Archive for July, 2007

What Do You Want to Rent?

One of the neat things about creating an open platform where people can rent out anything they want, is watching what people have to rent out. Of course we are a bit early to start telling you what people are renting, since we haven’t even launched yet, but we can tell you about some of the more interesting requests and comments we have seen.

Below is a listing of some of the items recommended to us by people who took the survey. Not everyone was completely serious when making suggestions, and we were a bit concerned by how many Americans today enjoy entertaining the idea of renting women, but for the most part we got a great response.

Some Interesting Suggested Items to Rent:

• Being able to “borrow” the use of expensive computer software, like Adobe CS3, would be great. I don’t do enough graphic design to want to buy this software, but I would love to be able to rent some time to use it.
• Table saw, circular saw, hot glue gun, weed wacker, hedge trimmer, electric blower, steam cleaner, tile saw
• I have found a real need to rent baby items (car seat, stroller, pack and play) when friends come in town or if I go out of town.
• What about borrow “help”? Like to fix a door, special garden work or similar?
• We might do a rental of art for corporations
• One of the biggest things on this list is the books…University book stores rip off students. This is a good way for owners of books to get the value they paid for it.
• Are you going to do things like cup of sugar? What about favors, I water your plants you water mine?

Do you have any ideas of your own? If so, take the survey and let us know. We are always interested to hear your comments. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0S3pPYxkR6S0eGbiQVlZ7A_3d_3d

Unique Rental Company Items:

Besides what we have seen on our survey, there are other interesting things being rented these days.

One new option is renting handbags & jewelry. A popular site for doing this is www.BagBorrowOrSteal.com This is something that I personally would never even look at, but my wife was quite taken with the idea. Unfortunately we had serious problems with the service when we tried it out, but the concept is great. Rent expensive handbags instead of purchasing them, and then you can trade in for new ones and always have a fun new bag! Be careful with the mail though, send it incorrectly and you will pay for the whole bag, which is what happened to us on our first one.

Another thing I NEVER would have thought of is renting pets! Believe it or not, www.FlexPetz.com already exists, and is helping people enjoy pets who don’t have the time to care for one all by themselves. Now how this works I cannot say, since we are talking about living animals. This does seem strange, but then again there must be situations where this works really well. Perhaps this is good for elderly folks who just are not able to care for a pet all by themselves. As a pet lover myself I am glad to know that this service exists to help out those who have had to go without in the past.

Something a bit in the future is a service called Riot & Return http://www.riotandreturn.co.uk/. This is children’s clothing from the label Keep & Share. Apparently people will pay by subscription, and then return the clothes after they have been used. This seems brilliant to me, as children’s clothing costs a lot for such a short use cycle.

Rent Everything!

We love to see new companies making rentals a more acceptable alternative. Renting increases the use of an item, decreases waste, and is an all around better options for many different things. Hopefully we can provide an abundance of new items for rent on our website once we launch. Our goal is to have at least a little of everything, with hopefully a lot of most.

Once we all start renting more, we are all going to get more from what we already have. That works perfect for us, because we strongly believe that “Together We Have More”.

iRent2u.com, the Online Rental Marketplace - What do you want to rent?

Popularity: 39% [?]

Do you live in the Inland Empire? Do you think websites are fun and exciting like we do? Do you like talking about the cool sites you have been to, in person instead of just on Stumbleupon and Digg?

If so, then please come to Starbucks on Orange street in Redlands on Wednesday the 15th of August. We would love to meet you, especially if you know how to do web design or web programming!

Hope to see you there!

Click here to check out
The iRent2u.com’s Inland Empire Web Technology Meetup Group!

Popularity: 18% [?]

I am happy to say that our survey has blasted through the 500 barrier, well on its way to hitting that exciting and elusive 1,000 responses mark!

This weekend, after Pepperdine university so kindly sent out the survey to a bunch of our old graduating classes, the survey blasted by 500 all the way up to hitting 544 responses. Once again the responses have been great. Here are a few fun statistics that we have taken out of it.

But for anyone who hasn’t taken it yet, here is the link. Don’t peak at what other people said, take the survey yourself first! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0S3pPYxkR6S0eGbiQVlZ7A_3d_3d

Now On to the results. I don’t want to give away the whole survey here, but I will give you five of some of the more interesting statistics we pulled from it.

