Ben Pleat, Founder & CEO "Cobu: Community in Rentals"

Invest Alongside Boston's Top Angels: Link to Our Syndicates

Barely two years out of Harvard, founder Ben Pleat of Cobu has owners of premier apartment buildings excited by the community-creating activities that make their properties more desirable places to live. Owners spend heavily on making the physical spaces attractive but are frequently frustrated by tenant turnover that averages 50 per cent per annum.  Cobu helps develop a sense of belonging that increases tenant satisfaction and lowers turnover. Ben’s not doing this alone, he’s recruited an impressive team of colleagues and advisors who share his vision. He tells us the Cobu story in an accessible and engaging manner.

Topics include:

Introduction

• Sal intros the show and mentions portfolio company Vedanta Biosciences.
• Ben Pleat bio.
• Sal sees the problem Cobu is solving first-hand in his multi-family properties.
• Ben pitched at Walnut Ventures and Sal found his pitch compelling.

Cobu

• Connecting residents in communities of 300 to 400 hundred residents through shared interests.
• Using technology for community management with the goal of creating a sense of home.
• Cobu is starting with large, new buildings that are usually owned by institutions.
• Cobu is addressing the global problem of isolation, UK just appointed a Minister for Loneliness.
• Cobu is using technology to create genuine human connections. Creating opportunities for people to meet in authentic, face-to-face, offline ways.

Founding Story

• Ben’s inspiration for founding the company came from professional and personal experiences.
• Working for institutional owners he saw how putting in granite counter tops, climbing walls and roof decks did not move the needle on high tenant turnover. People move across the street because they lack a sense of belonging.
• In his personal life, Ben saw how isolated his mother, a highly social person, became when she realized her dream to move to an upscale building in Manhattan’s trendy Greenwich Village. Eventually she found another place to live which was more conducive to her avid need to engage with her neighbors.
• That someone as outgoing as his mother could become isolated by her choice of housing made Ben realize the massive implications of the problem of creating community in large residential settings.
• It’s an issue not just for retiring Baby Boomers but also for Gen Z and Millennials.
• Cobu stands for community building.
• His mom found community, ironically in a mid-Town building with few common spaces.

Team

• Co-founder Steve McLaughlin has twenty-five years in digital marketing, building online communities for large brands.
• Melissa Manning, Director of Community has a natural talent for connecting people.
• Kim Votruba-Matook leads content and brand.
• Jeff Beir, successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist is an early advisor.

Sal’ Portfolio Company Vedanta Biosciences

• Sal talks about of his favorite portfolio companies, Vedanta Biosciences, a leader in the micro-biome space. The company is in Phase III trials with a treatment for C. difficile as well as in Phase Ib/II trials for a therapy for peanut allergies. This illustrates the kind of company Sal runs into in his investing. He invites accredited investors to consider his syndicates as a way to invest alongside Boston’s leading angels.

Cobu’s Go to Market Strategy

• Cobu is working with major players such National Development and Boston Properties to power communities in their buildings.
• Go to market is to continue to partner with leading developers in properties with 100+ units which are near a critical mass of retail areas and thus amenable to community building.
• Also getting inbound leads.

Metrics

• Measuring the results with a Community Index. Four main elements: (1) sense of membership, mutual influence, needs fulfilled by community and shared connection in person.
• Software does not build community; it helps people build community.

LinkedIn as an Example

• Addressing the value of software in building community, Sal mentions the example of Gillian Isabelle of Enlivity (https://www.angelinvestboston.com/ep-76-gillian-isabelle-enlivity) finding her co-founder on LinkedIn.

Podcasts Ben Listens to

• Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman
• How I Built This with Guy Raz
• Likes the highly produced narrative of How I Built This
• Sal really values the repeated exposure to different models

Business Model

• Charge building owners a per unit fee, also get revenue from national brands.
• Avoid one or two turnovers and the owner pays for Cobu for the whole year.
• Future-proofing buildings

Projections

• Cobu is now in 3,000 units. Expect to be in twenty to twenty-five units by the end of 2020.

Finding Your Calling

• Ben was always fascinated by the energy of cities. His other interest was entrepreneurship inherited from his immigrant mother.
• Ben and Sal enthuse on Edward Glaeser’s book Triumph of the City. Ed Glaeser is an advisor to Cobu.
• Ben grew up just outside Queens in New York.

Ben’s Parting Thoughts

• Ben finds Boston a highly supportive place to build a startup.
• Ben talks about Harvard’s iLab as a great place to build an early-stage company.
• Ben finds that Boston founders are remarkably ambitious.