Azibo
Saving Tenants Money and Landlords Time During the Rental Application Process
$39.95
Savings per tenant application
30%
Faster landlord application review
50+
Landlords in research panel
Up to 40
Formal applications per unit, before
Overview
Azibo set out to give property owners a faster way to review rental applicants, and to let tenants apply for an apartment more easily and affordably — without the stack of separate, paid applications renters were used to filing.
The Problem
The team had a strategy deck and a development plan, but hadn't yet validated it against how tenants and landlords actually behaved during a search. Renting an apartment is a two-sided problem: landlords need a reliable way to compare applicants, and tenants need a real shot at being considered without paying for every attempt.
- →Some landlords received up to 40 formal applications for a single unit and could only seriously consider 1–3
- →Tenants paid $30–50 for each application, with no guarantee of being chosen
- →Landlords largely evaluated applicants against the same handful of criteria, applied inconsistently across a fragmented set of tools
Key Insight
Landlords weren't evaluating every applicant from scratch — they were screening against a consistent set of criteria to narrow the field before anyone paid for a formal, third-party report.
- →A free, self-reported pre-apply step could carry the same signal landlords already used to shortlist candidates
- →A formal, paid application only needed to happen once a landlord was genuinely interested
- →Landlords cared as much about a fair process for applicants as they did about their own review speed
Research & Discovery
We talked to both sides of the transaction — tenants who had recently signed a lease, and landlords recruited from a 50+ member design panel — to understand each side's process and decision criteria.
Tenant Interviews
- ·Conducted 8 phone interviews with tenants who had leased an apartment in the past year
- ·Covered the application process, security deposits, and renters insurance
Landlord & Property Manager Discovery
- ·Conducted 6–8 discovery interviews with landlords and property managers active in a leasing process within the past six months
- ·Recruited from a 50+ member design panel, plus referrals for tenant-side participants
How Tenants Search Today
Mapping the apartment seeker's existing path showed two branches: a free pre-apply step, or the fee-based formal application most tenants were used to hitting immediately.
How Landlords Manage Applicants
On the landlord side, we mapped the setup flow that lets a property manager choose whether a unit accepts free pre-applications, formal paid applications, or both.
Design Process
Concept Development
Partnered with the credit and background-check provider to understand what data was actually available, then built lightweight functioning prototypes for early customer review.
Iterative Testing
Ran moderated usability testing on Figma prototypes across multiple rounds, adjusting the flow after each round of participant feedback.
Wireframes & Handoff
Built and reviewed final wireframes with the engineering team to plan and launch the product.
Self-Reported Application
The core redesign: a free, self-reported application that walks a tenant through the same information landlords already screen for — contact and financial basics, rental history, then an optional rental resume — before any formal, paid step.
Product Demo
Business Context
Alongside this redesign, Azibo's platform saw strong growth over the same period — a useful signal that the broader product direction was working, even though these platform-wide numbers reflect more than this feature alone:
- →+36% average month-over-month growth in platform transaction volume
- →+2.2× quarter-over-quarter customer growth, with 7,300+ monthly transacting users
- →$1.6M+ in banking cash deposit balances
Key Takeaways
- →Iterating in small increments — sometimes mid-testing — kept the team aligned and shortened the time from insight to design change
- →Landlords cared as much about a fair, complete experience for applicants as they did about their own review speed
- →Locking a delivery plan and deadline earlier would have kept the project closer to schedule; we were more disciplined about direction than about pacing
- →Handing off visual design to an outside resource after the core UX was set was a new approach for this team, and it introduced delays worth planning around next time