#144: John Fagan, Co-Founder and CEO of Doorkee, a Unique All-In-One Rental Platform Making Apartment Seeking Easier for Everyone, on Reinventing Rent and Raising $5.7M Through VC

John Fagan is co-founder and CEO of Doorkee, making NYC apartment seeking easier and cheaper for everyone. After a challenging experience with moving, John and his co-founder Jordan Franklin began building Doorkee in 2017. Doorkee is a New York based startup aimed at solving one of urban living's biggest hassles--apartment hunting. They're creating a peer-to-peer marketplace to reshape how and when apartment renting happens.

Doorkee helps landlords increase their revenues by decreasing vacancy time between tenants, while departing tenants can make up to half month's rent by letting apartment seekers see their apartments. Apartment seekers can then find and close on their next apartment on their own schedule, months earlier than before. Doorkee is free to post, and their closings cost way less than paying a broker.

Connect with John Fagan

• Doorkee
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Some of the Topics Covered by John Fagan in this Episode

• What is Doorkee
• How John came up with the idea for Doorkee out of a personal experience
• How John and his co-founder Jordan Franklin turned a problem into a business
• The initial research and planning
• Having their first angel investor convince them to accept funding get started
• The challenge of being non-technical founders and how they overcame it
• Losing and winning back a key team member
• The importance of networking
• The business model for Doorkee
• Targeting big landlords and being a double sided network effects company
• Getting 4 of the top 10 NYC landlords as clients
• Doorkee's plan for growth and scaling
• The process of raising $5.7M in their seed round
• The idea of investing in founders not businesses
• Figuring out roles and responsibilities and what makes a co-founder relationship work
• The big vision for Doorkee

Links from the Episode

• Big Human
• Simon Baron
• Ollie
• Corigin Ventures
• Stonehenge
• Alpha Edison
• DocSend
• Reid Hoffman
• Malcolm Gladwell