Nigerian Behind ‘Whose Your Landlord’ Speaks To THE WHISTLER On Forbes Recognition

As an undergraduate at Temple University in the United States, Ofo Ezeugwu was inspired to become an entrepreneur after listening to complaints from his fellow students about accommodation challenges in North Philadelphia, where the university is located. As the Vice President of the student body, students were comfortable sharing their complaints with him, and he heard lots of complaints.

Ezeugwu, who’s from Enugu State, also experienced the problems first hand. When looking for an apartment with his friends, he discovered that landlords would always give glowing reviews of their properties, which may not be the actual situation. So, he and his friends would go a step further by coming back to the building without the landlord to ask residents about their experiences living in the apartment and neighbourhood.

Their testimonies would give them insight into the actual qualities and facilities in the building, and would enable them to make a final decision.

The combination of his personal experience and the negative experiences of fellow students inspired him to start ‘Whose Your Landlord’, a platform that allows users to submit landlord and property reviews, thus increasing housing literacy in communities. Little did he know, however, that his work would earn global recognition. The recognition came after Forbes named him among its 30 under 30 list.

After the Forbes mention, THE WHISTLER reached out to him to share his experience. He spoke in an exclusive zoom interview on what ‘WhoseYourLandlord’ (WYL) does apart from landlord reviews as well as what it took to get the platform started.

“The simplest way I always break it down is, we take reviews provided by residents and provide a space where they can see and share that information but also, what we’re doing is we’re analyzing and synthesizing that information down so that the home provider, that is the landlord or property manager, can have the trend analytics on how they’re performing. This way, they can see directly where they need to improve,” he said.

Ezeugwu said he views the platform’s services as a way to close the feedback loop such that someone is actually listening when tenants share complaints.

According to him, the content on the platform is “a combination of both the interpersonal experience with the home provider (landlord) and then also the physical space itself.”

For Ezeugwu, getting WYL off the ground was not an easy task. He acknowledged that it meant not having a lot of money for a long time.

“The beginning was a lot of pitch competitions, a lot of ‘we’ll take that $20,000 check, thank you. We’ll take that 10,000 or that $1,000 check, thank you.’ And trying to build a team when there was no continuity on the money side yet was really tough because, if you’re working with other smart, brilliant people, they can believe in a vision or the passion you have however, at some point, if it’s not moving as fast as they need, and you can’t support them financially they leave.

“So I think in the beginning, it was figuring out how to best construct and build a team, and not be too emotionally tied such that if they leave it’s all over, but also to be able to work with them closely enough that they’re really producing something powerful, even if at any point they might have to leave because you don’t have the funding yet.

“The beginning really was trial and error. It was trying to get my college friends to work with me on this interesting project, you know, and none of us knowing what we were doing at first. That’s part of it, but now we’re in a much different position,” he said.

After everything involved in getting started, he got recognized for all his hard work by Forbes. Ezeugwu recalled how he had applied to be on the list a number of times before he finally made it.

“To be honest, I’d applied to be on it a few times, but I’m 29 now, about a month and a half away from not being eligible anymore. So I just was like, let me throw my hat in the ring one last time, and let’s see what happens,” he said.

Ezeugwu recounted how he had almost forgotten to apply to be featured this year, until a reminder he had set eight months prior popped up while he was working. He said he set the reminder because he had forgotten to apply in 2020, so he decided to be intentional about it before his window of eligibility closed.

“I got the email in December and I was like, oh, I got it, you know. So, that’s been my whole experience,” he said.

The entrepreneur said that besides the recognition, he believed the future would present more opportunities for the platform.

“I think there’ll be opportunities that will certainly present themselves, so I’m excited for what they look like but at least right now, it’s more just that I appreciate being seen for the work I’ve been doing for quite some time now,” he admitted.

He said that although the platform has not begun to bring in profit, it had generated large amounts of revenue. An example would be the $2.1 million that it made in a fundraising round earlier this month. Ezeugwu said he believed the company would become profitable in the near future.

“We’ve generated revenue but I wouldn’t put us in the profitable category yet. I think there are still things we have to do. We’re trajecting towards that, so that’s really exciting, but at least you know, you spend this seed-stage figuring out product-market fit. And I think for the first time ever as a company, we can say we have figured it out.

“So, I see that changing in the near future in terms of you know, being more profitable, but at current, we’ve been able to generate pretty large sums of revenue but for now, we still put more in on the investment side than we have gotten out on the revenue side”, he explained.

Ezeugwu advised that young Nigerians who aspire to receive his level of recognition for their work should not make the recognition their major goal. He said they should focus on the real reason they began pursuing their line of work.

“They (Forbes) acknowledged my work and that’s it, they didn’t pay me anything, they didn’t become a client of mine. So, when you think of it that way, it’s an honour, one thousand percent, but it can’t be how I define myself.

“So you’ve got to really lean into what you’re doing and the real why behind it. And for those accolades yeah, put your name in the ring like I did, but if I had gottten a No once again this past year, I would have just said I guess it’s not for me but I still would be building WhoseYourLandlord.

“To any young Nigerian that aspires for that recognition, that’s good don’t lose that, but don’t make it the sole reason why you’re doing what you’re doing, because it’ll come, it’ll happen, and that three days of increased social media activity will cease. And what happens next, are you still convinced to build what you started? Were you doing it just for the accolades and the love? If that ends up being true, the next 30 years might be pretty dark,” he explained.

Although he was born and raised in the United States, Ezeugwu is half Nigerian. His father is a native of Enugu State, Nsukka, while his mother is from Barbados.

A true son of the soil, he expressed how much he enjoys coming to Nigeria, and revealed he had visited the country about eight times.

“I have been back like eight times and I love it, I love it so much. The last time I was there was just before COVID. And at one point, I did back-to-back trips for two years.

“I usually come during the Christmas season and it’s always so great. I’ve been to Lagos and Nsukka, Enugu State”, he said.