Events-Based Roommate Matching

Sam created a roommate matching service called Bunk that helped people find roommates and apartments in San Francisco by hosting in-person matching events. The business generated around $50,000 in sales within a few months.

Key Points:

• Business Model:

  • Connected people looking for rooms with landlords who had multi-bedroom apartments
  • Charged fees to both tenants and landlords
  • Used Weebly website to manage listings and applications

• Customer Acquisition Strategy:

  • Posted individual room listings on Craigslist (e.g., $1,000 for 1 room in a $4,000 4-bedroom)
  • Created HTML-enhanced Craigslist ads with apartment images
  • Generated ~10,000 website visitors per week through Craigslist listings

• Event-Based Matching:

  • Hosted events at available apartments
  • Invited prospective tenants to meet and form groups
  • Transparent about the group-forming purpose of events
  • Helped tenants team up to rent entire apartments together

• Revenue Collection:

  • Collected fees from both landlords and tenants after successful matches
  • Sam would personally collect payments, often by bike
  • Leveraged high demand (100+ applicants per room) to create successful matches

• Key Success Factor:

  • Piggybacked on existing Craigslist traffic where apartment seekers were already looking
  • Solved real problem of expensive 1-bedrooms by facilitating group rentals