• 86.2% would be willing to lend their personal items to their neighbors
• 82.3% would be willing to rent items from their neighbors
• 85.1% feel comfortable paying to borrow items they need
• 52.1% would be willing to lend items even if they were only rented once or twice a year
• For most items questioned, between 5 and 6 times as many people were willing to borrow items than lend them, which provides an excellent value proposition to lenders
• 94.8% of our respondents would be willing to either lend or borrow items. Out of 500 people surveyed, only 26 said they would not be willing to do one of the two options

So as you can tell, we have been getting very positive responses. This of course bodes very well for our business model, and we look forward to getting everyone on the site and giving them a chance to prove their bold statements. =^)

Speaking of the site, it is coming along very well. We have made tremendous project, in part thanks to some great effort on our web development team, A Small Orange. We are very very excited to give you a chance to run amok on the site, but first we want to work out some of the little bugs.

We will be posting new screen shots soon though, so make sure to keep checking back. It is looking great, working well, and getting us all pumped to launch as soon as possible. I can’t wait to show you have far it has come.

Look for new shots to be up within the week. For now, thanks for visiting, thanks for taking the survey, and thanks to all our die hard fans who voted for us on the Eventful box below. We appreciate it.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Welcome to iRent2u.com all Pepperdine MBA alumni!

In the ongoing efforts to reach 1000 respondents to our survey, the wonderful faculty at Pepperdine has agreed to send out our survey request to all graduating MBA classes as far back as the year 2000. This will be a great help, as we have stalled a bit around the 480 mark, and can use the help.

If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please go here to do so. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0S3pPYxkR6S0eGbiQVlZ7A_3d_3d

This is just another example of the wonderful help Pepperdine University has been in launching our business. In case you are interested I will tell you a bit about how Pepperdine has really helped us along the way.

To start off, if it wasn’t for Pepperdine’s excellent study abroad program to Spain, I never would have met my business partners. Without that I never would have heard of the idea or had a chance to participate, even though one of my partners was right next door in UCLA Anderson.

Besides the study abroad program, there were many opportunities Pepperdine facilitated that really helped prepare us to launch a business. One of the most impactful was my participation in T.E.C. (The Executive Committee – now called Vistage ). Vistage is the world’s largest CEO network, and is a program where you create a personal board of advisers. Here we got the chance to have very personal and candid meetings with extremely successful businessmen & women from the LA area. Speaking and learning with them helped me realize that my true calling was starting my own business. This also helped me to recognize the opportunity when it presented itself, by keeping me in the right frame of mind. There were many other great learning opportunities before I went to Spain, but Vistage was the most motivational and inspirational of them.

A special Thank You is due to Gary Brinderson of Brinderson Construction who made this experience a reality and gave such valuable insights. The things I learned while working with you were invaluable, and will stay with me the rest of my life.

Great benefits came after I returned to Pepperdine with my new team and business plan. Obviously winning the Business Plan Competition was incredible in helping us validate the concept and obtain startup financing, but we received so much other help that it is hard to quantify. You can’t know how many people coached me, brainstormed with me, mentored me, and assisted me with every part of the business. It was this help that turned an incredible idea into a tremendous opportunity, and it was the people from Pepperdine who made it happen.

Now that my partners and I have all graduated and started the business, the relationship has continued to help us tremendously. We were invited to attend a black-tie event, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Ceremony, where we got to network with highly successful local entrepreneurs. We got 7 different volunteer interns to work with us on varying projects of great importance. Just this last weekend we were invited to speak at a Pepperdine Entrepreneurship Forum where we met other motivated entrepreneurial students who gave us great feedback and others who are interested in investing.

Overall our relationship with Pepperdine University has been a huge help with the launch of the business, and for this we simply want to say thanks!

