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Joshua operates Retro Simple, an app that pairs students with faculty that have enough space to rent to a student. With the Boulder housing market and many students taking out loans to cover living expenses, this helps make college more affordable. For faculty who want some extra income, they can achieve this while helping out students.

Services like Airbnb and Uber seemed crazy at first, but eventually caught on. Nonetheless, pitching busy teachers on living with younger college students isn’t an easy sell. “Finding the balance between being there for the student while making sure communal living is enjoyable for the host without intervening too much but not being completely absent is a tough balance.” For that reason, Josh came to CVF for advice in marketing and minimizing customer risk.

So far, Yev Muchnik has helped him with balancing liability between the student and host. Marketing is his next big hurdle going forward. (So if any marketing gurus are reading this, feel free to reach out to CVF or Joshua directly!)

Here are some words from Joshua about his experience: “This is my first venture and I didn't major in business so this is all overwhelming. When thinking about affordability for college students, I tend to think big and in doing so link concepts that aren't obviously link-able and this can cause confusion on the value proposition. Sticking to the point is better. Example, ‘we pair students with faculty and staff who have extra space and in exchange the host charges a discounted rental rate to the student. This allows extra income for the host and affordability for the student which in turn could lower the student debt they take out in the academic year by 35%. Likely students are paying  rent through loans if parents can't afford it because the minimum wage is $12.00. It is projected that an individual would have to make $20.00 an hour to pay rent in Colorado.’ Working with a mentor has made it clear how important precision is.”

Joshua has shared with us some of his learnings through this journey:

• “I need more customer discovery and feedback. This will help define my value prompt when talking to university representatives.”
• “Marketing. This is difficult because when do you abandon your strategy and go to plan b then c and so on. This is where mentors really are so beneficial for first time entrepreneurs.”

His app should be available by the time this newsletter is sent, so check it out and give him support! “If you are interested in being a host please email me at joshua.ellis@retrosimple.com. This will help me gauge how many housing units we have available for students looking for housing at the last minute. Also, even if you don't intend to lease out a room in your home: if you like the mission of Retro Simple, please share with coworkers who might be interested.”

Finally, Joshua wants to give a shoutout to his recently retired head of HR, Katherine Erwin. “I pitched this idea to her back in Feb 2019. The goal was to create my own job within the university. Although that didn't happen at the end of the meeting she congratulated me on creating my own company. I looked at her in bewilderment. I had no intention of creating my own company. I don't think Katherine can predict the future but looking back I think she recognized the passion I had for saving students money on housing and she also properly calibrated the risk tolerance of university leadership and knew that if my passion stayed resolute, I would have to create my own company. One random event leads to another and I have an LLC.”