Two Cincinnati-based entrepreneurs, including a former early Dotloop employee, are launching a new business venture that aims to dramatically expedite the residential real estate listing process — digitizing and streamlining a system they call “archaic and disconnected.”
Ocusell, a proptech startup headed by co-founders Alex Taylor and Hayden Rieveschl, chief revenue officer and CEO, respectively, makes its official debut Tuesday, a relaunch of sorts and a culmination of two years of research and development. The goal, Taylor and Rieveschl said, is to simplify the residential real estate listing process by creating a one-stop shop for industry professionals.
Ocusell’s platform helps agents generate, manage and integrate their listings in just a few clicks — and publish directly to the MLS, or Multiple Listing Service. Currently, Taylor said, that process can take weeks. A typical MLS listing, for example, requires agents complete a PDF-type form with around 450 different fields.
Taylor said Ocusell’s MLS integration is a first of its kind.
“To get a home listed on average right now takes 14 days — nothing takes 14 days anymore,” Taylor told me. “If I want a new pair of shoes off Amazon, it’s here in 48 hours. Our platform enables agents to reduce inefficiencies and maximize their time spent on revenue-driving activities.”
Rieveschl, a former hedge fund manager, originally founded Ocusell in 2018 as an AI-driven camera application that would allow residential real estate agents to take professional-quality photos from their smartphones.
The application was beta tested and well received, Rieveschl said — Ocusell, in 2019, was accepted into Google’s AppDev program, a 90-day partnership that afforded the company access to Google engineers and more — but the idea, he said, didn’t have long-term legs.
Rieveschl wanted to dig deeper. He and Taylor, one of the ground-floor employees at Dotloop, a real estate tech startup that celebrated one of the city’s most notable exits when it sold to Zillow for $108 million in 2015, first met through Dotloop co-founder and real estate investor Adam Koehler in mid-2019.
Given their backgrounds, both saw bigger opportunity in a fractured real estate space.
“The listing process right now is archaic and disconnected. It’s just a mess,” Rieveschl said. “With the launch of Ocusell’s new platform, we are able to provide a holistic solution and solve issues that have been plaguing the process for years.”
Ocusell digitizes and streamlines a property listing, including visuals and property descriptions, in a few clicks. The platform auto-generates a unique property site for each listing, providing a closed environment for agents to better communicate with interested parties. Right now, that's something that often takes place in closed Facebook groups, Taylor said.
The platform also offers an Angie’s list type marketplace, where agents can source visual media including photography, drone work, or 3D tours from different vendors. Those providers can upload the media directly into the listing versus sending their work in fractured pieces — like via email, text, Dropbox or Slack.
Ocusell currently employs seven and is headquartered in the West End in the historic Mohawk building on Central Parkway, where Taylor operates his other businesses, Oval Room Group, a visual media real estate startup, and Brighton CoWorx, an open-concept coworking and incubator space.
Ocusell, to date, has raised around $700,000, roughly half of that in cash. The rest comes via a synthetic investment from Dashfire, an early-stage-focused operating company based in Chicago. Dashfire takes a percentage of equity, much like a standard VC firm, but it supplies business and product development in-house.
“It was a hugely appealing thing,” Taylor said. “They’re among the first to model a venture firm like that, and we have a top-notch development team handpicked by people who are now vested in our company.”
Ocusell will charge agents on a per active listing basis, using tiered pricing, versus a per-seat pricing model. It will also take a percentage of the transactions that take place on its marketplace. The platform will be web-based with an application to come.
Overall, Taylor has leaned on his Dotloop days to guide Ocusell’s go-to market strategy. The same model applies in many ways, he said. National market potential is 2.2 million real estate agents. Ocusell will focus on real estate teams, he said, which represent more than 33% of all agents.
“We genuinely think this platform will become the new norm for how real estate listings are created,” Taylor said.
