After more than ten years in working for various technology companies, including internet access pioneer EarthLink and open-source software pioneer JBoss, I found myself working in the student housing industry of commercial real estate in early 2007. Place Properties brought me in as one of their finance directors, taking a chance on the fact that what I lacked in commercial real estate experience I made up for in financial acumen. The change was good. I thought "nice real estate job, slower moving, no tech chaos." Yeah, right. I had dropped right into one of the fastest growing niches of commercial real estate, and it was far from slow-paced.
So I decided to make sure I was as educated as possible on the industry. Given my background, I sought out every web site I could find on student housing. What did I find? Nada. Zip. Nothing. And I couldn't believe it. So I started tinkering around with a blog that was, more or less, just my own personal cheat sheet to what was happening in the industry. Student Housing Planet was born.
Much to my surprise, folks found the site, and started visiting. In greater and great numbers. And then advertisers stepped in, wanting to make sure those eyeballs knew who they were. Before I knew it, I was back home in technology.
In early 2008, we formed Dockside Consulting Group, Inc. Under this umbrella, we run Student Housing Planet, offer CFO services to small technology companies, and portfolio budgeting and planning services to student housing companies (we'll take your 20-50 budgets, and put them in a secure online environment so they can be accessed from anywhere in the country by someone in your firm - no emailing large spreadsheets anymore, no wondering who has the "correct" version, and no hard labor in rolling up ownership groups - at a fraction of the cost of some other commercial applications.)
Thanks so much for visiting our site. If you have any feedback, or would like to discuss any of the services mentioned above, don't hesitate to drop me a line.
cheers,
Dan
