HN user
Founder, COO | Latchel, Inc. latchel.com reach me at will@ company domain
You're right. By "this" I'm referring to a company selling to the government feeling like they will not face consequences for publicly lying to their buyers. I agree it's heartening to see the contract cancelled. I find the doubling down on the lies as both unsurprising and disheartening.
This seems to me to be the inevitable outcome of a society that celebrates winners who claim their lies are merely "alternative facts"
This relevant post is flagged, but yes, I do think this is a symptom of America crossing the asshole threshold where it pays to outright lie and call your fact checkers insincere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48837460
I also got strong AI vibes, but I enjoyed the content. I thought it was a interesting summary of topics I've read many times before and even if the content was AI-assisted, does it matter? It seems there was a strong guiding hand in presenting a popular topic in a new way.
* I suspect the social value of school will become much more apparent soon.*
School is not just about the academic knowledge you gain. Plus, I'd imagine pairing a personalized tutor with an effective human teacher would only accelerate learning faster.
Latchel (https://latchel.com) | Sr. Engineering Manager + Other Roles | 100% Remote (Western Hemisphere, North American time zones) | Full-time
Latchel offers two products to property managers: a maintenance coordination platform and a resident experience platform. This combination ensures residents can live in homes that have maintenance that is actually handled quickly + offer service level guarantees that financially compensate residents when those guarantees aren't met.
At Latchel we understand that renters today expect better service, more perks and faster maintenance than most property managers can afford to provide. Latchel is a software platform that enables property managers to be more responsive and offer better perks so property managers don't have to choose between happy tenants and a healthy bottom line.
We currently have 7 engineers and an interim manager. We are looking for a more permanent leader that will advocate for the team while driving the company forward. Learn more and apply at https://latchel.com/jobs/engineering-manager/ Latchel is a Y Combinator (W19) company, post Series A (led by F-Prime) with participation from Metaprop, 1984 Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and more. Additional roles (primarily sales) are available here: https://latchel.com/careers/
I do agree we are missing the mark on our messaging of how the revenue model works, particularly from the renter's point of view. The specifics of billing and charges are complex in the third party property management space (much more so than for owner-operators). I'm happy to discuss the specifics further via email if you'd like to get into that nuance.
Housing availability, pricing, and supply is hard to solve. Institutional buyers such as REITs do add more challenge to this difficult landscape. We don't target institutional clients and the vast majority of our customers are small mom-and-pop third party managers.
We initially started as software to improve the maintenance process for rental homes, then added a 24/7 emergency answering + dispatching component. With those we found that a) residents loved having a service that actually answered and quickly handled their maintenance, particularly emergencies, and gave them full and complete visibility into their maintenance progress. We see typical companies move from days or weeks to get maintenance scheduled to having maintenance scheduled within minutes (and visible and traceable by the resident). And,
b) property managers can't afford this service. Property owners can--but there aren't that many people or corporations that own hundreds or thousands of units in the single family rental space. It makes distribution and scaling particularly challenging unless you target third party managers. Your average rental property owner in the US rents out fewer than 2 units.
Our customers are almost entirely third party managers, not the property owners. Property management generally gets a bad rap, but the truth is, these are extremely low margin businesses. They have this great pain where they want to provide good service to renters and owners, but they simply don't have the resources to do so. Our current business model is the best vehicle we've found to be able to deliver 4.8/5.0 star maintenance service to renters (and getting better). We want to make it easier for property managers to deliver great service. The feedback we get from the hundreds of thousands of renters on our platform makes me feel like we are providing a valuable service. I, for one, would rather rent in a place that has a program in place that ensures my maintenance calls are answered and will offer specific guarantees for service.
Latchel (https://latchel.com) | Engineering Manager + Other Roles | 100% Remote (Western Hemisphere, North American time zones) | Full-time
At Latchel we understand that renters today expect better service, more perks and faster maintenance than most property managers can afford to provide. Latchel is a software platform that enables property managers to be more responsive and offer better perks while also creating a new revenue stream so property managers don't have to choose between happy tenants and a healthy bottom line.
We currently have 7 engineers and an interim manager. We are looking for a more permanent leader that will advocate for the team while driving the company forward. Learn more and apply at https://latchel.com/jobs/engineering-manager/ Latchel is a Y Combinator (W19) company, post Series A (led by F-Prime) with participation from Metaprop, 1984 Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures and more. Additional roles (primarily sales) are available here: https://latchel.com/careers/
I'm not affiliated with Noom [1] in any way but want to plug them because I've seen the incredible results from following their recommendations.
