When it comes to finding rentals, our belief is that the internet provides the best tools for your search. Not only can you search from your desk, but you can use Anikio’s great search filters to only show properties that meet your criteria. Plus, you can see high-resolution photos inside and even take a virtual tour. But we also believe in serendipity – being in the right place at the right time for fate to intervene. The parent driving down the street that is thinking they really could use an extra bedroom. Driving across town to work and seeing a sign for a nice-looking home available to rent closer to the office. Or someone that happened to see a sign and then talks a friend looking for somewhere to live. Plus, not everybody has the quick, easy internet access that we take for granted. So with that in mind, we asked Darren – our graphical wizard – to whip up a design of For Rent signs for us.
We’re really happy with how it looks! We can’t wait to see it on the side of the road. We had some other ideas that we kicked around – we wanted a really unique sign. Could we have a QR code that would bring you right to the listing when you point your smartphone camera? Unfortunately for bulk printing, that’s not an option but we do have an idea to potentially make this work. Should we forgo the space for the phone number and instead have a few basic stats? Number of beds/baths? But then the sign might be too cluttered. In the end, as you can see, we stuck with a basic, clear (we hope) sign since people are more likely to be driving by than walking.
There was some internal debate. It’s really important as a startup that landlords know that Anikio helped them find a tenant. Word of mouth is incredibly powerful and those recommendations that “I found a great tenant on Anikio” are SO important. A phone call from a street sign is not likely to link back to Anikio. But we also let landlords post their phone numbers on the listing, and it’s the same issue there. At the end of the day, our job is to help connect great landlords and tenants, though, however that may be.
So, this morning, we just placed our first order for a small batch of For Rent signs to see how they look on the front lawns of rentals. And to get some feedback and real-world use out of them in case we need to make some tweaks. They should be here in a couple weeks and maybe, just maybe, you’ll pass one in your travels. Let us know what you think!
