You're right. But the fact that he received so much disappointment so quickly means that those venues aren't working - yet...so yes, room for innovation.
I really, really want to reiterate Recoil's point above.
The rental market is massive and real and worth a shit-ton of money. Handling the pain of repairs and stuff? it's not even been vaguely tapped! That's a fucking good idea that's going to be hard to sell but it's a domino thing. When one major rental agency starts using it they'll all start using it. 'Your flat doesn't have residee.ce? How lame!'
Finding a co-founder is a tiny market.
Your advice is well intentioned and dog-fooding and all that lovely bullshit nonsense and really, really terrible.
