In 2010, my wife and I bought a condo. After closing, we walked into our new home—and right inside the front door was a lone filing cabinet. The rest of the unit was empty.
As luck would have it, our new neighbor across the hall was just heading out. We introduced ourselves and asked if they knew why the filing cabinet had been left behind. With a smile, they explained, “That’s the condo association’s documents. And congratulations—you’re now the new presidents of the association!”
We dove in headfirst, eager to do a great job for our building. Along the way, we learned a lot. Some tasks were straightforward, while others—like depositing assessment checks at the bank—felt unnecessarily tedious. After about six months, I realized I could apply my software development skills to simplify things. And just like that, Condo Ally was born.
We scanned and uploaded all the documents from that filing cabinet, set up a shared calendar for quarterly meetings, organized contact info, and enabled online payments. Life was good. So good, in fact, that our neighbors started telling others in the community about our setup, and soon, other buildings wanted the same thing. So, we expanded the site to support multiple associations.
By 2019, nearly 100 associations were using Condo Ally—entirely through word of mouth. We loved helping our community, but keeping up with the demand was becoming difficult. In the nine years since we started, almost 75 competitors had entered the space. We decided it was time to shut down and recommended three alternative platforms to our users.
People flipped out.
They told us not to shut down and said they’d be happy to pay. Up until then, we had offered Condo Ally for free because we personally knew most of our users. Instead of shutting down, we introduced a premium plan. This way, associations could continue using the free version if they wanted, or they could support us by upgrading.
Fast forward to 2025, and we now have five times as many associations—all thanks to word of mouth! Early this year, we decided to try marketing for the first time, hoping to reach even more communities and continue improving our software.
From day one, our goal has been to provide every feature an association could need while keeping the platform simple and intuitive. Running a successful business is great, but making money has never been our primary goal. Community Ally exists to unite neighbors. Technology has proven incredibly effective at dividing people, but we believe it can be just as powerful in bringing them together.
Here’s to the next chapter of helping communities thrive!
