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Rental Rush – an open-source board game about running rentals

Can Köseoğlu, a serial entrepreneur who built student-housing marketplace Erasmusinn and short-let rental operation Oval Experiences, has created Rental Rush, an open-source board game that simulates the challenges of running rental properties. The game's mechanics are drawn from his real-world experiences, including void periods, owner payments, licensing delays, and lease burdens. Köseoğlu is now building Cendra, an AI startup focused on the operational side of rentals.

read2 min publishedJun 13, 2026

Why I built this #

I have been obsessed with property since I was a child, and it started with a board game. The little houses, the rent you collected when someone landed on your square, the gamble of when to buy and when to hold. It taught me, years before I understood it, that property is really a game of cash flow, timing and nerve.

I have spent most of the last fifteen years living that out for real. I listed my first flat in Istanbul in 2010. I built Erasmusinn, a student-housing marketplace that grew to around ten thousand rooms. I bootstrapped Oval Experiences and ran about sixty short-let apartments, where I learned the hard way how quickly an operation falls over when it depends on people remembering everything. With Fullog I took the same playbook into fulfilment, arbitraging space and running the logistics on top of it. Today I am building Cendra, putting AI to work on the messy, human side of running rentals.

Rental Rush is all of that, distilled into a board game. Every mechanic comes from something I have actually felt: the void period in low season, the owner who wants paying on time, the licence that drags on for months, the building lease that bleeds you before it earns a penny. It is a small love letter to the operators who keep the lights on, and an experiment in how much real operating intuition a simple game can carry.

  • 🏠First Airbnb, Istanbul2010 I listed my first flat and got hooked on the operating side of property.

  • 🎓Erasmusinn2015 A student-housing marketplace that grew to around ten thousand rooms. Backed by 500 Startups.

  • 🏙️Oval Experiences2019 Bootstrapped, running about sixty short-let apartments. Where I learned how quickly an operation falls over.

  • 📦Fullog The same playbook in fulfilment: arbitraging space and running the logistics on top of it.

  • 🤖Cendra2024 What I'm building now: AI for the messy, human side of running rentals.

More about me at cankoseoglu.com →

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