We’ve all heard Henry Ford’s phrase “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Ford bullishly sought to mechanize the personal transportation industry against an immense amount of opposition and doubt. Ford was another stone thrown into a glassy pond of complacency. The same sentiment that spurred this great quote could be said of today’s consumers as well as businesses. As humans, we’re all subject to the adjacent possible. The idea that innovation follows a guided track according to what we think is possible or we know currently ‘is’. As I was recently reminded, in 1998, Kodak thought their hold over the photography industry was set in stone. The digital camera that had been invented years earlier in 1975 sported a meager 10,000 pixels and underwhelmed both the professional and the fledgling personal photography market.
- Kodak had 170,000 employees in 1998 and control over 85% percent of all photo paper distribution and manufacturing worldwide.
Though early versions of digital cameras didn’t offer the same quality, Moore’s Law inevitably took hold of Kodak. Other industries and competitors fed the content storage, digital imaging and editing space with newly improved and extensible solutions. It always begins with an idea, sometimes just a single leap beyond the “adjacent possible”.
So gives way to our journey at Leasera and our mission to change how consumers navigate the rental-travel ecosystem. Through unique commonalities and needs, new opportunities arise. A change of business model and new value proposition will not only lead to consumers questioning whether they ever purchase a home again but also what value they can demand as a renter. Consumers are used to broad flexibility and optionality afforded in other industries but never offered within the rental ecosystem. The model of “I give you money and you give me shelter”, is fundamentally broken.
Leasera is an all new way of looking at an industry through a different lens. A lens created through our team of accomplished industry veterans, our amazing marketplace partners and supportive advisers to see a better ecosystem with clarity and conviction.
Oftentimes the greatest innovators to an industry come from a different vertical all together, thus leading to a new (and maybe fairly obvious to folks like Ford) approach to a similar solution. The adjacent possible is harder to predict. In today’s digital age, often referred to as the 4th Industrial Revolution, access to ideas and resources are accelerating innovation exponentially and often times change comes faster than those rooted in industry are able to manage. So gave way to Uber disrupting the taxi industry or Facebook forever changing the way people communicate. So too will it give way to a better life for renters whether business travelers, medical residency and other gig related industries or simply wishing to see more out of your long term lease. We would attest to the fact that with better services, flexibility and optionality, there is a likelihood that some renters will find permanence in their status as a renter forever.
Here at Leasera our passion is rooted within the rental market and serving a growing a wildly apparent need. Whether Leasera ever rests next to some of those who were able to reach global implication is irrelevant. It is inevitable that our mission eventually will. Whether it’s a renter seeking more value or a traveler that seeks benefits, simplicity and optionality, this new and emerging market affects us all. We couldn’t be more excited about the journey.
We believe in an ecosystem that is unified, accessible, consistent and laden with value. United by consumer demand, travel and the act of renting is synonymous with life and static addresses hold less value on the future of society. We all deserve to be valued, and we’re all in this together. We believe renting is becoming a lifestyle rather than a last resort and that lifestyle is found at Leasera.
Stay tuned for more and please feel free to look us up at Leasera
Also feel free to check out my previous blogs:
At what point do we really start serving renters
We’re Disrupting The Tired Property Management and Rental Market
