owen (Owen Johnson)

Interests

Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship, Microbrewing, Microphilanthrophy, Real Estate

Web Links

Connect Providence
Rentometer
Rentomatic
Making Progress
My Twitter Feed

About Me

Owen is an entrepreneur and investor. He was most recently Chief Operating Officer of Investment Instruments Corporation, provider of online residential real estate services Rentomatic.com and Rentometer.com. He sits on the board of directors for Woonsocket-based Location, Inc. His past ventures include Interdimensions Corporation, a high-growth interactive agency; and The Webmasters' Guild, a 501(c)6 non-profit professional organization. He is founder and Chairman of the Board of Making Progress Incorporated, a 501(c)3 non-profit empowering individuals to contribute directly to the evolution of science, technology, and the arts.

Owen is founder and organizer of Connect Providence, a group helping to connect newcomers to the City of Providence, RI. He regularly mentors aspiring entrepreneurs and has been a team mentor for the MIT 50k Business Plan Competition and a business plan judge for the Brown Entrepreneurship Program Business Plan Competition. He was selected in 2006 for The Providence Business News "40 Under Forty" list. For the past seven years Owen has been investing in and managing residential real estate. He is the owner and principal broker of Reagent, a real estate brokerage in Providence, RI, and holds an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

Recent Content

Title: Rentomatic Redesign (Forum) Submitted: September 4th, 2008 - 12:05pm

I'm happy to report that Rentomatic.com launched a new look-and-feel today.

Title: Providence named #8 best city for home sellers (Forum) Submitted: April 23rd, 2008 - 5:06pm

Forbes recently reported Providence as the #8 best city to be a home seller in:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/...

From the article:

"Forbes looked at the country's largest metro areas and assessed how friendly conditions are expected to be for sellers this year. Each city was ranked by its 2007 unsold vacancy rate, calculated by the U.S. Census American Housing Survey, and how much the market had tightened or loosened when compared with 2006 conditions. Then they looked at construction starts, job creation and the degree to which new conforming loan limits from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will improve each market's lending conditions.

8. Providence, R.I.

Though prices here are falling, vacancy rates are extremely low and falling further (dropping to 1.6% at the end of 2007, the sixth lowest rate in the nation, from 1.8% at the end of 2006). Combine that with a 42% cut in inventory, and you're looking at a market that may slump due to job loss (1% this year) but isn't going to turn into a buyers' market anytime soon."

Go Providence!

Title: CSS Expert (Marketplace)Submitted: April 21st, 2008 - 2:56pm

Category:

Jobs

Organization:

Investment Instruments

Title: Rentometer.com Software Architect (Marketplace)Submitted: April 21st, 2008 - 2:50pm

Category:

Jobs

Organization:

Investment Instruments

Title: UX/IA designer (Marketplace)Submitted: November 15th, 2007 - 11:04am

Category:

Jobs

Organization:

Investment Instruments

Recent Comments

Source: Portsmouth Firm A2B Tracking Solutions Wins GSA Contract Award (News) Submitted: October 23rd, 2008 - 6:56pm link

Wonderful news! Congratulations A2B!

Source: Rhode Islander stars in popular internet video (Forum) Submitted: October 4th, 2008 - 5:09am link

Awesome!

Source: Would You Like to be a Better Public Speaker? Here's Some Tips. (Forum) Submitted: October 1st, 2008 - 11:00am link

Great post Andy. I'll also recommend that one finds a Toastmasters chapter that jives with their own personality. Providence has a chapter: http://providence.freetoasthost.com/ The organization is a great platform to develop one's speaking skills.

Source: Rentomatic Redesign (Forum) Submitted: September 10th, 2008 - 2:18pm link

Allan, yes, the little cartoon guys have been removed from the landlord site, but at the moment, still live on the tenant site. David, thanks for the feedback! In what complex do you live?

Source: Ruby Group - October Meeting?? (Forum) Submitted: August 29th, 2008 - 5:38am link

Matt, I agree with you about the neverending challenge of keeping specs/tests/code in sync. Code can only act as spec for so long, and community knowledge won't suffice for any project of reasonable scope. I've found that team agreement about what should be in the specs, what the tests should test, and what documentation level should be in the code is critical. Keeping the specs at a different level than the code is valuable. Duplicating information in the specs and the code is tempting, but every piece of duplication info creates an update nightmare.

Source: RI Ruby Group and Rails Shops (Forum) Submitted: July 31st, 2008 - 5:11pm link

Rentomatic, BatchBlue, and Public Display are both shops that primarily(potentially exclusively) use Ruby on Rails for developing their products. I personally would be interested in A Ruby Users Group in PVD.

Source: Rentomatic.com featured on Springwise.com (Forum) Submitted: April 22nd, 2008 - 2:24pm link

Did I mentioned we're hiring? ;) Check out our job openings in the marketplace!

Source: Rentomatic.com featured on Springwise.com (Forum) Submitted: April 22nd, 2008 - 10:36am link

Thanks for the mention! Unfortunately, I don't have any secret tips! :)

Source: Speaking at Business EXPO 2008: "Tapping RI's growing Geek community to win on the Internet" (Blog) Submitted: April 21st, 2008 - 3:11pm link

I'll be there Jack, assuming they let me in. I just tried registering and there seem to be issues with the signup system...

Source: Rentomatic and Makezine up for Webby Awards - vote now! (Forum) Submitted: April 9th, 2008 - 8:47am link

Thanks to everyone for turning out and voting! The Rentomatic Team appreciates your support! We're going to need everyone's vote to beat Zillow - their entire company is probably voting, and they are just a tad bit bigger than we are. :) Rentomatic is under Websites->Services->Real Estate and Makezine is under Websites->Media->Magazines. Go Rhode Island!