Nomad Sets Its Sights on Becoming the Leader in the Landlord Insurance Industry
Think of Nomad as Your Perfect Tenant
After completing a successful venture capital raise, PJ O’Neil and Matt Thelen launched Nomad in Denver, Colorado, in 2020. Having been landlords themselves, O’Neil a “deliberate” landlord and Thelen an “accidental” landlord, they both knew of the potentially troubling consequences of tenants not paying their rent.
Before co-founding Nomad, their paths crossed going back to their college days, but they did not even realize it or know what the future held in store for them. O’Neil and Thelen both attended the University of Colorado—Boulder; O’Neil earning a degree in Economics and Mathematics and Thelen earning a degree in Business and Finance. Later, they both earned their MBAs at the University of California—Berkeley.
Post-MBA, O’Neil had several key positions within the industry prior to becoming the CEO of Nomad. Immediately prior to Nomad, he was the Expansion General Manager for Opendoor where he launched their Raleigh, San Antonio, Nashville, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver markets.
Thelen, the “software guy”, was the Director of Strategy, Research & Insights for SendGrid. SendGrid was a high-growth and profitable SaaS category leader which was acquired by Twilio in early 2019. Thelen then became their Director of Business Operations.
The Nomad Model
Nomad is a valuable solution for rental property owners, residents, property managers and real estate agents.
Nomad offers a Guaranteed Rent program to residential landlords, who for a small premium, can be assured of receiving timely rental payments for a term of 1-3 years. Along with receiving guaranteed rent, Nomad will also price, market, screen, and lease the properties, leaving the landlords to focus on property management. For the renters, Nomad offers rewards to their good tenants…in other words, they provide exemplary customer service.
Along with their Guaranteed Rent program, they also offer the Nomad Mortgage program. The mortgage program qualifies a potential borrower based on credit score and rental amounts with no income verification.
Getting Ready to Grow
Currently, the co-founders are getting ready for their next round of capital raising which will allow them to expand beyond their current markets of Denver, Boulder, and Phoenix. But there is much more to the expansion strategies of these two entrepreneurs who are only in their mid-thirties.
Nomad views their partners as extremely valuable force multipliers. One such partner is PlanOmatic, whom PJ was introduced to while at Opendoor. PlanOmatic enables Nomad to scale with extra “boots-on-ground” and they leverage PlanOmatic’s Property Insights product including condition reports, 3D home mapping, digital tours, and professional photography to help take their business to the next level. During the pandemic, PlanOmatic-provided 3D images were extremely important to Nomad so they could continue to grow while other companies were scaling back. PlanOmatic’s Property Insights now continues to allow Nomad to view property conditions virtually and eliminate multiple onsite vendor visits.
A Value-Add Product
A premium product offered by Nomad is Guaranteed Rent + Property Management. This upgrade is perfect for hands-off property owners who want all the benefits of traditional property management with the 2-years guaranteed rent only offered by Nomad.
Additionally, landlords receive property marketing on 20+ websites, two months of rent paid upfront, preventative maintenance services, a dedicated account rep, and access to Nomad’s exclusive tenant network. All of these add up to a time-savings of over 120 hours typically incurred by DIY landlords.
For additional information, visit www.nomadlease.com or email PJ O’Neil at pj@nomadlease.com.
