I was completely charmed the zany elegance of Austin’s Pink Palace, as described to me by Steven Kurutz in the New York Times. If you have a few minutes, go read that article – it made me smile.
Communal houses have a tendency to take on a wonderful life of their own, and it’s these crazy bonds and the joys of casual sharing that inspired us to start Splitwise in the first place. When Ryan joined Splitwise, he was keeping track of the group bills and IOUs for the “oothouse” at 16 Edgewood with a spreadsheet.
The house was the center of social and party life for our college acapella group Out of the Blue, and it became the recording studio and namesake of OOTB’s most recent album. I crashed on the 16 Edgewood futon many times as I journeyed to and from New Haven (and yes, I used the guest calculator, but they were all short term visits).
Splitwise currently shares a five-bedroom apartment (“Cash Kings”) with fellow Betaspring teams RecoVend and JumpOffCampus. We used the rent calculator to determine our communal rents, and use the Splitwise app to track bills. It’s been an awesome social and sharing experience as we slave away at our start-ups. And it always helps to use your own product!
The Splitwise Blog 