People talk a lot about reducing caloric intake but there's little talk on how a normal person can hope to achieve that. The key Noom offers is calorie density. If you eat lots of food that has a low calorie density per unit of volume (eg cabbage, cauliflower) you can reduce your calories and still feel very full. Just go easy on the extremely high calorie density foods (eg olive oil) and you'll be more likely to hit your goals.
Also, it's really really hard to do calorie restrictions AND have intense exercise. From what I've seen in the Noom community people have a lot more success when they first focus on losing pounds then focus on building strength and fitness; many people at that point find they have to increase calories in order to continue seeing results when they're working out a lot. I suppose it takes a lot of calories to build muscle. I wonder what your body does to those injured muscles if it doesn't have the calories available to repair them?
Latchel (YC W19) | Mid - Sr. Software Engineer (React.js, PHP, Laravel, AngularJS, AWS) | Remote | 100% Fully Remote | Full Time | $120-$180K | https://latchel.com/
Latchel offers software to automate and streamline maintenance coordination and resident concierge services for rental homes. Latchel services over 75,000 homes across the US. We are hiring engineers 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ,11 & 12. Hiring for all roles from mid-level to team lead.
We're 100% fully remote, but work on North American time zones. Our team is spread across the Americas.
Apply: https://latchel.com/careers-software-engineer/
Other open positions: https://latchel.com/careers/
Latchel (YC W19) | REMOTE | UI/UX Designer | Full-Time | https://latchel.com
Latchel offers 24/7 automated maintenance coordination for property managers and home concierge services to residents. We are searching for our first UI/UX Designer to help solve our B2B design challenges and also lay the foundation for growing our design team.
Our platform has heavy operations components, so human operators need to access and make sense of lots of information. If organizing and presenting large amounts of information excites you, this is a great position for you.
Latchel services over 60,000 homes across the US. We've developed a geographically agnostic model that allows us to serve all 50 states (and DC!). Our average customer has ~300 units under management and are professional property managers. Our team is 100% fully remote and globally distributed (and had been since long before the pandemic). Our engineering and product teams are spread across the Americas, so it would be best if you're in a similar timezone.
Great concept and looks like some great execution on designing for a professional environment.
What would you say are the advantages of Water Cooler over Discord?
This is a problem I find tiring about most studies, even in the sciences (excluding most physics and all mathematics). It seems as if most researchers are looking for a novel or interesting correlation or apply an interesting model to a new domain. Generally, I've found this puts insufficient effort into any kind of disconfirmation.
It makes sense, though, with the incentives most academic journals put into study authors. Nothing's sexy about disproving some random model fits.
noun. backpressure back·pres·sure the pressure exerted up against a fluid, caused by the flow of air or water through it, exerting great physical pressure on the body "a low backpressure"
https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/w/backpressure/eyJ3Ijog...
Async requires more deliberate planning to avoid context more frequent switching. Time blocking is your friend and with asynchronous communication you have more freedom to time block. You can create a maker's schedule for yourself rather than the manager's schedule where your day is an endless string of meetings.
Slack and other instant messaging tools may make it feel like you need to be always on and responsive, but instant messaging is at odds with async.
Very few rentiers is likely true. However, very few landlords are rentiers. The average investor owns 2 rental units [1]. And the vast majority of property investors have full time jobs and mortgages on their rental properties (I can't link directly to a source, but Buildium regularly conducts surveys to understand property investors).
To paint landlords as rentiers who can easily afford to go without rent or with greatly reduced rent is wrong. It mischaracterizes the problem in a way that will lead to bad solutions.
If there is to be rent reductions or forgiveness, there must also be reductions, aid or forgiveness on mortgages, property taxes and utilities. Somebody needs to pay for these things. Yes, profits will be reduced, but losses cannot be sustained for as long as social distancing measures are expected to last.
[1] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-frm-asst-sec...
I have never had a pain free experience with any grocery store's self check out. I suppose I am not proficient at scanning and placing items on the scale/bagging area one at a time. Or at following the prompts to swipe my credit card at the right moment. Self check out frustrates me to the point where I avoid it whenever possible.
