Roomie Rentals

Founded by three Dartmouth ‘14s, Roomie uses local branding and a national scale to rent and deliver high quality furniture to college students across the country. Recall the first day of college. New students arrive to expressionless dorms that have two twin-sized beds with poor-quality mattresses, two desks, two dressers, and two chairs. The college does not provide furniture for the kind of social interactions that characterize the college experience. In order to avoid the hassle of purchasing, moving, and storing bulky items like full sized beds and futons, many students are willing to pay a premium to rent furniture, delivered free of charge Roomie capitalizes on this inefficiency by offering stress-free upgrades. The Roomie model has been tested at four campuses, all of which have been cash flow positive within the first year. Benefitting from network externalities and a proprietary database of student email addresses, the Roomie model has been successful and scalable at filling a niche in a market vertical.

To help transform dorms into homes, Roomie finds one highly motivated student-entrepreneur at each school and gives him or her the unique opportunity of running a profitable business as a Roomie General Manager
(GM). After selecting the GMs, Roomie works with them to create a unique brand that captures the personality of the school. A simple philosophy ties these campuses together: that college students deserve better furniture and are more responsive to offerings made by fellow students than foreign chains. At the beginning of the academic term, Roomie GMs assemble moving teams to deliver and setup all Roomie products. At the end of the rental period, the moving teams return and move all furniture to climate-controlled storage units. The key to Roomie’s success is finding the right GM to implement the local feel of the branch.