nik Korablin, chief technology officer, to birth the rating website. They started out catering only to Temple students, but spread to other campuses on the East Coast. By the end of 2013, the service had attracted more than 25,000 users, Ezeugwu said.

After Ezeugwu graduated from Temple, the growing company needed to expand, needed resources to pay for that expansion and a location that might be advantageous for the business. California’s Silicon Valley seemed less appealing, since the young entrepreneurs already had a foothold on the East Coast.

They found their new home in New York City’s Silicon Alley, where such giants as Tumblr and Yo are located. The many colleges and college students throughout the five boroughs also seemed like a plus, Ezeugwu said..

Though the service hopes to eventually expand beyond college students, it continues to focus on renters who are 18 to 22 years old. That’s “because they’re the quickest adopters of new products,”  Ezeugwu said. “College students live in close proximity with each other. They’re simple to market to on a broader level. And they often deal with very similar situations.”

Whose Your Landlord isn’t just a way for Ezeugwu to provide a service and earn a living. It also makes him feel like he, a black man, is bringing more racial diversity to an industry that is predominantly white.

“I’m happy to be a pioneer,” he said. “I embrace the challenge.”