Customer Discovery & Competitive Intelligence Intern | PropTech / FinTech (Unpaid)

KeyPath is a PropTech/FinTech startup building technology intended to improve landlord financial performance while creating better financial outcomes and housing pathways for renters.
KeyPath combines tenant rewards and retention tools with longer-term equity participation capabilities, while building interfaces for landlords, tenants, investors, and community stakeholders.

Position Overview

KeyPath is seeking a Customer Discovery & Competitive Intelligence Intern to help answer some of the most important strategic questions facing an early-stage company:

Who needs this product most, what problems matter enough for them to adopt it, what will they pay for, and why should they choose KeyPath?
This intern will conduct structured customer discovery and competitive research rather than general internet research.

An earlier student research initiative conducted approximately 38 stakeholder interviews and identified important themes including tenant liquidity and portability, landlord retention and liquidity concerns, financial education, transparency, and operational automation. This internship will build on that foundation by testing more specific commercial and product hypotheses.
Responsibilities
Conduct structured interviews with landlords, renters, property managers, real estate professionals, and other relevant stakeholders.
Help develop interview guides and research hypotheses.
Document and categorize interview findings.
Identify recurring customer pain points, objections, adoption triggers, and purchasing criteria.
Distinguish between what customers say they want and what appears likely to drive actual behavior.
Analyze KeyPath's customer segments and buyer personas.
Research competitors and adjacent companies across PropTech, FinTech, rent-to-own, tenant rewards, rent reporting, real estate tokenization, and alternative homeownership.
Maintain a structured competitor database.
Track competitor business models, pricing, target markets, product offerings, funding, partnerships, and positioning.
Compare competitor offerings against KeyPath's capabilities.
Identify market gaps and potential differentiation.
Prepare short research memos and management presentations.
Help convert customer research into product, pricing, and go-to-market recommendations.
Example Questions You May Research
Landlords
What would cause a landlord to adopt KeyPath?
Which matters more: retention, maintenance savings, rewards, or equity participation?
What ROI threshold would justify purchasing the platform?
Who controls the purchasing decision?
Tenants
Which rewards actually influence behavior?
What does a renter need to understand before participating?
How important are liquidity, portability, and exit rights?
Market
Who are KeyPath's closest competitors?
Which businesses solve only part of the problem?
Where could KeyPath build a durable competitive advantage?
Ideal Candidate
We are particularly interested in students studying:
Business
Economics
Finance
Marketing
Strategy
Entrepreneurship
Real Estate
Sociology
Psychology
Public Policy
Strong candidates should be intellectually curious, comfortable interviewing strangers, able to recognize patterns across qualitative information, and capable of turning research into conclusions.
What You Will Gain
Direct experience conducting startup customer discovery.
Competitive intelligence and market analysis experience.
Exposure to PropTech, FinTech, real estate, housing, and venture-backed startup strategy.
Experience evaluating product-market fit.
Experience presenting strategic recommendations directly to company leadership.
Research that can become part of a professional portfolio.
Compensation
This is an unpaid internship. Students may pursue academic credit through their university where permitted and applicable.