How It All Started
On November 30th, 2003 my wife and I, received the keys to our first property. A two bedroom condominium located in the heart of downtown Edmonton. It was all we wanted and more. Life was wonderful.
For the first few years everything was great. We did not have any problems with our unit. Truth be told, we didn’t really know why things were happening around the condo. One day the elevators were down, other days the water was cold and sometimes the garage door was out or service and no one knew why.
“Condo living,” we thought.
We coasted like this for about two years. Then one day, we came home to a flooded storage room. We had no idea who to contact, had no clue who was on the condo board or who our property manager was. We were frantic and needed guidance.
We left a voicemail with our property management company and waited for someone to get back to us. After two days, we spoke to someone that was able to get the repairs moving. This felt like an eternity.
A similar story occurred when we needed to get our door buzzer reprogrammed. This task took 6 months. Till then, we had to run down to let our visitors in.
Soon thereafter, I decided to join the condo board. I was fed up with everything and wanted to see if I can make a difference.
After being exposed to the problems first hand, I realized that the condo board and property manager didn’t really have the right tools to communicate with the residents.
The condo board met once a month. That is when they reviewed all the letters from that correspondence mailbox. Then it took another month to make the decisions and reply back to the resident.
I had to put a stop to this.
So, with my software development experience I decided to take initiative and create a tool for condo board associations and property managers to aid with the communication gap between everyone and CondoGenie was born.
After a soft launch, and intense beta testing, CondoGenie has gone LIVE in late 2009 and the rest is history.
I would like to thank all the board members, property managers, and residents that contributed to the testing. Thank you for all the input and feedback. GeniePad wouldn’t be what it is today without you.
Sincerely,
Rafal Dyrda