For Ramesh Mariyappan and Menaka Ramesh, working in the corporate field afforded them little time to also manage their property and tenants. To make matters more difficult, one of their tenants began defaulting on the rent and even stopped responding to their calls. One of their friends suggested that they approach a property manager to resolve this issue. Unfortunately, they found that the companies they approached were not delivering on their promised services such as helping them find the right tenant or following up properly on their queries.

That’s when the idea came about to create Proptension, an end-to-end property management company that helps individuals find and verify tenants, collect rent, get complaints resolved, pay property tax, check inventory, and more.

“We realized that there are a lot of busy people like us who weren’t getting proper services, with proper processes or transparency. We wondered why we couldn’t start this business,” says Ramesh.

Starting in 2014 as the only employees, they couldn’t close a single deal for seven months. Today, with 25 members, they operate approximately 400 properties in Bengaluru, Chennai, and Mumbai, using the WhatsApp Business app to interact with owners and tenants.

Their income has increased by 5 percent since they began using the WhatsApp Business app

“Since we get high volumes of customer queries, the auto message feature helps us reply to clients automatically and instantly,” says Menaka, citing that their income has increased by 5 percent since they began using the WhatsApp Business app.

Gone are the days of struggling to close a deal. Proptension will be touching a top line of Rs 7.5 crore (approximately USD 1.1 million) this year and will soon expand to Pune, Cochin, and Hyderabad.