A special thanks to the following:
Charles Morrissey – for giving us great insights into the crazy entrepreneurial world
Molly Lavik – for connecting us with incredible mentors and advisors
John Mooney – for a couple really great brainstorming sessions that helped remind us the best help doesn’t always come with a price tag
Dean Livingston – who has been ever supportive and has offered the help of Pepperdine many times
Michael Magasin – for his incredible “Scared-Straight” business law class which has motivated us to do everything correctly while forming the business
Doreen Shanahan – who gave us such great feedback after the second round of the business plan competition
Andrea Scott – also willingly gave excellent feedback on the concept during the competition
Geri Jabara – for getting me to Spain and being one of the most positive and supportive persons I have met in my life
Kristin Strange – for approving my intern request forms =^)
Nicole Hall - for putting up with my repeated emails asking when she was going to send out the survey to the alumni. =^)

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole University has been behind us. I haven’t even begun to mention all the incredible fellow students who did the bulk of coaching and assisting, but I will leave them for a post another day.

For now just let me say thank you for all your help, and we, at iRent2u.com, appreciate the support!

And if you are also a Pepperdine alumni, don’t forget to utilize the excellent resources available to you through the staff and other students & alumni. They can have a tremendous impact on your business.

Popularity: 28% [?]

iRent2u.com - The Public Speaks Up!

Well apparently we have a lot of friends out there, but even more people who we don’t even know that have really gotten behind this concept called iRent2u.com.

Last week we asked for feedback from the public, and we had a great response. So that I don’t overwhelm you I am only going to post 10 of the responses, and then I will post some more later. If you haven’t had a chance to send your comments, take a moment now to write up a one or two sentence statement letting us know how you feel about what we are trying to do and send it to feedback@iRent2u.com

By the way, if anyone still hasn’t taken the survey, here is the link. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0S3pPYxkR6S0eGbiQVlZ7A_3d_3d

Endorsements:

-iRent2u.com,
Your new website irent2u.com is an enormous idea that has broad reaching potential. “ We don’t know what we don’t know,” and many times we are not aware of what we lack until someone comes along with the solution. I sincerely think that you this program will gain substantial traction out of the gate.

My best,
Kevin Crosthwaite, CEO
The Crosthwaite Group

“What is most amazing to me about irent2u is that I don’t have to reason why I should or should not buy the set of golf clubs that I know I will probably only use once and then will sit in my garage for years gathering dust. With irent2u I can either find someone else willing to rent the clubs to me for the day or rent them out myself. It makes so much sense.”

Brad White
Countrywide Financial

iRent2U.com is an idea so good and so obvious it’s hard to believe it doesn’t already exist. If these guys weren’t working on it, I’d do it myself. As it is, I’m just glad I may be able to get some use out of that rotary saw I bought three years ago, renting it out to people who will actually use it more than once a year. If iRent2U had been around back then, I probably would never have bought it!

Dan Reines

I think the rest of the world is much more accepting of this culture of sharing, but it could really work well in the U.S. For example in Buenos Aires, Argentina, you could hail a taxi home from the airport and get ripped for about 80-100 pesos or you can rent a “remis” for about a 1/3 of the price. Remis are people’s cars that would normally be sitting in a work parking lot all day. Instead, people rent their unused work cars to a company that drives clients around in those same cars all day. The people who rent their cars get paid each day and passengers can economize on travel expenses. I thought it was a great idea and I have used it every time I go back. I think iRent2u takes that successful concept and extends it to all of our unused assets. (I know I would use it to rent snowboards, surfboards, and international housing.)

Dave Contreras
MBA, IBM Client Executive, Globetrotter

Just as the saying goes: “It takes a village to raise a child”, why not “It takes a neighborhood community to raise awareness”. I believe that iRent2U is going to do just that, raise awareness about our over consumption. Going “green” is much more than just saving some gas and a little bit on your electric bill, it is a lifestyle change that means living in a way that gives back and protects rather than purchase and waste. I think if we all did just a little sharing with one another starting in our own communities, we can start a whole new way of living across the nation. iRent2U isn’t just another eBay-ish rental website; it has the power to push regular people into a different mindset—green living that includes sharing with your neighbors in an equitable fashion. Just brilliant!

Sean Cook, MBA/TM
CEO / Webmaster: Salyris Studios
http://www.salyris.com

iRent2u.com comes with a first-class service which fosters relationships with your neighbors!

It offers a clever and economical alternative to access a multitude of products and services, and lets you have a positive impact on the environment with minimum efforts. A must use!

