Why We Build: A Reminder From Logan

👩🏻 Top insight to share from me, Co-Founder Weiting

This week, I learned about a rare genetic condition called PRMT9. Seven year old Logan, is amongst one of only 37 people in the world to have ever received this diagnosis.

That’s a 1 in 216 million chance.

You’re more likely to be a billionaire than to have this condition.

What does PRMT9 look like?

Although Logan is seven, he is developmentally closer to one. He cannot speak, experiences constant pain, sometimes hits himself in the head that it triggers seizures, has ground his teeth down to the gum line, and requires 24/7 care.

Despite all this, Logan still finds a way to smile. This is one tough superhero!

My friend Keith (CEO & Co-Founder of Skinopathy) shared Logan’s story with me.

Keith is also Logan’s dad.

Their family started PRMT9.com to connect families, researchers, philanthropists, and clinicians together to find solutions for children with rare diseases.

Keith shared how Logan’s condition changed everything. His wife and Logan’s mom, Mila, stepped back from her career to care for Logan. And now Keith has devoted his own life’s work to accelerating medical research through data and AI.

Logan became their “why.”

As a fellow parent, the love we feel for our kiddos is beyond words can describe.

Hearing Keith sharing Logan’s story, I was reminded of our own "why" at Openroom.

Vishal and I do what we do because we care about real lives, real families, and real futures - just like Keith cares about Logan’s.

We recently made a change that affects how a Tenant’s name can be searched within our free Public Record Search system.

Now, we require both first and last name in the search bar before we can make a search within the Openroom database of public records.

In addition, we gave further optional precision search of birthdates and past address histories to confirm you’re searching for the right identity.

We did it intentionally because we care about the lives behind those names.

Some of our community members challenged this change stating that in the past, they were able to search for just the first name, or just the last name. Now they can’t.

It’s a valid opinion, and it’s great that community members care about what we build - enough to voice feedback and concerns to us.

Let’s dive into this…

If you’re looking for a rental and a landlord types in your first name (e.g. John) or just your last name (e.g. Smith), and a record popped up that wasn’t actually about you.

But, wait - it was CLOSE ENOUGH to your name because it was Jon Smith, or John Smithie, and you were denied a rental because this landlord didn’t do thorough research and ‘does not want to take any chances that it might be you’.

In a case like this, how would you feel?

I’d be angry - Angry because if I didn’t do anything wrong, why am I impacted negatively?

The hurt still exists - I hear you

I know that thousands of you supporting the work we do have experienced unpaid rent at your property. Right now, Openroom is tracking over $323M in unpaid rent through Ontario court orders to date.

Whether it has happened a decade ago or just last week, you will never forget what you went through.

I know because I was 30 weeks pregnant when my former tenants were evicted by a Sheriff for non-payment of rent. You can search my name inside Openroom’s Legal Research and see what happened through public records.

That’s what fuelled Co-Founder Vishal and I set out to build Openroom.ca.

Our job is to protect good tenants and good landlords. That means making sure no one is misidentified or harmed by partial searches.

We must not let Openroom be weaponized.

We're building a company that won’t just scale but endure. That won’t just inform but safeguard. That won’t just help landlords hold repeat offenders of unpaid rent accountable but make sure no good tenant becomes collateral damage.

That what we build is more than software, but it’s impacting real lives.

We’ll keep improving not just to make things faster or fancier, but to build this right.

Remember, we just got certified by the government of Ontario as a Consumer Reporting Agency - this is another step forward to the vision of a transparency and connected rental ecosystem we are building together!

💜 Thank you sending in the love to Openroom!

Congratulations to: Dina, Stephen, Raphael, Gary, Richard, Deanna, Sasha, Mandy & Geoff, Shenxun, and George for replying back to the last newsletter. Our Partner business owners (Frank’s Place, Rentals.ca, SingleKey, Haletale, and Rent Panda) chose random numbers and community members won gift bags!

p.s. if you want to get in touch with Keith or find ways to support their family’s cause, you can message him at [email protected].

Weiting Bollu
Mom, Rental Housing Provider, Rental Housing Advocate, Educator, and Openroom Co-Founder & CEO

What does my team at Openroom do?

At Openroom, we aggregate tenancy court orders across Canada, extract information from them, and put it to public use (e.g. public record search for tenant screening, rental debt reporting to Equifax, legal research for all, reduce delinquencies and renters get to build credit).

We also educate about rental housing, provide free resources, and we advocate for a more transparent and connected rental ecosystem - working with government and industry groups to support both responsible housing providers and residents.