Q&A With The Render Competition Winners

We are now entering into the fourth year of the Render Competition, in which we award $100,000 to a new cohort of 8 startups. The winners then use these investments to scale their solution within and beyond the greater Louisville area. As we’ve now opened up applications for 2023, we’re catching up with the winning founders from last year to hear about their competition experience, including lessons learned, advice for future applicants, as well as an update on what’s to come from their company.

Today we hear from Jennifer Mason, founder of TitleWise

TitleWise is a SaaS platform for real estate title researchers which offers fully customizable digital worksheets, reports, and databases for any project, county, state, or country. A lack of existing standards for title research reports and a dearth of digitization of products and services result in routine losses in labor costs, errors, omissions, turnaround times, and transaction close rates. TitleWise founders are industry experts who created TitleWise as a solution to their own problems as owners of a third-generation research firm. The TitleWise team cares about elevating standards for title research, streamlining processes, reducing redundancy, and innovating solutions for increased automation.

Why did you decide to apply for the Render Competition?

After bootstrapping the project to serve our needs at the title company and validating TitleWise’s efficacy for ourselves, we commissioned market research and customer satisfaction surveys. With proof of product-market fit, the Render Competition offered the opportunity to scale our product to new customers outside of the original case study. For context, TitleWise competed in the first round of the Render Competition for three consecutive years before advancing and ultimately winning. Render’s high standards, supportive team members, and judging panel members were all aspects of the competition that attracted us as participants. We were able to apply what we learned from each cycle to improve our efforts moving forward.

How are you using the $100k and how will it help you scale your startup?

The $100k investment has enabled us to hire an experienced COO and move our engineering team in-house to save $1.4M against the previous agency model. The prize also funded customer support infrastructure and marketing campaigns, as well as expediting our product launch to customers. There is also the validation that comes with inclusion in the portfolio; our relationship with Render was instrumental for conversations in subsequent fundraising efforts.

What did you take away from your interactions with the judges?

The judges had keen abilities for applying their experiential knowledge to TitleWise’s value propositions and market scenarios, without necessarily knowing many specifics about title research. Their perceptive questions enabled our team to reflect on how to highlight key ideas, which later translated into conversations directed at potential customers and future hires alike.

What is your impression of the Louisville and Southern Indiana Startup community?

This startup community is engaged, energetic, and supportive. As a founder, I can ask a few people for advice on a problem, and an incredible telephone tree begins to come to life. Players in the community freely share their network connections, ideas, and encouragement.

Why do you see Greater Louisville as a good place to grow your business?

Greater Louisville, and specifically Southern Indiana, is a wonderful place to grow a business. As a lifelong resident, I understand how beneficial a tight knit community with a few degrees of separation is for a business owner. Small enough for personal relationships, yet large enough to scale your company within a dynamic market.

What role do you see your startup playing in the regional economy over the next 5 years?

We are ideally geographically situated in a high concentration area of title researchers. TitleWise aims to scale our SaaS platform, expand into marketplace services, and build advanced automation capabilities over the next five years – operations which will all be executed here within our region.

What’s next for your company in 2023?

Up next, TitleWise will increase its capacity for enterprise sales and is on track for initial $500k ARR by EOY. Upon closing our seed round in Q2 2023, key personnel will move to full-time, plus additional hiring in marketing and sales. On the product side, TitleWise will also offer integrations with key settlement software tools.

What motivates you to continue to grow and push your business forward every day?

I have experienced firsthand the beneficial change TitleWise brings to title companies; the impact is real. I am motivated by my ability (and responsibility) to provide quantifiable improvements to how title research is performed and presented. I ask the question, how can we set high standards for quality without compromising high standards for work conditions? And I am always refining the answers to that question.