Rentals made easy

Adam Kirsch ’15, MBA ’16, provides student tenants and landlords with a safe, easy-to-use platform for listing, finding, and managing rental properties.

by Katie O’Brien ’16

---

After experiencing firsthand thefrustrations students encounter when searching for rentals in Ithaca, Adam Kirsch ’15, MBA ’16, decided to found Yorango — a company that provides student tenants andlandlords with a safe, easy-to-use platform for listing, finding, and managing rental properties.

Once into the project, Kirschidentified landlords’ need tosimplify as well — especiallylandlords who manage multipleproperties. “Our focus is onaddressing the intersection of landlord and tenant needs to create asimple and positive rental experience,” Kirsch says.

Yorango’s future is not just listings, but in “an integrated, end-to-endrental environment,” which will drive growth beyond peak rentalseasons, Kirsch says. To that end, his team is developing managementand communication software enabling tenants to pay rent, sign leases,and track maintenance online. The software, scheduled for release in

2016, will improve efficiency and communication between rentersand landlords, addressing another pain point for both parties.”A lot of people look at rental as a transaction, but we look at itas a relationship,” Kirsch explains. Thanks to its clean and simpleinterface and its dedication to rentals available in Ithaca, many findYorango to be more user friendly than other platforms. That isreflected in the rapid growth of its user base — which now includesseveral thousand Ithaca renters — and may have helped Yorango winTech.co’s 2015 New York Startup of the Year Readers’ Choice award.

“Cornell’s eLab gave us the opportunity to refine our product,”says Kirsch, citing eLab instructors Tom Schryver ’93, MBA ’02,executive director of Cornell’s Center for Regional EconomicAdvancement and Johnson’s Entrepreneurship and InnovationInstitute; Steven Gal ’90, serial entrepreneur and senior lecturer;and Ken Rother, senior executive and visiting lecturer, as “hugeinfluences” on the development of the business. In addition, Kirsch’srole as a fund manager with Big Red Venture Fund (BRV) enabledhim to see startups from an investor’s point of view. He credits eLaband BRV as “tremendously in-depth, practical programs” where youmake real decisions and impact real people and companies. “BetweenJohnson and Cornell as a whole, I’ve gained a great understanding ofthe entrepreneurial ecosystem.”