Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Is Listingbook running out of cash?

LB

The WAV Group’s recent post on their blog is titled, “Investor needed for growth company

The post describes, “WAV Group was recently contacted by a 5 year old company that sells technology products to MLSs. ….They are looking for $500k to $2M in the form of a convertible bridge loan or equity. The company’s product has been “site licensed” by more than 35 MLSs in the past 12 months and has a full pipeline of installations pending. ”

This has to be Listingbook. I could be wrong, but I can’t think of anyone else. I’ve been hearing rumors about them scheduling conference calls with other real estate technology companies about “joint ventures or partnerships”, then, in a few minutes in to the call, it’s pretty clear they are looking for cash.

The weird thing that struck me was the amount of cash they are looking for, “$500K to $2M”. First off, 500K hardly seems worth the effort and doesn’t look like it would last with a crew like this around (and that doesn’t even include Todd!).

Even $2M, which is nothing to sneeze at, seems low. I have no idea what their burn rate is but with 35 MLS’ up and running and “full pipeline of installations pending”, it’s gotta be pretty high and getting higher.

In my opinion these guys should start thinking bigger. I’ve written about them recently, I really think they got a hit on their hands with Listingbook. I’m not sure anyone in this space is in the position to pony up for them right now, but someone in the Valley might.

It’s a good story. I’m still hearing agents singing their praises, they get mentioned in the New York Times, and it seems like they are the front runner in this whole VOW race, even Brian Larson thinks so!

I’ve got a few ideas, some of them good, on how I would approach their current dilemma, but I’ll save those for a future post.

In the meantime let’s all hope Listingbook…

live long and prosper

That's how my blog, rolls…

Not that it’s any big deal but I’ve added the WAV Group and Matt Cohen’s blog to our Blogroll.

I’m positive they both get read more than the swill I put out!!

Which reminds me, I’ll be posting something shortly about the WAV Group’s recent post.

Real estate data standards…

Interesting perspective on web standards via Bruce Lawson’s interview with Ian Hickson, Editor of the HTML 5 Specification.

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Bruce

Do the browser makers have too much influence on the spec?

Hixie

The reality is that the browser vendors have the ultimate veto on everything in the spec, since if they don’t implement it, the spec is nothing but a work of fiction. So they have a lot of influence—I don’t want to be writing fiction, I want to be writing a spec that documents the actual behaviour of browsers.

Whether that’s too much, I don’t know. Does gravity have too much influence on objects on earth? It’s just the way it is.

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This made me think of the current state of RETS.

via Daring Fireball

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