Fabrice Talbot

iRent2u.com is a great idea for building a discerning and reliable community of borrowers and borrowees; it’s a great spin on the “equalizer” marketplace concept that works so well on the web and an idea whose time has come. Tim, a savvy and industrious web entrepreneur, and his management team are in a great position to successfully execute their award-winning business plan.

Jeff Rozic

Very nice idea. Like the layout and setup. Clear and simple. My type of website.

John Dierckx

This business idea appears to have great potential as a game changing approach to borrowing and lending and interim equipment rentals. The concept is simple and the website is also quite simple in scope. I look forward to seeing this business rollout in my area of the Midwest so I can realize value for myself, not just cost to rent from others.

Dan Carney

Not because you went asking - but seriously because I believe your startup has potential - here’s my review.

“Simply put - the iRent2u.com works, and it does so WELL. None of the usual fussing about - no unnecessary fluff. Just the hardcore concentration on creating value that we all so dearly love.

Affiliate Marketing Expert David Wilkinson

In addition, we were also covered in the Startup Research Blog by Anurag Wakhlu. You can view the story here http://startupresearch.blogspot.com/2007/07/irent2ucom-peer-to-peer-lending.html

Thank you again to everyone who sent in comments, and to those who don’t see yours here don’t worry, I will post some more next week.

For now let me just say that we are overwhelmed with the positive feedback and are doing everything we can to live up to your very high expectations.

Popularity: 21% [?]

News Break: iRent2u.com does shameless requests for endorsements!!

In our continuing efforts to be chosen to present at the TechCrunch20 this September 17th & 18th, iRent2u is looking for informed parties who would be willing to write endorsements of our efforts.

Does our concept speak to you? Does it make sense? Do you see the value in what we are trying to do?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we would love to hear from you. We are looking for short one or two sentence comments regarding the concept and our progress to date.

We have already began receiving comments from people, and are excited to begin sharing them with you. Once we have collected more we will post them onto a separate page along with links back to the authors so that you know who is speaking.

To give you an idea of some of the comments we have received so far, here is a brief list (authors names are not displayed as we are still coordinating permissions for their publication)

Comments made about iRent2u.com so far:

“This website has the potential to change the face of commerce as we know it”

“Just as the saying goes: “It takes a village to raise a child”, why not “It takes a neighborhood community to raise awareness”. I believe that iRent2U is going to do just that, raise awareness about our over consumption. Going “green” is much more than just saving some gas and a little bit on your electric bill, it is a lifestyle change that means living in a way that gives back and protects rather than purchase and waste. I think if we all did just a little sharing with one another stating in our own communities, we can start a whole new way of living across the nation. iRent2U isn’t just another eBay-ish rental website; it has the power to push regular people into a different mindset—green living that includes sharing with your neighbors in an equitable fashion. Just brilliant!”

“This business idea appears to have great potential as a game changing approach to borrowing and lending and interim equipment rentals. The concept is simple and the website is also quite simple in scope. I look forward to seeing this business rollout in my area of the Midwest so I can realize value for myself, not just cost to rent from others.”

“The concept is brilliant. I have shared Nils’ “drill” thought countless times”

“oh, man, i can’t wait to start renting out my circular power saw.”

Thanks to those who have already written reviews:

This is very exciting for us, and we appreciate your support. Some people are requesting to see the actual site before writing a review, which is totally understandable. If you prefer to see the site first please send me an email and I will give you a sneak peek sometime after the 15th. We can’t make the site totally public though because we made a promise to TechCrunch not to release it openly to the public until the conference.

If You Don’t Like to Write:

Some people do not enjoy writing stuff. If you are one of these people, we would appreciate your listing us on any of the social networking sites such ad Digg.com or StumbleUpon.com. Or just tell your friends, that is enough to make us feel all warm inside. =^)

Survey Update:

In the meantime, if you have not taken our survey we would appreciate your input. You can find the survey here.

Feel free to forward the survey on to other people as well. To do so send this link. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0S3pPYxkR6S0eGbiQVlZ7A_3d_3d

Our survey now tops 445! People keep responding, and we appreciate your input. If things keep moving like this we will definitely hit our 1000 mark!

Popularity: 26% [?]