Founders: Brett Brockway and Srinivasa (Srini) Subramanian, co-founders
Where are you based?: Waterville, Maine
Year Founded: 2019
Brett owned rental property and was frustrated with how inconsistently it was managed. He and Srini had worked together at athenahealth, and the idea was to treat the rentals as a lab: could you run property management with the same systems thinking you would use on software, and automate the parts that keep going wrong? Brett called Srini and asked if he would help manage the buildings. That call was the company. Srini worked from an ironing board and Brett from a small living room table. Nights and weekends, no plan and no funding. Brett’s own portfolio was the first book of business, then family and friends, and it grew from there by word of mouth.
What problem are you trying to solve, and for whom? Absentee and small landlords in central Maine get inconsistent service. Calls go unreturned, unit turns drag on for months, and owners have little visibility into their own money. Worse, the standard property management setup puts the manager in custody of the owner’s rent and security deposits, and that structure invites bad behavior. We removed those processes entirely. We do not hold owners’ rent or their tenants’ deposits, so the temptation is not there.
Why hasn’t this problem been solved well before? Property management is local, low margin and people heavy, so almost nobody invests in systems. The firms that exist tend to run on habit rather than process. Landlords are also very good negotiators, which keeps fees thin and discourages anyone from building something better.
What does your company do to solve this problem? Full cycle property management: leasing and tenant screening, rent collection, an in-house maintenance crew with 24/7 emergency response, accounting and monthly owner statements, inspections, renewals and move-out coordination. We serve roughly 21 towns from Waterville and Augusta down to Lewiston, Auburn and Biddeford, and out to Rumford.
What makes your solution different or better than alternatives? Three things. We never hold the owner’s money, so the incentives stay clean. We run our own maintenance crew instead of subcontracting everything. And we have built an AI and automation layer into the daily workflow, from work order triage to receipts to tenant texting to weather alerts, backed by an operations team in India that keeps admin fast and affordable.
Who are your customers today? Around 350 units for absentee owners and small investors across central Maine, including a number of out-of-state owners.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from talking to customers? The best customers are the ones who do not want to deal with headaches. They are not shopping for the cheapest fee. They want to stop thinking about the building.
What assumption turned out to be wrong early on? That we did not need onshore oversight. We assumed a remote team and good systems could run the field work on their own. Local eyes and a local crew turned out to be essential.
What progress are you most proud of so far? Growing to around 350 units almost entirely by word of mouth, building an AI layer that keeps our sanity, and the team we have today.
How did participating in Dirigo Labs support your growth? We are just getting started, but the customer discovery framework is exactly what we need to sharpen how we win new owners.
Where do you see the company heading in the next 6 to 12 months? Adding 100 doors.
What’s the biggest challenge you’re working through right now? Owner acquisition. There are tens of thousands of rental owners in central Maine and most have never heard of us.
What kind of help would be most valuable right now? Introductions to landlords of any size, and referrals from the people who work with them: lenders, brokers, attorneys and accountants.
How can the Maine startup community support you? If you or someone you know owns rental property in central Maine and is tired of managing it, send them our way for a free rental evaluation.
Website: standardmanagementcompany.comFacebook: Standard Management CompanyBest way to reach us: 207-489-2188 or bbrockway@standardmanagementco.com