I listened to the Fifth Wall podcast with WiredScore founder Arie Barendrecht yesterday morning on my walk to Impact Hub. It’s worth a listen, particularly to those interested in commercial real estate tech.

I hadn’t heard of Wired Score before, which is a little surprising but they do operate on the commercial side of the massive industry we play in (which is not my specialty).

The core model is a certification for landlords to “understand, improve, and promote their buildings’ digital infrastructure.” There is certainly clear value to connectivity for tenants — internet going out is a massive, massive drain on productivity (meaning a huge waste of money). Wired Score recently changed ownership with the investment of Bessemer and Fifth Wall (see news here).

A few thoughts of mine:

  • How do they shield against certifying any building that pays them? (even if the building isn’t up to standards). These sorts of models are challenging because the sales reps (generally) don’t care about quality — they want to close deals, not put barriers in place to getting certified.
  • Is there some sort of Wired Score that can be put on every building in the world — without an actual person going into the building to score it? A WalkScore-like model.
  • There’s zero doubt in my mind a model like this will eventually be on apartments (Arie mentions clear interest for that on the podcast) and single family residential listings.