June 17, 2024
Last Updated
Stephen White, CEO of RentPrep, tells the story of how RentPrep got its start, his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and more.
In 2007, Stephen White, found his way into coordinating replevin orders because of his experience in the credit industry. For those who don’t know, a replevin order is the start of a legal process where you repossess very large pieces of equipment.
Out of the blue, a company reached out and asked White if he could research civil or criminal records because of his access to such a large database of data. White said yes and unknowingly, RentPrep was born.
“I had no idea that we would end up doing background checks. We started background checks for a large property management company and I [was] literally going door to door,” says White. “[We then pivoted] and that [became] the primary focus of the business.”
After that pivot, Steve became more involved in speaking at Landlord and Real Estate Associations. “We’d always have a line of landlords [afterward asking] how to get the best tenants,” White comments.
Up until this point, it hadn’t occurred to White that the landlords who owned smaller multifamily units didn’t have the same resources as the larger property management companies.
“[RentPrep] filled a space in the industry that there was a need for. [Smaller] Landlords were underserved and they just didn’t have access to really good tenant screening like the larger companies had.”
Find out how Steve reached the masses through entrepreneurship as he talks about the basics of content marketing, tenant screening and real estate investing on the WNY Entrepreneur Podcast [listen here].