How Foxbox Digital Powers The X Company: A Rapidly Expanding Residential Community With Over 5,000 Units and $1 Billion in Construction Activity

The X Company serves residents who prefer the live-work-play lifestyle, but with a twist—all done from home.

The X Company provides a state-of-the-art living space and social club with incredible amenities, including a rooftop pool, gym, neighborhood bar, private workspaces, as well as professional and social events.

It’s safe to say: The X Company is different.

The X Company is currently active in six markets and rapidly expanding with 5,000 beds in their current portfolio and over $1B in construction activity.

They wanted a digital platform that improves upon the industry norm of the disconnected, poor experiences between residents and property managers.

Foxbox was perfectly positioned to help them. And that’s what we did.

"You can tell that Foxbox cares. That they really wanted to understand what we’re building. The app has a lot of technical complexity. We tried, and failed, building it before with another app developer prior to Foxbox. Foxbox nailed it."

- Ben Brichta, Partner, The X Company

Here’s a little behind the scenes of how we made it happen.

It’s Not an App, It’s a Business Platform.

The X Company app is much more than a beautiful, convenient, and easy-to-use app for members. The custom-built platform powers the everyday business of their growing residential buildings.

The ability to easily scale with every new residential community construction.

When The X Company builds a new residential building and community, their digital-first platform allows them to easily expand to support the new local community within a few weeks.

Support members faster, with greater impact.

Sometimes, it’s the little things.

With this platform and some technical magic, we were able to allow The X Company community managers to use one platform, not 10.

We built an experience where a community admin can create a new residential user in their dashboard and automatically give proper permissions throughout all of the systems in one click, instead of the five screens and systems they would have done before.

Dashboard reporting that helps community managers and leadership understand how every service is being utilized.

With an ever-increasing amount of units becoming available, reporting how the residents are using the services becomes an important part of analyzing and improving core services.

We built a dashboard analytics view into how the residents were using their digital services along with their physical space experiences. This dashboard allows community managers and leadership to understand exactly how their services are utilized, when they're utilized, and what locations utilize them.

It’s Beautiful. It’s Powerful. It’s Secure. It Gives the Comfort of Modern Living for a New Type of Workforce.

The X Company, clearly different from the rest, wanted to make sure their residents’ experiences were digitally enabled.

"Your apartment building should be more than a dull stack of boxes. That’s why we don’t build apartments. We build social living communities for awesome people to thrive together."

- The X Company

Grant and revoke resident access in an instant, securely.

The X Company platform is secured by multi-factor authentication, with additional back-end security protections that protect residents when they lose phone access.

Mobile/Keyless entry that works online and offline.

The X Company App allows every resident to access every door from their bedroom to the garage and shared spaces. For common entries, the residents simply need to wave their hand in front of the sensor, as long as their phone is near them or in their pockets.

Sharing visitor access.

The app can grant temporary and secure access to friends, family, dog walkers, and more, all from within the app.

Real-time communication between residents and community managers.

Most platforms have an email-based or portal-based communication system which de-prioritizes response times. Our custom-built platform allows residents to speak with community managers in real-time through a chat-based support system integrated directly into the app.

Made for work: workspaces and events.

Residents can use the app to find and book available conference rooms in addition to reserving and inviting friends to carefully curated social events. Entrepreneurial events, financial planning, and Yoga—you name it, they have it.

A Digital-First Community, Powered by Top-Notch Engineering, Design, and Product Teams.

The last thing The X Company needed was an app or development partner. They needed a firm to bring their large, inspiring vision to life. They thought big, and they needed a partner that was aligned with their holistic vision.

With our product strategy, visual design, and engineering sessions all running through our human-centered design process, we acted as a true digital transformation partner.

"Foxbox didn’t build requirements as a pass-through developer. The team really dug in and fit into the ecosystem and questioned what added value. They came to the assignment with a holistic understanding outside of the original scope of work. We enjoyed that."

- Ben Brichta, Partner, The X Company

We were the first company to implement two of the major digital lock platforms in one app (Avigilon and Salto KS).

The technical complexity of this cannot be understated.

Avigilon (formerly OpenPath) and Salto KS are digital access control platforms for apartment locks and common doors that are traditionally used as white-labeled platforms.

But we needed an experience that was seamless for community managers and residents, so we went the custom route. This allowed users to not only access their personal apartment locks but also amenities and remote unlock features.

Not only were we the first team to implement both Avigilon Mobile SDK and Salto KS in a single app, we were the first team to implement the Avigilon SDK.

"Foxbox Digital did an amazing job with implementing our SDK. As our first commercial user, we were delighted to see how well of a job they engineered the solution while providing a great digital experience for The X Company’s residents. Foxbox Digital is an engineering powerhouse, and they are the real deal."

- James Segil, OpenPath CEO

We integrated 11 platforms in the name of customer experience:

  • Avigilon and Salto KS - Digital Access Control Systems
  • Mixpanel - Product Analytics and Marketing Automation
  • Intercom.io - Real-Time Customer Support
  • Twilio - Instant SMS
  • FireBase - Product Analytics
  • AppSignal - Debugging
  • Postmark - Instant Email Delivery
  • Auth0 - Access and Identity platform
  • Branch.io - Deep Linking
  • Nexudus - Co-Working Platform

We developed the X platform using these technologies:

  • React Native - cross-platform mobile framework for iOS and Android
  • Native iOS and Android bridges to support digital access control
  • Elixir - backend API powering the platform
  • PostgreSQL - scalable database
  • Docker & Kubernetes - reliable, scalable cloud hosting infrastructure

The X Company Digital Platform Is the Future of Work and Play Residential Communities.

The X Company is one of the most innovative, if not the most innovative, residential buildings on the market. They are constantly pushing the status quo of what living, working, and playing should look like.

When we had the opportunity to work with The X Company, we jumped at the chance. Together, we were able to build a digital solution that transforms their current and future residential buildings.

November 20, 2021

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