owen (Owen Johnson)

Interests

Angel Investing, Entrepreneurship, Microbrewing, Microphilanthrophy, Real Estate

Web Links

Connect Providence
The Rentometer
iiProperty

About Me

Owen is an entrepreneur and investor. He is President of Investment Instruments Corporation, provider of online residential real estate services iiProperty.com and Rentometer.com.

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 beginning 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 a licensed real estate broker in 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: 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!

Source: BREAKING NEWS: MIT Media Lab's John Maeda to become RISD's new president (Blog) Submitted: January 2nd, 2008 - 10:34am link

The intersection of the cultures of the MIT Media Lab and RISD has the potential to create an amazing new culture. John may very well be the only individual capable of taking the substantial traditional base of RISD and injecting the futuristic gusto of the Media Lab. I'm thrilled, and see this as very exciting news for RISD and for Providence.

Source: Providence Ranked Among Country's Top 10 "Fun Cities" (Forum) Submitted: December 8th, 2007 - 7:25am link

This is great. I'd love to see these rankings adjusted by cost-of-living. I'll be sure to point out to my friends in SF how much more they are paying to live in a city that's only ranked 3 ahead of PVD! ;)

Source: Special RI Nexus Breakfast Event Dec. 6th 8:30-10:30am - RSVP Today (Blog) Submitted: December 8th, 2007 - 7:17am link

I think AC summed up the event well. The energy and interest in the topic was palpable. The demand clearly exists, so the supply will be forthcoming. If anyone is considering a co-working project on the West Side, I'd like to hear about it.

Source: YCombinator For RI? (Forum) Submitted: November 20th, 2007 - 11:24am link

There is definitely a place for such a model in RI. We have the existing talent, magnets for new talent(Brown, RISD, JWU, PC to name just a few in the university category), experienced local entrepreneurs, and the capital. Our challenge is to create transparency into these assets and connect them appropriately. A successful model will utilize the unique assets and scale of RI.