We rebuilt a credit-building platform. Then someone bought it.
Resident Link serves hundreds of property management companies nationwide, offering renters a way to build credit through their rent payments. We rebranded the company and redesigned the platform. The result caught the attention of IDIQ, a national digital services provider, which acquired it.
A financial product asking for trust it had not yet earned
Rent reporting sits in a crowded and skeptical category. A renter is being asked to connect a payment history to a credit bureau by a company they have never heard of, usually after seeing it mentioned once in a leasing office. Every ounce of hesitation shows up as an abandoned signup.
Resident Link needed a complete rebrand and a fundamental rethinking of how to engage two audiences at once. The onboarding was long, the interface asked visitors to hold too much in their heads, and the brand presentation did not yet carry the credibility a credit product requires.
We began with an analysis of the B2C services landscape, identifying the friction points in the existing user journey before touching any design.
One product sold two entirely different ways
The property manager buys an amenity. The resident buys a better credit score. Same service, opposite motivations — and the old site tried to speak to both in one voice. We split the path at the front door and gave each audience its own argument.
A revenue and retention argument: ancillary income, on-time payments, fewer evictions, better tenants. Backed by the credibility markers this audience checks for — named management partners, software compatibility, and a direct answer on California SB-1157 compliance.
A personal-benefit argument, opening on the rent a renter already pays. Three clearly differentiated plans, the bureau logos that make the claim believable, and enrollment reduced to finding your community and choosing a plan.
Designed for a renter on a phone, in a leasing office
The signup does not happen at a desk. It happens standing up, on a small screen, in the two minutes after someone hears the words "rent reporting" for the first time. Every decision followed from that.
The complex enrollment process cut back to find your community, choose your plan, build your credit.
A consolidated interface, so a single screen carries one decision rather than four competing ones.
Residents and property managers separated from the first screen, each on a route built for them.
A refined brand presentation, with credibility markers placed where hesitation actually occurs.
Acquired by IDIQ
The redesigned platform delivered a streamlined mobile-first interface, a simplified onboarding process, credibility markers throughout the experience, consolidated navigation and information architecture, and a clear value proposition for both the B2B and B2C audience.
It proved successful enough to catch the attention of IDIQ, a national digital services provider, which acquired the company. The platform's streamlined approach to resident credit building made it a natural fit for IDIQ's broader suite of consumer services.
An acquisition is never the work of a redesign alone. But a buyer evaluating a consumer platform is evaluating exactly what we were hired to fix: whether the experience holds up, and whether the brand is credible enough to put in front of their own customers.
Selling one product to two audiences?
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