Interview with Dan Daugherty, CEO and Founder of Rentbits, Creator of Remotely
What does it do?
With Remotely, residents can control their entire rental unit with their smart phone. They can lock and unlock doors, control their thermostat, detect motion, moisture and more.
Remotely is the only home automated property management system that provides property managers with a single dashboard to monitor and control all of their automated rental units. Property owners and managers, who last year invested over $68 billion in operating and renovating rental units, own the hardware and can exercise their own judgement about where and how to place it. Property Managers can streamline property showings, optimize staff performance, or go completely keyless.
Who is your startup aimed at?
Remotely is a clear incentive for owners and renters alike. With big impacts on everything from repairs to utilities, Remotely is poised to re-imagine home automation and monitoring in the rental market.
How does your startup stand out against its competitors?
100% focus on the rental market, low cost, and near-universal compatibility, are three of Remotely’s strongest advantages on existing competitors. Even the most popular home automation solutions do not take into account the idiosyncrasies of the rental market.
What we’ve done is work directly with property owners and managers to develop comprehensive solutions that cover them across their holdings. In doing so, they increase the value of their portfolios, save the renters money, and most importantly, give everyone involved the piece of mind and control that they look for in a good home management system.
Where did the idea for the startup come from?
I own a rental vacation in Vail and was frustrated with having to drive up to the property every time a resident moved out. In the winter time, vacationers stay for about a week or two at a time. I had to drive up to Vail to change the code on the locks, control the thermostat and turn on/off the lights. This frustration led to the development of remotely, where this could be controlled remotely, from anywhere in the World.
As we dug deeper into home automation, we saw that there were fundamental differences between home automation for owner occupied homes, and home automation for rentals. There are different needs, economic models, automated logic and support that remotely has taken into consideration and solved.
We saw Remotely both as an opportunity to improve on the standard offering of home automation, and to introduce a number of new concepts to the paradigm oriented specifically toward the rental relationship. We wanted to offer a low-cost, high-powered amenity that stands out on the marketplace, and positions properties at the forefront of innovation in the rental market.
Did you have any concerns when starting your business, if so what were they?
Larry Page at Google used to say, “Have a healthy disregard for the impossible.” For some, starting a company is “impossible”. When starting a business, you will have people say:
“You can’t do that.”
“You are not smart enough”
“That will never work.”
“Stay at your current job”
Block them out of your mind and “Have a healthy disregard for the impossible.” I did.
What is your business background, and what got you interested in startups?
After college, I began working as an early employee at Google. The culture, the ideas, and the entrepreneurial spirit in everyone ignited a flame which inspired me to do something that was much greater than myself. This flame was ignited and will never burn out.
How did you initially raise funding for your company?
