About pencilab

Why it exists

Development deals live or die on a spreadsheet that only the person who built it can read. Assumptions are buried in cells, the formulas are someone’s private shorthand, and testing a different land price means hunting for the one input that drives eleven others. pencilab is that spreadsheet as a product.

Who it is for

• Would-be developers — someone with a lot, a rezoning idea, or a listing they keep coming back to — who want to theorise about a project without committing to anything. Open the app, build a pencil, see the returns. No account needed to start.
• Developers who already run pro-formas and want to build them faster, keep every scenario for a site side by side, and share a link rather than a spreadsheet.

What it does today

A pencil is one scenario: the site, the unit mix, the hard and soft costs, the financing, and a condo or rental exit. The editor takes them section by section, and every figure that depends on what you typed recomputes as you type it.

• No sign-up to start. Your first pencil lives in your browser. Signing in later keeps it and attaches it to your account.
• Autosave. Your work is saved as you go, and the pencil’s nav tells you when it is.
• A validated model. The pro-forma math is a port of a developer’s own working model, and it is tested against that spreadsheet’s audited figures to the dollar on every change.

Further out, the intent is to carry a pencil past the theorising stage: once a scenario is one you want to pursue, the same pencil should become the package you take to lenders and equity partners. That part is not built yet.

Who operates it

pencilab is operated by Bockins Holdings Inc., doing business as Pencilab, a company incorporated in British Columbia, Canada.

Get in touch with questions about the model, your account, or your data.