We recently connected with Carlos Guzman Laserna and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Carlos, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

You know how some of the most innovative businesses result from someone wanting to prevent a bad experience? Well, in a way that was ONR’s case. What united all of the founders was the many annoying situations we had to face when moving into a new condo. I think we’ve all been there: the countless paperwork, background checks, extra fees… so many hurdles! A lengthy bureaucratic process that gets only worse when you realize that even reserving an elevator to move your stuff into your new home can be a dreadful task. And that’s just the beginning.

A few weeks after being settled into your new place, maybe you want to throw a housewarming barbecue with your friends. Turns out that if you want to use the grill, you need to head out to the bank and get a cashier’s check. So perhaps you decide that tennis is a better activity than grilling burgers, but booking them at the front desk is a total nightmare. Hopefully you won’t have an issue that requires management attention, because you’ll have to take a day off work if you want to get a meeting with them during office hours.

The way we’ve been running buildings is very 1990s; in person or over snail mail, with little to no traceability of what needs to be done and what matters. Want to vote on association matters? Wait for the notices in the mail—and good luck getting them back on time… Oh, and if you want to make your dues or rent payment, you’ll have to drop or mail a check, or use the payment link on the website (which keeps sending you to 404-land)… But let’s say you’re ok with wasting your precious time running errands within your condo, and what really matters is being able to connect with your neighbors. Welcome to another Whatsapp or Facebook group where your info and family photos are now available for everyone to view and share. And if you’d like to sell your stuff, leave a sign in the mailroom or post it on Craigslist or OfferUp inviting strangers to the property…yikes! No bueno.

We knew there had to be a better way of living in a community and making day-to-day activities easier by using an app that offered the tools every association needs. After lots of work and caffeinated nights, ONR was born in January 2018. At the time, there was a strong push by the state of Florida (where our HQs are located) to facilitate online voting and digital document archiving. To say that we were successful at first would be a huge lie. We went through some difficult and challenging times to sign our first client. We tried cold-calling, email marketing, social media, networking, calling our friends and family in distress… we even read self-help books (that’s when we hit rock-bottom) yet nothing seemed to work.

Then one day, we got a call from someone who received an email from us a while back and wanted to give us a shot. So we ironed our shirts and headed to South Beach for our first demo. And we nailed it! We signed our first customer and ran their first successful election, ever. The word quickly started to spread and all of a sudden, we were servicing the coolest buildings in Miami: the Continuum in South Beach, Ten Museum Park, Icon Brickell, Regalia, Carillon, Ocean Two—everyone giving us five-star reviews along with some great ideas of features our app should have.

Seeing a huge opportunity to disrupt an industry we decided to quit our full-time jobs, put together a pitch deck for our seed round, went on a recruiting rampage—hiring developers, designers, support reps, licensed property managers—and expanded our vision to create the ALL-IN-ONE Community Management Platform for Associations in the Digital Age. By delivering on our promise to elevate the experience for residents and management with the help of a team of 30 members who are passionate about our vision, we’ve experienced continuous growth, are becoming increasingly essential to our customers, and continue to deliver new and better features to more customers for a fraction of the cost of our competitors.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We are three Colombians who decided to shake up the Miami tech scene—one condo association and HOA at a time. Carlos Guzmán (yours truly) and my co-founders Alan Guvoschi, and Nicolás Turbay, were all born in Bogotá, but it was the Magic City that brought us together to create. That sense of collectivity is what we want to provide those who use our app, developing a unified community experience through a platform that facilitates the dynamics where you live.

We’re great friends and besides working hard, we like to party hard—and by party hard we mean spending Sundays with our children at the beach or riding bikes across the neighborhood. All in all, we’re a Hispanic triptych where we each contribute a mix of creativity, digital prowess, and many years of experience working in Citrix and Miami Ad School. Users of the ONR app get a sense of this camaraderie when they realize that its many features make the life of managers, boards, and residents in community associations easier—while fostering positive relationships amongst them.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Word-of-mouth has been the best door-opener for our business. Early adopters who trusted us have been the best champions for our business, always willing to share the story of why they chose us and how we’ve made them successful with our platform. So we have gotten used to asking for testimonials and have professionally recorded some of them, using them as our main marketing tool when prospecting

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

After we started gaining traction and saw how we could really amplify our message with some additional resources, we decided it was time to start our seed round. So we put together a pitch deck using templates from other successful start-ups, which are all available online for free. Once we had the pitch deck ready, we did some research about angel investors in the South Florida area as well as looked into our contact list for people who were involved in the venture capital scene and we simply reached out, using the same tools and mechanics we use for our prospecting. And investors did reply to set-up meetings! Within 60 days from start to finish, we were able to finish our raise. We were lucky enough to be able to select the investors who shared our vision, and who we considered would put us in the best position for the next finance rounds.

Contact Info:

• Website: onrapp.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onrapp
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onrapp/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/onrapp/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ONRappTeam
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvVRSy-jOXd3_KGfpNkLeuw
• Other: https://www.capterra.com/p/185451/ONR-app/