I scored 3.4 and got mid. When I read the parents comments I thought that might have meant a lower score was higher risk. I suspect it depends on the categories you answer.
Anecdata to add to this: In the third grade I took the phrase "voices in your head mean you're crazy" so I actively suppressed my internal monologue (previously expressed in language) and now my thinking is mostly abstract and/or visual. There are two exceptions: imagining a hypothetical conversation or reviewing a previous conversation in my head. Those are the only cases of language in my head. When I read I experience a combination of the two.
To crash there needs to be a significant increase in supply. Less restrictive zoning laws may help this.
I think this is the important takeaway for founders and product owners. People will eventually take "just works" for granted. If you make that your value prop (and you should) it is critical to continuously invest in ensuring your product always "just works". It doesn't matter if the alternatives don't. Your users will eventually turn on you.
Postgresql > pgadmin
For less technical people > metabase
For automated reporting and storing historic trends > Klipfolio
For near real time automated operational reporting > kloud.io
Latchel (YC W19) | full stack (LAMP) engineers, UX Design Engineers | Full Time | USA | REMOTE | https://latchel.com/careers
Latchel is a 24/7 maintenance department for property managers. The company is 2 years old, operationally profitable, well-funded, and rapidly growing. In the past year we have grown from serving 2,000 rental units to over 38,000 rental units and growth has recently accelerated.
We are a fully remote company (founders included) and are looking for team members with customer obsession, a hunger for continuous improvement, and a commitment to their teammates. Being fully remote requires extra effort to be conscious of communication.
Our engineering team is small: One of the founders is our only full stack developer. Our other two founders help where they can. We're looking for people that want to help set a cultural foundation within the engineering team and grow the organization.
Today we are an tech-enabled operation (think like Amazon when it was an online bookstore) and have plans to expand the product into more SaaS only tools and serve additional rental markets (e.g. short term, vacation, corporate housing).
To apply please complete a peer review exercise and apply here: https://github.com/latchel/code-challenge/pull/6
Please submit your resume, too. If you are also a designer/UX Engineer please include a design portfolio.
The real value of a property manager is having someone who is invested in increasing the value of your rental property asset. In multi-family this is easier because the value is directly tied to the net operating income. Increased rents and lower operating expenses = higher property value.
Single family gets more tricky because the value is more closely tied to the property value and not the rental income. I think this is where the inventives are often misaligned. Even so, the best property managers will handle a lot more than just filling units, collecting rent, and handling maintenance. They understand the goals of the owner and will adjust their management strategy to meet those goals (eg income property or a quick sale in a few years).
To add to your list: tenant retention (highest cost is actually unit turnover), setting rent to the right amount based on local comparables, and keeping in compliance with the ever changing rental laws.
We have existing contractor networks in most of the cities we service. Whenever we enter a new area we often have to source on-demand. We vet people based on social media reviews and ensuring their licensing etc meets the local requirements.
When we send someone out from our network we are implicitly standing behind their work. The good new for us is you can tell a lot by a person's phone demeanor and business professionalism. If someone is rude or curt over the phone with us they certainly won't be polite with tenants.
Our customers tell us who to dispatch through their vendor priority list. We call down their vendor list in the order they specify.
SMS Assist targets commercial and large residential (eg 5000+ single family homes). Their customers include Dollar Tree and the US Postal Service.
We offer similar services for mom and pop property managers.
A lot of our customers switch from the existing providers because we provide over the phone troubleshooting services and the others are just dispatching.
We've taken out a large professional liability insurance to cover ourselves and our customers. We also document decision making process throughout the coordination process, which is helpful for determining what went wrong and why.
As far as the legality of taking calls, third party call centers that take calls and dispatch contractors are an extremely common service even offered by Appfolio and other providers.
Now regarding new contractors from our network, that is an opt-in service for customers. Many opt out entirely and we can turn that off for any customer. For instance, some customers require liability insurance policies much larger than we can guarantee with our network, so they opt-out of using Latchel contractors.
We're staying focused on maintenance right now because maintenance is usually the biggest single headache for landlords and property managers.
There are so many problems to solve with generalized property management that we feel it's much better to stay focused on what we know.
We've built our operation to be largely geographically agnostic. Our customer base follows population density. Today we operate out of 41 states and have a decent Chicago portfolio. Warm introductions are always greatly appreciated :)