RapidRent

RapidRent: a new take on renting

RapidRent is a startup based out of Ottawa working to simplify the renting process. The founders were inspired by the arduous renting process they faced as students. Finding a new apartment every year, sometimes every semester for co-op students is difficult and tiring. Scavenging through multiple sites like Kijiji, Rentals.ca and university-affiliated student housing sites is time consuming, and RapidRent decided to consolidate it.

Our team at SFL worked on creating a landing site which showcased the RapidRent product, a login experience that supports Google and Facebook log in, a subscription service handled using Stripe, and functionality related to renting a property.

This project would not have been possible without the support of our talented developers: Kush Bhagat, Mahyar (Muffy) Gorji, Glen Wang, Yash Oza & Ali Muhammad.

Working with Stripe, Google, Facebook & MongoDB

The client gave us freedom on what technologies we wanted to employ for the project. We decided to use the MEAN tech stack (MongoDB, Express, Angular and Node.js). Although most of our developers were proficient in Angular and Node, it was the first time they were using MongoDB, so it was a great learning experience for us.

Apart from these technologies, the team also used Stripe. As the client wanted to create a subscription service for their platform, Stripe made doing so a walk-in-the-park. Stripe is a fintech company based in the United States which helps developers create elegant and seamless payment experiences for their customers. They also have some of the best documentation in the industry and millions of people use their product everyday. We highly recommend checking out the tutorial we used to build our subscription payment service: Stripe Tutorial.

Once the payment service was completed, user authentication was the next obstacle. We used Google and Facebook to support this process. Setting it up was a fairly straight process. Google and Facebook both provide authentication tokens that can be stored to use later for logging in. This makes accessing the platform convenient, and makes our password storage much more secure. Of course, for users that used the normal login flow by generating a username and password, we encrypted their credentials properly before storing.

Project Delivery

Usually Software For Love hands off a completed project, however in this case RapidRent wanted to continue developing the project on its own. SFL was employed to create the foundations for future development.

The project was delivered to the client using Github with documentation on how to set up the environment. As the client had technical knowledge, this handoff approach made sense. However, for clients who don’t have experience coding, we are more than happy to take on projects from start to finish, like we did for ESS.

Once RapidRent goes live with their product we will update this blog post with a link to the site so you can check them out! You can also follow us on social media (our links in the bottom right corner) to stay in the loop about this project.

Community Impact

Software for love acknowledges that many indigenous nations have a long-standing relationship with the territories upon where software for love was founded. Ottawa is a traditional territory of the Algonquin people. SFL is grateful to be present on this territory and we acknowledge the troublesome history Canada has with indigenous people nationwide. We are still continuously working on developing a land acknowledgment that is holistic and impactful, instead of being performative. This means supporting our indigenous community and uplifting Indigenous voices through our work. As we continue on our mission of #spreadinglovethroughsoftware, it is equally important to spread awareness in our communities. With this project we were able to support and donate to the Canadian Roots Exchange (CRE), a non profit organization dedicated to improving Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships through a Youth-led approach in order to facilitate dialogue and strengthen relationships.