First and open.

Openness is in Rentvine’s DNA. It launched with an open API and earned a reputation as the most open platform in the industry. AI put that identity to the test. An MCP server lets customers’ own AI tools work directly with their Rentvine data, and no one in the category had shipped one.

The whole industry had the same fear: open the platform up, go “headless,” and customers might drift away. We called it our Napster moment. Software companies wouldn’t get to decide whether AI met their data, and the ones that fought it would be left behind, like the record labels or Blockbuster.

MCP wasn’t a well-known term yet. But property managers are process-driven and scrappy, and reporting was a constant pain. MCP let them ask questions of their own data in plain language, and connect Rentvine to their other sources.

Made the case, owned the strategy and saw it through launch. My argument: being first and being open is who we are. MCP is built on our open API, and we’d keep building the best version natively. For Cru, I set the strategy, vision and pricing, oversaw the build and owned go-to-market. For Fixie, I set the vision, helped name it and prioritized its features. Both started at a Halloween hackathon I hosted.

• Launched MCP. Shipped the first MCP in single-family rental property management, keeping Rentvine the most open, AI-first platform in the industry.
• Hosted the hackathon that started it. In October 2025 I ran a company-wide Halloween hackathon: all 200 people, two weeks of ramp-up, one week of building, and a very fun awards ceremony. It produced the first versions of Cru and Fixie, our two biggest AI bets, plus a long list of business-process fixes.
• Set the vision for Cru. Took the agentic workforce (formerly “Pro Skills”) from concept through strategy, pricing, build and GTM. Cru is a team of AI agents that works inside Rentvine alongside the maintenance crew: it watches active work orders and lines up the next step (assign a vendor, merge duplicates, nudge a vendor who hasn’t replied) for a person to confirm.
• Set the vision for Fixie. An AI intake and triage agent that replaces the resident maintenance form with a conversation. Residents type, talk or send video; Fixie asks follow-ups, walks through safe troubleshooting, and either resolves the issue or files a work order with a plain-English diagnostic summary.
• Championed Guidance. Customers customize agents in plain language instead of digging through workflow settings.

• Rentvine stayed first and open: the first MCP in SFR property management.
• Sales were a byproduct: more than 70% of deals closed faster when MCP came up.
• Half of the units on the platform use Fixie, before a major go-to-market push.
• The most positive customer sentiment of any launch, and multiple customers moved from third-party point solutions to Rentvine’s native maintenance.

Openness wins the deal, and native quality keeps the customer. I’d invest in both from day one.