Jeff Talmadge ’64: Fulfilling Dreams

“The website was the result of two very different factors,” said Jeff. “First, we bought a house in Orleans on Cape Cod in 1996 and quickly decided we had to rent it out for part of the summer to help pay the bills. Second, at that point in my career, I was a software consultant and realized, while at a Microsoft convention, that the wave of the future lay in search capability sites. So my business partner and I decided to build a vacation rental site as a sample to demonstrate our expertise to business clients. There were other vacation rental sites on the internet, but they were just listings by town. We developed a site that allowed the renter to search for listings by location, price, amenities, and vacation dates. For the next ten years, we were still the only searchable site and, even now, we are the only site that allows the renter to enter a number of preferred dates and locations at the same time.”

So how do you launch a rental website? Where do you find a critical mass of listings? The Talmadges first approached Cape Cod realtors and found it was an uphill battle to convince them that both they and the homeowner would benefit from added exposure on the internet. Then Jeff's wife Joan, at the time an editor at an educational publishing company, began cold-calling homeowners who advertised properties in the classifieds in newspapers and alumni magazines to sell them on the new concept of internet advertising.

They now boast 4000 listings on the Cape and Islands and in Florida, where they have established a second presence. The website receives 2 million visits a year from 1.2 million individuals. The business, based in their home in Wellesley, has grown to eight employees, including their daughter Becky who helps manage the Cape listings and son Jim who has become the programming guru.

“He knows more about programming than I ever could,” says the proud father.

But what Jeff is actually most proud of is that he and Joan have built a successful business out of the intersection of their skills, or rather the lack of intersection.

“Joan is the service side and I am the technical, financial, analytical side,” said Jeff. “Ours is the perfect melding of technology and personalized service.”

“With an interactive website, customer service includes dealing with the occasional bad review from a disgruntled renter or owner unhappy with how their home was treated,” adds Joan. “We work hard to broker a happy ending for everyone. As with any business, a returning renter or owner is one you don't have to go out and find.”

Not content to rest on their success, they are constantly looking for ways to engage their customers, both homeowner and renter. They have a Vacation Planner portion of the website, with restaurants and attractions for the Cape and Islands - a boon to anyone trapped on a rainy day with a houseful of kids. They also help arrange services such as landscaping and maintenance for out-of-town homeowners. Ideally the site will become a trusted resource for anyone looking for a vetted service or business in the area; that customer is a potential owner or renter in the future.

In expanding the services offered they don’t want to do something that competes with the rental business, rather they carefully consider what will benefit their core business.

“We want to keep the customer engaged by offering other services, so when the next year rolls around they come back to us because they've repeatedly been on our site for a number of reasons,” said Jeff.

Their success can be measured in part by the fact that they have become the go-to resource in both the local and national press for reliable analysis and forecasts of the Cape rental scene.

"With the wide geographic area we cover, and the thousands of properties we list, we can offer much more concrete statistics than the anecdotal evidence a local realtor might give, based on his listings in a couple of towns,” said Jeff. “The press knows that we are straight shooters. We don't try to put a spin on the situation that isn't based in fact. Of course we want to be optimistic, and thankfully that has been the situation with rentals in the past few years.”

So when you do need a vacation, and who doesn't, go to WeNeedaVacation, click on My Vacations, and start to plan, or at least to dream!