Matt See, Co-Founder and CEO, Lighthouse
After working at an investment fund, Matt pivoted his career to become a founder, aiming to help people pave the way to homeownership.
“When I was thirteen years old, I thought I wanted to become an investor when I grew up. I wanted to get into a school to fast-track that path, so I studied hard, made the right decisions, and got accepted into the University of Pennsylvania. For a kid from a small town in Kentucky, that was an amazing early win that changed my trajectory.
At Penn, I got a finance and accounting degree. My mom was a finance major and my dad was an accounting major, so I combined them. I also dabbled in computer science classes as well because I wanted to learn how to write scripts, in order to help my investing process.
After Penn, I got an investment job at Dodge & Cox, a long-only mutual fund with a great reputation for value investing. Being in San Francisco, I found myself drawn toward innovation and new business models, and it was there that I met my co-founder Alan Chang, who was working at Airbnb at the time.
Alan and I realized we shared a lot of similar values. We brainstormed and came up with the idea of Lighthouse when we were looking to buy a portfolio of homes. We saw a great opportunity that pulled us out of our full-time jobs to start our company, Lighthouse. Last week, we celebrated our fourth anniversary.”
Tell me more about Lighthouse.
“Lighthouse is a rental marketplace that offers cash back on rent. We want to light the path to homeownership by putting cash back into wallets and educating renters about the process to buy.
We achieve this by reallocating the marketing budgets that apartments traditionally use to fill their units and redirecting a portion of those funds back to renters. We assist renters in their apartment selection, empowering them to make choices based on the cash back they can receive. This approach benefits both renters and apartments, as apartments are happy that their ad spend is efficient. Of course, we also take a percentage for our services.
Our unique insight is that the effort to own a home today is greater than ever before. Without financial support from parents or grandparents, building the necessary equity to survive on your own can be daunting.
The best answer is to get a phenomenal job to afford a home someday, but not everyone can do that. The next best answer is to save more. For some renters, we’ve already awarded $3,000 cash back for their apartment selection. We are just getting started.”
Can you delve into how your product works?
“For apartments, if a unit is just sitting there vacant, they’re not making money. As a result, they spend about 5-10% of their gross rent to attract renters. Channels like search or social aren’t always effective, so apartments need to distribute their units elsewhere. We aim to be a great and flexible distribution partner that operates on a success basis.
If the apartment needs a renter, we want their increased willingness to pay to influence the consumer's decision. That’s where the cash back comes from. Renters can select from thousands of apartments on our site. The cash back varies by what the apartment pays. When the renter moves in and the lease is confirmed, we send them a link to redeem their cash back.
We have mostly focused our efforts on Dallas because it has thousands of multifamily buildings that are looking for new ways to find renters. Next year, we’ll start to expand into new markets.
We’re focused on rentals currently, but we hope to capture the full lifetime value of a renter on their journey. Think about how many times you’ve moved and how these savings can add up.”
What is your current traction?
“We have a team of seventy agents right now and have great retention of repeat customers. Earlier this year, we acquired a large real estate player in Dallas to help us expand. The acquisition is going well and that business has returned to growth.
Our core business is seeing solid growth and have positive unit economics. We continue to invest in key projects that will help with scale, conversion, and efficiency. We have a really strong team, starting with our agents. We think they are the best apartment locators in the industry. At the same time, we also have some of the most talented and kind people across our product and engineering teams. We are always looking for great people, so if this is exciting to you, come join us.
Our mission is to help put people on the path to homeownership, and we will continue to build out our platform to do so.”
What does your current cap table look like?
“DCM Ventures led our seed round. Following our acquisition of a company in Dallas, we raised additional capital to begin attacking some of the vast high NPV projects ahead.”
What do you like to do for fun?
“I love to learn and stay on top of trends. I usually have a YouTube lecture up each day. Moreover, I have a curated Reddit to stay on top of everything. Subreddits are often the best way to stay on top of a field and go deeper on topics. My day job keeps me pretty busy, but I like to bring in new tools, ideas, and processes when we are going through things for the first time.
I enjoy pizza quite a bit. I need to start a pizza blog because I have a lot to say about this. I’m a purist— you need to try the margherita of a shop to know the essence of it. I like Doppio Zero in San Francisco, or Lupita in Lisbon.”
What is your favorite book?
“Be Here Now by Ram Dass. This book led me to begin my spiritual journey. I can always refer to it to find an interesting message that resonates.”