Building SmallPMS in public — property management for the operator who runs everything in a spreadsheet
Hey IH 👋
I'm Matevz, and I'm building SmallPMS (small-pms.greatish.app — simple property management software for small operators who currently run their business in a Google Sheet.
The gap I kept seeing
Spend any time talking to independent property managers — people managing 3–15 rental units, a small holiday let portfolio, a shared workspace — and a pattern shows up fast.
On one side: enterprise PMS tools like Buildium, AppFolio, Yardi. Genuinely powerful, built for companies with staff, accounting departments, and IT support. Onboarding fees, monthly costs well above $300, and an interface that assumes you have time to learn it.
On the other side: a shared Google Sheet that's been alive for years. Rent tracking, tenant contacts, lease dates — all in there. Shared with a part-time assistant. Held together by custom formulas and institutional memory. Nobody wants to migrate off it because the migration risk feels higher than the daily friction it creates.
The gap between "manage it in a Sheet" and "pay for enterprise software" is wide — and almost nobody is building there.
What I'm building
SmallPMS is deliberately simple. It handles the core things a small operator actually does:
- A clean view of units, tenants, and leases
- Reservations tracking and automated reminders (so they stop chasing payments over email)
- Fully customized flow for each tenant.
- CRM for guests to keep contacts and know who's coming back
That's it. No accounting modules, no automated legal compliance workflows, no staff management features. Just the things being done in a spreadsheet today, done slightly better — and at a price that makes sense for someone managing 5 units, not 500.
Where I am now
Pre-launch, building. I've been talking to small operators to validate the shape of the problem, and the feedback has been consistent: the "simple and affordable" positioning resonates. The product challenge I keep hearing about is migration — getting data out of an existing spreadsheet and into something new without pain. That's likely the first real thing I need to nail.
Why build in public
Small operators are an unglamorous market. They don't show up at startup conferences. There's no flashy TAM slide for "people managing 6 rental units on the side." Building in public is partly discipline (accountability helps), partly research (this community has already been useful for stress-testing assumptions), and partly distribution.
I'll be posting updates here — what I build, what breaks, what I learn from user conversations, and eventually the first revenue numbers.
If you manage rental property, work with small operators, or have built for a similarly unglamorous market: I'd love to hear what you've learned. What tools do your target users use today, and what frustrates them about those tools?
More soon.
Matevz
The gap you're describing is real. "Simple and affordable" gets said a lot but almost nobody actually stays simple once feature requests start rolling in.