PropertyPals
Georgia Institute of Technology, Scheller College of Business
Industry: Property Management
Founding Student Names: Amanda Chen and Anna Wylly
Brief Description of Solution: PropertyPals is an end-to-end maintenance coordination platform designed for individual landlords. It makes repairs hands-off and streamlined by having tenants submit requests through our platform. From there, we assign a contractor – prioritizing landlords’ preferred vendors – and then they approve the quote. We handle the rest.
Existing competitors are typically built for portfolios of 100 doors or more. PropertyPals focuses on small landlords and property managers who are otherwise left to manage maintenance through phone calls and texts. Many competitors require landlords to manually coordinate repairs, while PropertyPals automates the process, so landlords stay informed without being hands-on.
Built for all types of landlords, from working parents managing a few rentals on the side to remote landlords living out of state, PropertyPals ensures repairs are handled quickly and fairly. For those using property managers, our platform also acts as a check-and-balance to prevent overcharging or unfilled work orders. By bringing accountability and simplicity into every step of maintenance, PropertyPals helps landlords save time and stress, protect their income, and trust that their properties are being cared for the right way.
Funding Dollars: $5,000
What led you to launch this venture? Both of us grew up seeing the challenges of independent landlords firsthand. Anna’s mom, uncle, and grandpa all manage rental properties in Savannah, Georgia. She often helped with small fixes, learning early how stressful and time-consuming coordinating maintenance between tenants and contractors could be.
Amanda experienced the same frustration, watching her dad – a “passive” landlord in Pooler and downtown Savannah, Georgia – spend hours glued to his phone answering tenant requests instead of enjoying family time. What was supposed to be passive income had turned into a full-time burden.
Sitting together in our Business Lab class at Georgia Tech, we realized our families’ struggles were not unique, and that sparked the idea for PropertyPals: a better, simpler way to take the stress out of rental maintenance.
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with the venture? Our first big milestone was manually coordinating a repair for a local landlord while he was on vacation with his family. That experience showed us the true value of a hands-off solution like PropertyPals. We saved him money, time, and stress by handling the entire process. From there, we built our MVP in under eight weeks, presented it at Create-X Demo Day, and have been showcasing it at Atlanta real estate meetups to gather feedback and build relationships. Since launch, we’ve been able to reduce the time it takes to resolve maintenance issues and have been recognized by the Scheller College of Business for the progress we’ve made.
How has your business-related major helped you further this startup venture? Our business studies gave us the mindset to understand problems and think through how to build the platform, while also preparing us for the interpersonal side of talking to strangers, networking, and building relationships. That foundation gave us the confidence to pursue opportunities outside our comfort zone, like pitching our product to a room full of landlords as the youngest people there. Although intimidating, those experiences were key to uncovering the real pain points of our target customers.
Which business class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Business Lab taught us to center everything around the customer, not the product. We practiced asking open-ended questions instead of leading ones, which pushed us to really listen. With 20 discovery interviews due each week, we stepped outside our comfort zone, even standing on the Atlanta Beltline with a poster asking landlords and tenants about their biggest frustrations.
Maintenance came up repeatedly as the pain point. Landlords struggled with finding contractors and coordinating repairs, while tenants felt their issues weren’t prioritized. Although we considered broader property management solutions, the class helped us see maintenance as our wedge. The biggest shift we’ve had is realizing that we don’t know anything unless we’re talking to customers, because they’re the ones who know everything.
What business professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Andre Calmon and Karthik Ramachandran played a huge role in helping us navigate the
challenges of building a startup. They gave us the entrepreneurial tools to approach customer discovery, shape our business and pricing model, and search for product-market fit. What stood out most was their mentorship style; they never told us what was right or wrong but instead guided us to test and learn for ourselves. Andre even went above and beyond by connecting us with his own friend, a residential landlord named Christian, who helped us shape and pilot our MVP in its early stages.
What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you?
Amanda: I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, and my dad has always been the biggest
inspiration for me. Watching him open his first restaurant exposed me early on to the way he thought about business strategy and modeled decisions carefully to set himself up for success. Without realizing it at the time, I was absorbing that entrepreneurial mindset.
By middle and high school, I was already running small side businesses of my own, applying the same strategies I had seen him use. What inspires me most is his persistence, because he never stopped trying despite setbacks. That resilience has become the backbone of my own journey with PropertyPals, and my decision to join the Business Lab class.
Anna: Growing up surrounded by my mom’s entrepreneurial spirit as a self-employed realtor sparked my desire for that same flexibility and inspired me to start my own journey. From a young age, she influenced me to learn the basics of how to manage a business. When I’m home, I often accompany her as she furnishes apartments, meets with prospective tenants, and completes odd jobs like repainting walls or doing deep cleans.
She raised two daughters on her own while working for herself, which is truly motivating and showed me the independence entrepreneurship can provide. Getting involved early sparked an entrepreneurial spirit I’ve expressed through lemonade stands, a jewelry business in my neighborhood, Depop reselling, and now, the Business Lab course at Georgia Tech where I built a real startup.
My mom taught my sister and me the confidence entrepreneurship gives you to create your own schedule, which is something I decided early on I want in my future career.
What is your long-term goal with your startup? Our long-term goal is to grow PropertyPals into a full-time venture. We want to continue building the platform, so it becomes the go-to solution for small landlords, giving them the tools to manage maintenance seamlessly while creating a better experience for tenants.
How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? Georgia Tech has built a strong ecosystem that gives curious students the chance to truly experience entrepreneurship. Through programs like Business Lab and CREATE-X, we not only had the structure to develop a full platform, but also access to mentors, alumni, and resources that pushed us forward. Demo Day connected us with people we never would have met otherwise, and those relationships have been instrumental in continuing to shape our venture.
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