Systems of Care: Alfred's Co-Founder Jessica Beck Giving Back Time and Connecting to Community
By Julia Gamolina
Jessica Beck is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Alfred, an app-based personal assistant and resident service program for renters. Under her direction, Alfred has grown to be a leader in hospitality, successfully rolling out a national resident experience and property management platform in over 300,000 units. In an effort to expand Alfred’s footprint, Jessica has negotiated and developed partnerships with some of the country’s largest real estate developers, expanding Alfred to 52 major cities across the US and Canada.
Jessica holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in economics from Williams College, where she graduated cum laude. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Jessica talks about the systems that make our lives easier, advising those just starting their careers to bring different groups of people together.
JG: What did you learn about the world, and about yourself, in studying economics, and then getting your MBA?
JB: I learned that we have the opportunity to update a lot of the traditional systems and frameworks that we use to understand the world. For example, we’re still in this period where “traditional” home life has not successfully caught up with the current state of the workplace. There are still forty hours of housework done a week — and that hasn’t changed since the 1960s. Yet at the same time, particularly with more remote work, there are also the demands of meeting work deadlines, projects, and initiatives to manage.
This has had a serious impact on careers, particularly for women. This not only harms wellness but it also makes us less productive and impactful as a workforce. We started building Alfred to help solve this problem and keep women in the workplace. Helping people at home is a key element of this — it’s about being intentional about where your time is going and where you can delegate your tasks.
Alfred is currently in 52 cities in the US and Canada and has planned expansions in Europe, Israel and Asia.
How did you get your start? What was the seed for Alfred?
After graduating from Williams College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics in 2008, I started my first full-time job at McKinsey & Company where I spent three years at the company as a Business Analyst, moving on to an Associate, and ending as an Engagement Manager. In 2012, I went on to earn my Masters Degree at Harvard Business School. I always knew I wanted to create something on my own, but originally wanted to explore different areas of the industry before making that leap.
At HBS, I met Marcela, Alfred’s CEO and co-founder and we both discussed how being a full-time employee, attending business school, and attempting to live a social life, was next to impossible. We came to understand that we both had the same realizations about the way we live and how it could be different. We both believed that the home should not only give us back time, but also anticipate our every need. We began to do a lot of research and small experiments. We looked on Craigslist at the time and saw over 35,000 lists for recurring help in the top 10 cities in the U.S. We knew we were onto something and we knew we weren’t the only ones who needed help. This revelation led us to create Alfred — Marcela was very convincing and I knew we would build something incredible together.
Tell me more about Alfred’s mission.
As we built Alfred with the goal of giving people, particularly working women, back their time, we realized that if we wanted to truly solve the problem we had to make a system that not only saved time but also took care of people. We imagined a world where the home would take care of people instead of people taking care of the home. In order to do this we had to fundamentally rethink how the built environment worked.
We realized that there is no consumer experience for the home, no “UI for the Home,” and no master system that connected the home to its surrounding community. We decided it was time to build a product for this category and solve the problem programmatically. It helped that I had previously lived in many multi-family buildings and worked demanding jobs so I deeply understood elements of the problem we wanted to solve.
Operating in 52 cities in the United States and Canada, we’re the first and only, single-stop solution in the industry that capitalizes on the entire resident journey. From digitally signing the lease, to booking a mover, setting up pet care, requesting maintenance, attending wellness and community events, residents experience an entire new way of living that makes renting more rewarding.
What is your role at Alfred?
As the Chief Operating Officer, I get to run the day-to-day operations. To date, I’ve successfully led the rollout of a national resident experience and property management platform with hundreds of thousands of units managed. It’s been extremely rewarding to expand Alfred’s footprint through partnerships with the nation’s largest real estate developers. My role is a mix of working with internal and external stakeholders to solve challenges and create solutions, which is always something I’ve loved doing.
Simultaneously while attending Harvard Business School, Marcela and I co-developed WHITESPACE Ventures, a seed investment firm focused on design-led technology for better business.
