FixList rebrands to Stepwise, shifts focus to real-estate investors

FixList, the four-person startup born in 2016 to fight Philly’s blight problem through data, is now called Stepwise.

The rebrand came paired with an evolution in its business focus, said founder Stacey Mosley, the former data scientist for the City of Philadelphia: as the company offers more tools for real estate investors, the tagline is now: “Discover, evaluate and manage development opportunities with Stepwise.”

“We realized that we’re not just about finding fix-up properties but also covering every property in the cities that we’re in,” Mosley said. “We still have a focus on the development community, but this is broadening our appeal and will put us in a position to help a wider net of the industry.”

What prompted the business model shift? Mosley said that customer feedback and product development were the guiding the way. Users showed interest in getting more than just investment opportunities but knowing what to do with them once they made a selection.

The company, which raised a $400,000 seed round in February in a bid to expand to new cities, is now offering tailored trend reports on neighborhoods (with stats on construction, crime, pricing and more) across the cities it serves.

(Stepwise joins a number of local startups with similar names. There’s Smithwise, a product development firm focusing on life sciences, which itself rebranded from Boston Medical Development after opening a University City office. And realLIST ’18 legal-tech startup Borderwise, makers of tech tool for attorneys called Docketwise. Center city content marketing firm Scribewise rocks a similarly structured name, and out in Conshohocken, Pa., you’ll find WizeHive and TechWise.)

“This helps in their own evaluation but its also useful for people to put in front of a lender and make the case for their investment,” Mosley said. “We can also run financial analysis about an asset: factoring acquisition price, loans and sell price.”

Premium access to the company’s platform runs investors $250 a month, with access to over 2,000 exportable records, 20 premium reports and unlimited use of a Return On Investment (ROI) calculator. Users can also sign up for free and get individual reports for $25. Multiple reports are available in a bundle deal.

The company’s new name refers to a type of linear regression, a statistics term in use as the company built its technology. But in a way, it also describes the way the company sees itself in the real estate landscape

(Related: Compass founder Mike Wilner wrote about stepwise progress and why startups should embrace it.)

“We want to be a partner in the investment process,” Mosley said. “With ‘step’ we want to convey that kind of imagery of helping people make their first step, and ‘wise’ is about sharing wisdom as they make those critical decisions.

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Full disclosure: Stepwise founder Stacey Mosley is the partner of Technically Media cofounder Brian James Kirk. He was not involved in this report.