Why we built Atrium, from a founder, HOA president, and dog lover.
My dogs like to get their walk in before dinner. That happens to be the same window when half my neighbors are pulling into the driveway and checking their mail. We have those mailbox carousels that make everyone come outside to get it, which may be inconvenient by design, but it's excellent for my step count.
Without fail, at least once a week, I hear the phrase: "Hey, do you have a second?"
I like to think I'm a friendly neighbor, but I'm also currently the HOA president.
If you're reading this, you probably have your own version of that story. Board seats are positions almost nobody campaigns for. Most of us ended up here because someone asked, a vacancy needed filling, or a problem needed solving and we happened to be standing there. Part of that is genuinely humbling. Your neighbors trust you with things that matter to them, and they trust you because they know you.
The other part may wear you down. It's "did you get my check?" and "when is the pool getting fixed?" and "where do I find the rules on...?" It's "how long does architectural review take, I submitted in April." None of these are unreasonable questions. Every one of them has an answer that already exists somewhere, in a ledger, in a recorded document, in minutes from a meeting nine months ago. You're not being asked to decide anything, you're being asked to go find something.
And that's the part that stings, because the questions that actually are need for look nothing like those. You volunteered your time and your talents. You did not volunteer to spend your evenings searching, clicking, and forwarding. A board seat should not be a second job.
And if you manage communities for a living, this is the job, but the numbers only multiply. Your portfolio grows and the number of systems you have to log into to keep it running grows faster. Managing multiple communities should be supported by software the scales.
That's why we built Atrium Community Solutions.
Atrium is community management software built to be powerful enough for robust insights and reporting, simple enough that owners can answer their own questions. When a resident can look something up without you, you get your evening back. When your records live in one place, the answer takes thirty seconds instead of thirty minutes. When the email or mailing and go out in minutes, or that amenity can be handled without a paper trail, That's the whole idea.
Every community has a bulletin board in some fashion. Perhaps it's the corkboard by the mailboxes, or the glass case inside the clubhouse, where the things worth knowing get posted. As we launch Atrium, we're calling ours The Bulletin. You'll find what we're seeing across the community management space, what we're building next, and the occasional look behind the curtain at how we're running this business.
More soon!
Robert
Founder, Atrium Community Solutions