Last spring, Stephanie and Houston Hoskins relocated from New Orleans to Stephanie's parents' house in Kohler. The couple thought the move would be temporary — a way to hunker down during the pandemic while nurturing their new baby, their toddler and their early-stage startup.
But after extending their trip and falling in love with the region, they decided to make southeast Wisconsin the permanent home for their family and Debtle, the cloud-based software company they co-founded in 2019 to help organizations negotiate and settle invoices directly with customers.
Debtle is starting in the health care industry, helping providers and patients settle medical bills. Plans are to expand to other industries including banking, utilities and property management.
As they've built their company, the couple has tapped into several local startup resources, including the gBETA accelerator program run by Wisconsin-based gener8tor and the upcoming Summerfest Tech pitch competition. They're also the only Wisconsin company among 229 startups selected from more than 3,000 applications to be in the current U.S. cohort of MassChallenge, a highly ranked national accelerator program.
Stephanie and Houston explain Debtle and discuss their startup journey on this week's edition of the Milwaukee Business Journal podcast.
Also this week, Business Journal reporter Rich Kirchen discussed his "Rexnord Reimagined" cover story about the legacy manufacturing company's spinoff to Regal Beloit Corp. and what it means for Milwaukee.
