This Week in the Reboard Startup Story…

We have user-friendly updates, a sales failure that inspires a technical success, a strategic oversight we just realized, and unanswered questions paving the way for our next challenges. So, enjoy this weekly dose of ups and downs on the Reboard journey.

The Sales Email

Last week began with my first “sales” email to a property manager familiar with the project. In this email, I asked for a bit of his time to link his bank accounts to Reboard, so I could use real data to build the next features. Writing the email was challenging and stressful—it was my first attempt, and this project means a lot to me.

The difference between dealing with people versus technical issues became immediately clear. With technical challenges, you get warning signals, and you can retry and tweak your approach until it works. With people, it’s different. There are guidelines for crafting compelling messages, but at the end of the day, everyone is unique. I think I missed the mark with my email to what I hoped would be our first customer.

It has been more than a week, and I haven’t received a response. But instead of taking it personally, I’m treating this as a learning opportunity. I’ll reach out again at a better time—this property manager inspired much of the project, and I genuinely want to help him.

What Went Wrong?

I likely came on too strong, emphasizing what I wanted to do and how the product would work rather than first building rapport and explaining how it could benefit him. I also missed the chance to create a sense of curiosity and wonder around the product and process. This overly direct, mechanical approach is something I need to unlearn as an engineer. Communication in sales and marketing is very different!

Still, this was my first sales email for Reboard, so we had to start somewhere.

A Multilingual Touch

While waiting for a response, I focused on making the landing page multilingual. It’s now available in both French and English.

Why French? Because I’m from the French-speaking side of Belgium, and the property manager I contacted only speaks French. I wanted him to fully understand what was on the landing page. Plus, the goal of Reboard is to be a global platform, so introducing multilingual support early on is a step in the right direction. It felt like the perfect time to start.

Turning Challenges into Success

When I didn’t receive a reply, I realized asking someone to share their data solely to help me wasn’t a fair deal, even if they’d later get the product for free. The value exchange wasn’t balanced. Instead, it’s better to provide significant value upfront and then ask for something in return.

This realization led to a technical challenge: how do I build a feature that relies on data without having real data? The options were to either get real data (which didn’t work) or create it myself. I went with the latter.

I generated a set of fake data for tenants and transactions, formatted exactly as it would be in the database. I included quirky scenarios to thoroughly test the features: tenants paying in three installments, skipping payments, paying two months at once, or delaying payments.

With this data, I integrated it into the app for testing and continued developing Reboard’s first major feature: Tenant Payment Reports.

A Big Milestone: Tenant Payment Reports

I’m thrilled to announce that the Tenant Payment Reports feature is now functional! A property manager can select a linked account, choose a date range, and generate a report detailing rent payments, tenant statuses, expenses, and a summary of the month.

This is a huge milestone for Reboard. It’s a feature that could be immediately useful to many people. While there are still a few details to refine, this progress feels like a significant step forward.

Looking Ahead

The next challenge is to find our first customers—or learn why they might not want to use the product and address those issues until saying no feels like a mistake. Selling to people might be the hardest step for me since I don’t have a naturally “salesy” personality. But it’s an exciting challenge and crucial for taking Reboard to the next level.

On that note, we’ll see how it goes in next week’s blog!