Life after Google

Roger Fillion, Rocky Mountain News

Monday, February 12, 2007

When Dan Daugherty quit his job at Google, he knew he was giving up a lot - perks, job security and money. But the 27-year-old didn't have second thoughts about starting up his own business.

Dan Daugherty quit what he calls "the best company to work for in the world" to bet his fortune on an Internet business he designed on a napkin.

What on earth spurred him?

"My drive to be an entrepreneur," says the former Google Inc. employee, who like many former Googlers used a windfall from company stock to strike out on a new path. "I had no second thoughts."

The 27-year-old is now CEO of Rent Marketer Inc. Its mission: make it less of a hassle for landlords to post their vacant rental properties on numerous real estate Web sites.

Rent Marketer has 10 employees. World headquarters consists of a cozy two-room office in Douglas County, with a view overlooking Interstate 25.

Google it is not. The Silicon Valley search-engine juggernaut employs more than 9,000, and it's legendary for dishing up loads of employee perks.

Googlers dine on free gourmet grub and can do their laundry using free company washers and dryers.

Google's soaring stock also has allowed hundreds of people such as Daugherty to strike it rich - sometimes fabulously so - and try something new.

The company's former chef, for example, is opening his own Silicon Valley restaurant. Others are wading into the nonprofit world or just hanging out.

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle notes that "100 of Google's first 300 workers have quietly resigned to go to law school, help poor shopkeepers get loans or simply to live the good life."

Little wonder that Google gets flooded with 3,000 job applications a day.

Daugherty joined Google at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters in 2002 - roughly as employee No. 300. He came aboard before the company sold its stock to the public in August 2004.

The sale created more than 900 Google millionaires, reckons one estimate. Daugherty? He declines to say how much he netted.

After about six months at the California headquarters, Daugherty left Mountain View to help set up Google's Denver office.

"I had never set foot in Colorado," says the California native, who grew up in Simi Valley, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles.

Daugherty and a Google colleague proceeded to order computers, printers, monitors and other gear.

They also sought to re-create some aspects of Google's headquarters, firing up lava lamps and offering employees a foosball table and "all the snacks you could possibly think of."

At the same time, Daugherty began investing in Denver-area real estate, snapping up single-family homes, condos, townhomes, and now, commercial real estate.

He was inspired by his recollections as a 10-year-old, when he would look out from Simi Valley to the surrounding hills. There, he would see homes getting built at a rapid clip and then sold.

In 2005, Daugherty parlayed his interest in real estate, his Google wealth and his entrepreneurial zeal to dream up Rent Marketer.

Before quitting Google in December 2005, he dashed off Rent Marketer's business plan on a plain brown napkin while having a frappuccino and a sandwich at an Einstein Bros. eatery in south metro Denver.

The plan: allow landlords to post their rental properties online through just one click of a computer mouse. Otherwise, landlords must go to the Web sites individually - such as Craigslist or RentClicks - to post their ads.

Users of Rent Marketer pay a sliding monthly fee.

Don McCubbrey, a professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, gives Rent Marketer's business model a thumbs up.

"I like the idea of aggregators - to be able to go to one site and get information from a variety of sites," McCubbrey says.

"If I'm going to place an ad, I'd want to place it with an aggregator because they're going to attract more eyeballs."

At Rent Marketer's headquarters, Daugherty (who declined to say how much he invested in his venture)has tried to re-create certain aspects of the Google culture - though on a far smaller scale.

There are plenty of free snacks, including beef jerky, trail mix, chips, drinks and the like for employees to grab. A purple lava lamp - unplugged when a reporter visited - sits in the window.

A massage therapist visits the Rent Marketer offices every other week to provide free massages to relieve stress.

For Daugherty, one source of stress is the threat of potential rivals.

He says direct competitors haven't emerged, but he's wary of rental sites where Rent Marketer isn't posting ads. They could become competitors. He wants to nip that prospect in the bud.

"In time, we will have most of these sites because our goal is to post properties to as many rental sites as possible for our customers," he says

What's been the biggest change from Google?

"The lack of security," Daugherty says.

And what keeps him up at nights?

"The competition, making payroll and taking it to the next level," he says. "You affect more lives, especially if you have employees."

His venture: Rent Marketer

• Founded: April 2006

• Employees: 10

• Offices: Douglas County, Poland, China

• 150,000-plus: Number of e-mail and telephone rental "leads" generated by Rent Marketer's online ads on behalf of landlords and property managers.

• Cost: Users pay a monthly fee ranging from $39.95 to $89.95 per property, depending on the number of Web sites where properties are listed.

In his own words

• Dan Daugherty's eureka moment for Rent Marketer occurred in 2005 during a moment of frustration:

"I was posting my 10 rental properties on my home PC to several rental sites. I was posting the same information on each site, and it would take me hours to do.

"I figured there needed to be a better way. But there was nothing out there to streamline the process. That was the catalyst to begin Rent Marketer."

Google perks

Named the "Best Company to Work For in America" by Fortune, Google is renowned for its perks. To name a few, according to the magazine:

• 11 free gourmet cafeterias at Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.

• If you've just had a baby, up to $500 in reimbursements for takeout food ordered from home.

• On-site car washes and oil changes.

• A personal concierge to arrange dinner reservations.

• On-site doctors available for free employee checkups.

Rent Marketer perks

Daugherty has sought to provide a few Google perks at Rent Marketer:

• Free massages every other week.

• Free snacks, including trail mix, M&Ms, chips and soda

• Casual dress code.

fillionr@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2467