“We imagined a world where the home would take care of people instead of people taking care of the home...We realized that there is no consumer experience for the home...and no master system that connected the home to its surrounding community. We decided it was time to build a product for this category and solve the problem programmatically.”
How did you expand Alfred?
After winning TechCrunch in 2016, we began to build out our team, eventually leading us to expand our product. We quickly expanded from Boston to New York City, embedding the experience into assets. We landed a massive partner, Related Companies, which allowed us to scale across the country extremely quickly.
Today, Alfred is the largest and most advanced resident and property management platform in the real estate industry. As we look forward to our future, we’re going to expand globally. Urbanization is happening everywhere, and with that, people are becoming more comfortable with the idea of mobility and living and working anywhere. We want residents everywhere to experience how housing is going to change, and for the better.
Jess with an Alfred team member in March 2020 to help deliver essentials to residents that were sheltering in place.
Where are you in your career today? What is on your mind most at the moment?
I am beyond excited to continue breaking barriers in the real estate industry. When we founded Alfred, PropTech did not exist. Since our inception, the industry has started to accept the technological revolution that is infesting every other industry. The next generation of renters is now expecting a seamless experience that they get everywhere else through technology. We’re building that. We are creating the most seamless renting experience that differentiates a property from another and drives overall NOI.
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you manage through a disappointment or a perceived setback?
The biggest challenge we have faced so far is educating the industry. To date, less than 1% of a property’s budget goes to technology. Whereas, in every other industry, technology is the driving force to success and seamless experiences that the world expects. PropTech is still in its early stages, but what we are building is going to the technology platform that is integrated in properties throughout the globe. There is so much more time and opportunity ahead.
“My greatest advice for anything starting in their career or building a company from the ground up is to follow the notion that if you bring groups of people together you will have outsized impact.”
What are you most excited about right now?
In our latest and largest acquisition of property management firm, RKW Residential, we’re transforming the way properties operate and residents live. We’re bringing together the expertise and technology that is going to change the industry standard. From an owners perspective, their real goal is to maximize the NOI of a property. We’re not only accomplishing that, but we’re transforming the entire rental journey so that residents want to stay for longer and are more satisfied while staying. We’re going to be the backbone in the industry that helps connect all the players in the space.
Who are you admiring now and why?
I have a lot of admiration for Alan Mulally, the man known to be the “Ford’s savior.” After Ford’s stock went completely bankrupt, Mulally stepped in as CEO of Ford and successfully changed the company’s ecosystem and culture to better operate as “One Team.” Mulally led Ford to its first profitable quarter in two years after joining as CEO. Something we have carried into Alfred’s company culture is the mantra of “One Team,” where everyone is working together to climb the same mountain. I’d love to chat with him about his leadership strategy, growth initiatives and how he was able to fundamentally transform an entire company.
Jess Beck and Co-founder Marcela Sapone.
What is the impact you’d like to have in the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?
We’re on a mission to make renting the most seamless and rewarding experience. The share of time we spend at home and how we are outfitting our home has changed entirely since the start of the pandemic. Our entertainment, our work, and our play are all intertwined into one experience. The real estate industry is on a path to great change, and we’re leading the change. When the world looks at homes, all they see are gray boxes. When we look at a home, as a company and a community, we see the people inside, we see the interactions, we see the needs, and we see the life in it. That's a business opportunity. But it's also an entirely different philosophy on the category. That's what we're conquering.
We are unique in this in that we help our consumers. We help our real estate owners for their consumers. As you know, we care about giving them back time, making their lives more valuable, connecting them to community and to each other. And for our building customers, we know that when we do this, we make running their buildings better, we make their teams more productive and happier, and we make their assets more valuable as well. We're the only company that sits in the middle of these two very, very powerful things, and we unite them, as opposed to putting them at odds.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
When Marcela and I started Alfred, we believed in the ethos of collaboration. My greatest advice for anything starting in their career or building a company from the ground up is to follow the notion that if you bring groups of people together you will have outsized impact. If you create a community of people and put everyone together, that’s when the magic can happen.