The First.io Replacement

Former customers of the data and lead company First.io have been flocking to Revaluate since Remax purchased First at the end of the year, forcing hundreds of clients to scramble to find a replacement for artificial intelligence, scoring, leads, leadgen and data.

According to Remax / First Real Estate, the company will no longer support non ReMax customers, as the tool is now exclusive to ReMax realtors. Existing contracts are being honored till completion, but they will not have the option to extend. They are not accepting new clients outside of Remax.

First’s last round of fundraising, in May of 2018 was a very respectable $5MM (according to Crunchbase). In total they raised $7.4MM. While this may feel like a large amount of investment to some it would prove to be inefficient as the company was still searching for product market fit.
Research and testing directly with your customers can be expensive for the company and frustrating for clients. In the end, the company landed on an app based approach, leaning more towards a phone based CRM than data and reporting. They also decided to forgo integrations with other CRM’s in order to keep that business in house. To our knowledge, they also lacked an open API. This strategy made it appear as if they were primarily focused on targeting individual agents rather than companies, and integrations.

By Contrast, Revaluate lacks an app or a CRM, but has taken a “play nice with others” approach, integrating, white labeling and partnering with companies and products including CRM’s in our space, as well as providing a dashboard and notification tools for individuals.

We can speculate that the large fundraising rounds were being consumed faster than revenue was coming in from the app. This is a defining characteristic of startups that don’t have product market fit, and thus it makes the company not profitable. Growth is frequently also hampered by large churn. (clients cancelling/not renewing) The combined situation forces the founders and investors to raise additional capital to fund further testing & growth, or to sell the company and exit.

There’s almost always an investor or a buyer- but at what price? The founders of First were likely not able to raise funds at a favorable valuation or price – so they sold. Exit price and terms were not officially disclosed publicly.

The whole First.io team was reduced in size, including the sales team who was rumored to have been instantly removed the next day. The company didn’t have a need for them, as the product would only be used by Remax agents going forward.

Other recent purchases in the space include NAR Venture backed SmartZip and Offrs – purchased by Constellation in 2019, presumably under similar circumstances.

Revaluate is a more than suitable replacement for First, Offrs or SmartZip from a lead scoring and data standpoint. However, we stand apart from the others in both customer care and score quality. Revaluate is focused on scoring not postcards, ads or building CRM’s. Revaluate is also the only lead scoring tool in the industry with a third party validation white paper, and our clients are surveyed on lead quality, reporting insane accuracy in order to continue to improve.

If you’ve wanted to learn more, or would like to see more find a time that works well for you here. We would love to help you become more efficient and successful.