Allison Atsiknoudas is the founder and CEO of Investment Instruments Corporation, the company behind Rentometer.

Can you tell me a little about your company?

Sure... The name of our company is Investment Instruments Corporation. We offer web-based tools and services for the residential real estate industry. We currently have two services available:

iiProperty is a web-based system for managing properties and properties as investments. We cater to small portfolio owners of 50 units or less.

Our other service is called Rentometer.com. Rentometer provides real time comps for rents as well as advertising for rental units. Our mission is to create transparency in the market...to make it easier for tenants, owners, and professionals to work together and individually.

We are also a web 2.0 company. We recently won several awards in the web 2.0 category for real estate applications

Who do you consider your competitors?

I think there are several point applications that compete with us for individual services, but we combine point applications into one complete solution. We are very unique in terms of the market that we serve. Any similar service is really focused on a higher number of units per owner where as we really focus on smaller portfolios and are looking to grow with our users. I can say that many services others offer currently, we offer for free.

We currently serve customers across the US and in Canada with iiProperty and we have a US, Canadian and UK version of the Rentometer. So we are growing very quickly and we are hiring! We have some very exciting one of a kind services we plan to reveal in the next few coming months. The services that we have launched just start to paint a picture of what we are all about.

Can you tell me about yourself and your personal background in business?

Sure. I am a former US Army officer (of 13+ years) and I am a registered architect. I met my business partners in 1994 when we were students at MIT. I spent most of my career traveling around the world designing and building and more recently was the director of a $1 Billion dollar property portfolio for the US Government in Europe.

I also have direct experience in creating web based management systems for use in business. My partners and I all have experience in real estate and technology at some very high levels. I have worked both in the public and private sectors. When the timing was right I approached my partners about starting a venture and together we created the concept for our company and our products and services. We started IIC in 2004.

What did you study in college?

I studied architecture at the University of Miami then later wen on to MIT to receive a Master of Science in Architecture Studies with an emphasis in Design and Computation. My thesis involved developing architectural visualization using virtual environments (varied levels of VR from full HMD to VRML).

How important do you think the right degree is for being successful in business?

Good question. For me, both my military background, experience as an architect and life at UM and MIT all influenced my career choices and what I was able to accomplish. I have been fortunate to have a variety of experiences...everything from leading troops and jumping out of planes (Airborne!) to leading design and construction on jobs exceeding $300M each, to managing large portfolios an assets that will influence people for decades. Now I am quite thrilled to be working with my partners here at IIC.

It is not only your degree that matters in my opinion, but how that information opens your eyes to new possibilities and, of course, problem solving. At MIT no matter which degree you earn, the one thing everyone has in common when the depart is an education is creative problem solving and perhaps an injection of the entrepreneurial spirit!

The Army is quite an education as well. I learned how to get the job done no matter how limited the resources, and how to devote myself to the service of others and to learn from everyone on the team.

What are some unique features that Rentometer offers?

Right now it is the only nationwide service that can quickly give you an assessment of comparable rents in your area. It also gives you a graphic view of the results with an animated meter showing you the low medium and high results along with a map view of some of the results...many of the results expand into full listings.

If you are renting, this is a valuable tool because it saves you the trouble of digging through newspapers and online sites to assemble the information yourself.

If you are an owner and you are wondering what you may want to charge for rent, it gives you a quick comparison of like units in the immediate area. Owners love to send us their data because we are a free source of advertising for them and they know we have excellent traffic from renters and prospective tenants.

We also link both of our sites with cross functionality. If you post an listing on the rentometer, we provide you with a free account in iiProperty to manage your listings and to push those listings to other popular sites.

What is the current state of the company and service?

We are a Delaware company doing business in Massachusetts. We are located just outside of Boston and we also have an office in San Francisco. We employ people in various parts of the US however as we are really looking for the best talent, regardless of location. We serve thousands of users across the US and in Canada with iiProperty and the Rentometer, although a new service, has been accessed over a million times.

Right now we are just under 20 employees strong including in-house hires and outsourced team members. Did I mention we were hiring? ;-)

How are you funded, and how does Rentometer make money?

We primarily make money through our main service iiProperty via monthly subscriptions. Rentometer is a free service. We do make some revenues with the Rentometer through arrangements with large classified sites who charge for their own listings. Our company is funded via a syndication of private and corporate investors.

What press coverage have you gotten so far, and how did you get it?

We have had a lot of press. Most of the press that we have had so far started out in the blogosphere then hit the main stream press. We have been featured on sites such as PC Magazine, Washingtonian, Wall Street Journal/Real Estate Journal, MarketWatch and on TV broadcasts across the US, NPR. We were also featured on the front pages of Digg and delicious, and many others...

Once people tried our services, word spread fast and hit the blogosphere, then hit larger blogs and finally the main stream press. It was only recently (past few weeks) that we hired PR.

Is there anything a startup can do to generate this kind of press coverage besides the obvious answer of providing a unique and useful service?

I think it really depends upon the industry you are in and how information is disseminated to the customers you are trying to reach. We were trying to reach main stream consumers as well as a specific market within the general population so our message was to offer something of value that we knew our audience had a need for. It is actually a part of our everyday business practice. The other thing I would say is that your personal network and your mentors (no matter what your business) are invaluable in being able to generate press. You never know who may be in your contact list who could help promote your values and your message. Finally, I would recommend that startups do a lot of reading, to see who is writing about similar subjects.

Do you have any parting thoughts?

Thanks for taking the time to talk with me! We are pretty excited about the new developments taking place within our company and we look forward to keeping you updated. :-)