Redmond High graduates form startup that makes student housing simple and transparent

Special to the Reporter Redmond High School (RHS) 2010 graduates Thomas Cote, Alex Horstmann and Paul Burke are founders of RentHoop, a startup that makes student housing simple and transparent.

October 8, 2014 1:45 pm
From left to right
From left to right

Special to the Reporter

Redmond High School (RHS) 2010 graduates Thomas Cote, Alex Horstmann and Paul Burke are founders of RentHoop, a startup that makes student housing simple and transparent.

Cote, the CEO, and Burke, the vice president of marketing, were Washington state finalists in the annual DECA business competition while attending RHS. Burke praises the RHS DECA program and teachers for preparing them for the business world.

“The amount of real-world education you are taught in Grace Brady and Tom Bunnell’s classes are unreal. We were very blessed to have learned from such seasoned business professionals,” he said.

Cote, who graduated from Western Washington University (WWU) with a bachelor of science degree in manufacturing supply chain management last April, came up with the idea for RentHoop after going through the rental process twice.

“I felt like it was more complicated of a process than it had to be and that there must be an easier way to facilitate that process,” Cote said.

After searching for a better solution to common problems students face during their housing experience, Cote came up empty-handed.

“Landlords run background checks, credit checks and call references to vet tenants, but tenants have no way to vet the landlord. We think it should be a two-way street. We’re giving tenants the ability to rate their housing experience with their landlord and share that with other renters,” Cote said.

In addition to providing transparency to student housing, RentHoop will help students manage their relationship with roommates as they provide tools that make it easy to find housing, pay rent online and split costs and chores.

RentHoop — which also features Kyle Werttemberger on its team — launched a beta version of its website to students and landlords at WWU this year and received strong enough feedback to pursuit working on RentHoop full time.

Cote added, “Our goal is to make RentHoop a national brand that makes the rental process more simple and transparent for renters.”

For more information, visit www.renthoop.com.