Changing the Real Estate Industry in Minneapolis: Peter Prudden '00

Alumni Office (A): Hey Peter, can you share some highlights of what you have been up to after graduating from Breck?

Peter Prudden ’00 (P): My journey post Breck-xit has had a lot of highlights, lowlights, and everything in between. I think that is the beauty of life. The journey we are on is something that we can never fully know until we have been down the path and lived it, taking time to inventory and evaluate. 

After Breck, I attended the University of Minnesota on a football scholarship. I was on a different path than most of my classmates because I stayed in state. For me, that was a hard decision, but it was also one of my absolute best decisions. I learned a lot about myself and life, and I would say that I grew into the man I am today through my time at the U of M. Breck is such a great incubator of human capital, and that was good for me. The U of M and playing football with guys from so many different areas, including the small rural towns and the inner city, helped me understand more about the world and what life looks like outside of a small community. 

After college, I embarked on a new challenge: trying out for the NFL. Despite not making it, I didn’t let that deter me. I found myself in a period of transition, searching for what was next. It wasn’t easy, as playing college football had provided such a structured life, which is something I was chasing. But I didn’t give up. I leveraged my education and landed a job on Wall Street on my last interview. They told me I would start in a few days, so my mom and I flew out to New York. It was my first time being outside of Minnesota, and I was working as an equity trader at Jeffrey’s and Company, a middle-market investment bank. 

I worked in New York in capital and banking for a number of years and embraced uncomfortable situations because they challenged me to adapt and grow. I also lived in San Francisco for a couple of years, working for small hedge funds, which had its highs and its lows, including the great recession and financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Eventually, I ended up back in Minneapolis. I married my wife, Jessica. We have a daughter, Lily ’34, who is in fifth grade this year. Somewhere along the way, we stumbled into an opportunity to start our own real estate company, which is our last name, and we’ve been in business now for seven years.

A: We love seeing you and your company’s Instagram posts! Tell us more about Prudden Company.

P: My wife, Jessica, was working for a company that supplied bulk internet cable to local condo association buildings in Minneapolis. Through her interaction with the HOA manager, which covers basically every building in downtown Minneapolis, she was offered a job to start a leasing and management division within their company. So, if you moved from Minneapolis to Chicago and wanted to sell your condo, Jessica would take care of all the details and daily operations for you. She did that for four years and came home one day and said they were going to sell my division to a competitor. We had talked about getting into real estate, chatted about it, and thought to ourselves, “What if we bought it?” We went for it and acquired 120 individual property management contracts and began our company. 

A: How did you go from a management company to a high-end real estate company?

P: Establishing Prudden Company was a start. We slowly started buying and selling homes, but our big break came when Minneapolis hosted Super Bowl LII. I knew from 2005, when Jacksonville hosted the Super Bowl, that small market cities run into a huge demand for rentals—so much so that they had to bring cruise ships in to meet the demand for Super Bowl XXXIX. We thought, “What if we establish a luxury concierge for travelers to the game?” Whether they stayed for a night or the entire week, we wanted to offer a value proposition for folks in Minneapolis and folks coming to town. Car service, groceries, wine, and other beverages, as well as chefs, will come to your rental. When we found out the teams would be the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots, we saturated the markets with SEO campaigns to attract customers. It went really well. So well that one of my Minneapolis top clients came to me to sell their house, and from there we just continued to gain traction in the Minneapolis market. 

A: Tell us more about the development of the Prudden Company brand.

P: Absolutely. I did an interview a few weeks back, and I was asked about our social media brand. I shared the story of our very first client. They came to us and said, “I follow you on Instagram. I’m not exactly sure what you do, but I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”  We wanted to create a tasteful and elegant brand that captures people’s attention. 

A: Peter, tell us about the legacy you want to leave within the Minneapolis real estate market. 

P: I think about this a lot. At Prudden Company, we want to continue to build and create a name for ourselves in the Minneapolis real estate market. We (Jessica and I) are big supporters of downtown Minneapolis and believe in this city. Our desire is to lead with authenticity and positivity and work to figure out what we can do for people in Minneapolis.

A: What does a Breck education mean to you personally and now as a parent of a Breck student?

P: I think I am a great example of what is possible as a Breck student. I wasn’t the greatest student, but Breck offered me and my family such a great value proposition because they helped develop me as an individual. I was able to grow my talents at Breck, and I am grateful for the support from faculty and staff members like Dave Kust, Byron Rice, and Chelen Johnson. There is also such a great community with my classmates and friends. As a parent, there was no second guessing where Jessica and I would send our daughter. We wanted her at Breck for the college preparatory schooling and so forth. 

A: Thank you for interviewing with us!

Peter, Jessica, and Lily live in Minneapolis. You can follow what they are up to @pruddencompany or @peterprudden on Instagram.