Business View Magazine | February 2018

224 225 software is having an open database, because big data, and making data-driven decisions, instead of gut decisions, is what’s important -being able to ag- gregate and analyze data that you’re collecting from multiple sources.” Genevieve: “ I’m in development and acquisitions, constantly looking for properties to add to our portfolio.Having access to all that data allows us to immediately assess occupancy levels, rental rates, etc., to see if it’s a market we’d feel comfortable moving into.Then we can tangibly go in to see, feel, and touch it.” BVM: How are you diversifying to compete with the REITs? Genevieve: “We are founding members of Store- local–a co-op created and owned by independent storage operators to compete with REITs–they have all the band-width, power, and dollars,where- as some of us other operators don’t have as big a budget.The idea was to come together as a co-op- erative and pool the money, the power, the best minds, the best practices, and the technology in the self-storage industry to compete with the big guys in public storage.” Dane: “Many small-to-mid-size businesses in America are being edged out because they couldn’t develop the technology or marketing platform on their own.We don’t want to be renting technology, losing 30 percent off the top. Being part of the co- op and more vertically integrated into the tech and owning it is very compelling. For example: we just launched a website that was completely developed by the co-op, by us pooling money with about 1000 other companies.Now,we offer a seamless rental experience online,with dynamic leases we can Find your stuff a home. Self-storage | Car, RV and boat storage | Moving trucks Storage with pickup | Portable storage | | Moving supplies Reserve storage in minutes with SpareFoot 1-844-326-6079 sparefoot.com PLATINUM STORAGE GROUP customize on a per property basis.Very customer friendly, you can use it on your phone.As soon as you rent, you get an email or text message with all the info.We never could have afforded to do that on our own.” Genevieve: “With private equity and capital and institutions entering the self-storage business, the competition is getting more intense, like in Oak- land, California,where we’re about to push dirt on a property in a very in-filled, institutional market with lots of buildings and competition.You need to know what you’re doing.Having all the institutional and publicly-traded companies raises the bar and makes Platinum better at what we do.We look at the com- petition,make changes internally and externally, tweak things to make better acquisitions, operate the properties better, and really cater to tenants and customers, so the user experience,when renting a facility, is more comfortable and efficient.” BVM: Who is your typical customer? Dane: “The majority are residential, but we all want to bring in more commercial customers. Residential customers store for about 16 months;