Money for a model

Chris Uhl had admired Loveland Technologies since he joined the Skillman Foundation in 2012 as vice president of social innovation. He saw the power of the blexting and data-visualization tools and wanted to get them into wider use.

He got his chance last year.

The Skillman Foundation and the nonprofit, which is separate from the Blight Removal Task Force, were looking at blight removal in the Brightmoor neighborhood. However, selecting which buildings to demolish proved to be challenging.

"There were four of us driving around in a car eyeballing the neighborhood," said Uhl. "We went back to the community center and unfurled a map and then tried to remember where the hell we were. What we were trying to do was build a system that we could scale across the city (to show blighted properties). We couldn't do it relying on maps like that."

He knew if he brought Loveland together with Data Driven Detroit, they could create a better map. So he asked two groups to execute a parcel survey of Brightmoor using the then-beta blexting technology.

To get Loveland the financial resources to scale, Skillman made a $100,000 grant.

"They had a great technology and a great little company, but they were in search of a revenue model," Uhl said. "Their initial model was opening Why Don't We Own This? to community groups, but that's hard to monetize in any way they can scale. They can take this technology nationwide."

And Skillman wants a piece of Loveland's future: It is contemplating taking an equity stake in the company. It would join Loveland's three other angel investors, who have put in about $300,000.

The Skillman board of directors is still debating the investment, but if it agrees, it would be the first deal of its kind for the foundation.

"Detroit is on the cutting edge of these types of things," Uhl said. "We have the problems here that are of a scale that don't exist in other places. So it's a great place to pair two great companies like this with some capital and get them solving."

That Brightmoor pilot survey formed the basis of what Loveland and D3 would eventually show the blight task force as a proof-of-concept of what could be done citywide.

It also taught everyone a few things. Primary lesson learned: Technologists have the latest and greatest things; regular humans do not.

The blexting software worked on the latest smartphones, but when the Brightmoor volunteers used it on their older devices, it kept crashing the system. For the citywide mapping project, the task force invested in 150 Google tablets.

Fast Company magazine recently named Loveland one of the world's most innovative companies. Another Rust Belt city has approached the company about doing a similar survey.

To handle the interest, the company has been slowly growing. This month, it added two new employees, bringing the total team to seven.

"It's been great finally having some resources to work with," said Carter, 31. "When we brought on our fourth employee last year, it was a big gamble, it was nailbiting."

One of the newest hires is a "chief parcel officer" who can execute their vision of bringing every property in the country online. They are also planning a new Why Don't We Own This?-style website that will feature a Loveland USA map of those parcels.

The company also has hired Lauren Hood to be the community engagement director, someone who can act as a liaison between the technologists and the people who actually use and need the data.

"Working with open data and data that comes from the government, I think that we necessarily take on the role of a quasi-governmental organization, and so the voice of the people is important," said Paffendorf. "We are visualizing public information, so there is a kind of ethical code that comes with doing that."

Loveland will also have to differentiate itself in a market that has Seattle-based Socrata Inc., which raised $18 million last year and calls the United Nations a client. Locally, Loveland has a potential competitor in startup Local Data, founded in 2012 by Detroit Code for America fellows Matt Hampel, Alicia Rouault and Prashant Singh.

Local Data managed a small companion survey to the Motor City Mapping Project for the Michigan Historic Preservation Network. That group needed to survey 18,000 properties in potential historic districts, giving them "historic preservation scores" and have the data included in the report to the task force.

"It was an opportunity to provide a perspective that isn't always included," said Emilie Evans, preservation specialist with the network.

Initially the network hoped to work with Loveland, but the team didn't have the capacity, Evans said. So she selected Local Data, which was able to perform the survey for free as a vendor of Data Driven Detroit. Local Data worked with 75 volunteers over two weeks to assess the properties. Then the data was turned over to D3 and Loveland for integration into the final report.

"Historically we've seen Loveland providing a lot of that base data to the public, and we were providing the data collection through our Web-based dashboard," said Hempel.

Loveland is in talks with the blight task force for phase two of the Motor City Mapping Project, which would make the data publicly accessible and updatable. Where the database will be housed and how it will be maintained is still being negotiated, however.

"There is too much time, energy and money that has been invested to allow this to simply be a one-time thing," said task force co-chair Price.

Loveland is also making the rounds of Detroit's city departments in hopes that its technology can be used to layer on many data sets, not just property information.

"We are at the heart of the conversations about how to get on top of the data problem, how to involve residents with solutions and how we can upgrade systems," Paffendorf said.

Those conversations are far different than two years ago.

"I think we started to notice a difference, honestly, with the emergency manager," Paffendorf said. "A lot more departments are displaying the thinking where it's like, OK, maybe we're not playing protect-the-bacon any more. We're going to start playing the game of being the best in the world."

They have an ally in the Wayne County treasurer's office. Chief Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski waives all fees for the property data that power Why Don't We Own This?

"There was a lot of reluctance to share information with groups like this, but we identified them as good actors," Syzmanski said. "We took a look at the model, what they had put together without our cooperation. These guys were out there trying to use county data and make it available to everybody. They were leveling the playing field."

When Paffendorf, Carter and Sheradon bought their first vacant lot in 2009, they didn't anticipate the plot of land on Detroit's east side would lead them here. At the time, they were just playing around with selling square inches of their land for $1, making the buyers "inchvestors" in Detroit.

"It was a time of high imagination, high playfulness, high open-mindedness about what you might do with a crowd of people and a vacant lot," Paffendorf said. "We relatively quickly learned the bigger picture at play wasn't this one lot. We'd kind of stumbled into this whole system of property in the city that really needed to be understood better."

To launch the inches project, he turned to a new crowdfunding site called Kickstarter. Inches became one of the first dozen campaigns to be listed on the site, which has since raised more than $850 million for creative projects.

Since that first successful fundraiser, Paffendorf and team have raised more than $91,000, including $67,436 for the Robocop statue, which was done as a separate side project from Loveland Technologies.

"The guys at Loveland Technologies were some of the early pioneers of Kickstarter," said Kickstarter spokeswoman Julie Wood. "They helped prove the viability of a new system and a new way to bring creative projects to life. There have now been more than 56,000 successful projects on Kickstarter, and it's safe to assume that at least a few of those ideas were inspired by Loveland and the cool things they've done."

That first inches campaign raised just $1,582, but it led to a passion for property data that Loveland sees as key to solving so many city problems, from vacant homes to services.

"There is a real opportunity to address these problems, not just muddle along and come out OK," said Alex Alsup, Loveland's chief product officer. "But we can really set a national standard for how these kinds of issues are approached. And it started in Detroit."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated their projected revenue. It is $2.5 million.