Nick Farquhar was running on roughly four hours of sleep and 13 cups of coffee when his team was announced the winner of the 2022 Columbia Techstars Startup Weekend.
The 54-hour-long startup marathon took place at the EquipmentShare Headquarters from Friday through Sunday. Farquhar’s business idea was a digital platform for landlords to rate tenants.
The win was seemingly serendipitous — none of the members of Farquhar’s team planned on participating past the level of spectator. Although he was initially there in support of a friend who was competing, Farquhar quickly switched gears.
“I had no intention on pitching until about 10 seconds before I did it,” Farquhar said.
Four days ago, Farquhar and his original teammates — Michael Lamb and Joel Herron — were complete strangers. The team added its fourth member, Farquhar’s friend Rachael Ferguson, later Friday night after he reached out to her.
“Honestly, this kind of terrifies me — in a good way,” Ferguson said. “Meeting (Farquhar), just in general, being friends with him terrified me because he is so much of, like, a risk taker. He’s not afraid of any risk at all; he’s investing in real estate right now, and I’m trying to start an AirBnb business.”
Farquhar, a fifth-year MU student, said that although his mother and grandmother want him to stay in school, he’s considering it less and less necessary. As the owner of roughly 15 apartment units, an apartment maintenance company and an idea with the potential to change the game of real estate, the 22-year-old drives a hard bargain.
So, what was the winning idea?
Farquhar, Lamb, Herron and Ferguson’s winning idea was a digital platform called Appreciate, which would give landlords a shared space to evaluate tenant quality before renting out their properties. Landlords can give tenants a score based on a variety of factors, such as the number of complaints against them, the timeliness of their payments and more.
Just over the weekend, real estate owners backed the team’s idea with 54 local apartment units, but the team hopes to eventually expand to as many as 25 million units.
A panel of six entrepreneurial judges selected the winning team from a pool of 11 teams. In addition to receiving $1,000 toward expenses, the team will have the opportunity to access several business-building resources via the Scale Accelerator program.
Local restaurant owner Matt Jenne also participated in the weekend, pitching Instaseat, a digital platform that would give its users the opportunity to decrease wait times at restaurants with the purchase of priority seating. Instaseat tied for second place with FarmFind, a website that would allow consumers to purchase directly from local farmers without dealing with supply chain issues. Shades of Color, an app that would assist consumers in finding the right makeup shades for their skin tone, came in third place.
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