We built Iris after watching friends spend weeks doom-scrolling Craigslist, Zillow, Apartments.com and broker sites — only to miss good units or run into stale / scammy listings.

Iris is a SF-only rental marketplace with a few differences from existing platforms:

1. Search by natural language (“1BR near BART under $3.2k”) or images (upload inspiration photos)

2. Verified listings only from property managers, owners, and authorized agents

3. SF-specific filters: rent control toggle, transit lines, neighborhood context

What surprised us since launch:

1. A large share of inventory never shows up cleanly on national portals

2. Renters care more about context (block, transit, light, noise) than raw filters

3. Narrow vertical focus (one city) lets us build features Zillow can’t justify

Would love feedback from people who’ve built:

- Vertical marketplaces

- Local-first products

Happy to answer questions.

-- Manan Shah