Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

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: 16% [?]

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: 11% [?]

347 Responses & How Renting Makes You Green…

For those of you keeping track, our survey responses continue to roll in. I am happy to say that we have reached 347 total responses, well on our way to the 500 & halfway mark. If this keeps up we are sure to reach 1,000 responses, but only with your help.

If you haven’t had a chance to send out the survey to your contacts, we politely request that you do so now. It only takes 5 minutes to fill out, and would be a great help for those of us who are working feverishly to change the world.

If you haven’t taken the survey yet, here is the link. Remember it is totally anonymous so please tell us exactly what you think. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0S3pPYxkR6S0eGbiQVlZ7A_3d_3d

Are You Green? How Can You Be?

Here at iRent2u, we are trying to make the world greener. We do this by creating a system where everyone can get more from what they already have. If you can get more from what you own, then you don’t have to buy as much stuff. By buying fewer things, you save money. That means you work less. That means less waste, because there are fewer things being thrown away. Everyone wins, except the big businesses who are brainwashing us to buy their stuff.

Want an Example?

Imagine a normal neighborhood. In this neighborhood there are 100 homes. Of course everyone has to cut the grass, so traditionally that means 100 lawnmowers have been purchased to facilitate this. Some people would buy riding lawnmowers for thousands of dollars, and some people wouldn’t buy one at all, but for convenience let’s say that everyone bought this standard lawnmower from Sears for $479.

$479 times 100 homes = $47,900 spent on lawnmowers. Ouch!

That is just the money spent. Additionally each mower had to be built, creating waste. Natural resources were used, and most likely some low wage child worker in China working 100 hour weeks was exploited to do so.

Many people will get rid of their old mower after 10 years, whether it is broken or not, just because they want a newer model (maybe the new one with a drink holder - what a feature!). So let’s say that after 10 years half of the homes replace their mowers. At present day prices this costs another $23,950. Double Ouch! Not to mention that 50 lawnmowers were just thrown away into a landfill to sit for the next 10,000 years.

So what’s the alternative?

Imagine how much more efficient it would be if everyone used iRent2u.com. How much money and waste could be saved? Let’s figure it out.

According to YardCare.com a normal lawn needs to be mowed about once every week. If one lawnmower can only mow one person’s yard in one day, and you have Saturday and Sunday to do yard work, then it is very easy to imagine that two people could share one lawnmower. Using iRent2u.com, one neighbor could buy a lawnmower and the other could rent it each week. This is the most minimal example, as it would be easy for 4 or 5 houses to use one mower with a bit of coordination.

So if each two houses shared a lawnmower, that would cut the amount of mowers needed in half. So instead of spending $48,000 on lawnmowers, this neighborhood could save $24,000! Less waste, less money spent, no loss in value to anyone!

What is the individual impact?

Imagine you are person X, and you just bought your lawnmower. You spent $479 for that lawnmower from Sears. You work out an arrangement with your neighbor who borrows it once a week to cut his grass for $6 each time. Since where you live you only have to cut the grass half of the year, you lend it 26 times. You just made $156 back on the purchase of your mower. At this rate you make your money back, off only one neighbor, in a little over 3 years. Lend it to more neighbors and you can make it back in one year!

Now imagine you are person Y, and your neighbor just bought a lawnmower. It cost you nothing up front, so you could use that money for a vacation with your family. Then each week you pay $6 and still get to mow your lawn. Plus you have the option of borrowing from your other neighbor as well if they get a nicer mower (that cool one with the drink holder!). Over the course of the year you pay $156, saving $323, and you didn’t have to store the thing in your garage.

Imagine that, there is actually room in your garage for your car!

At this point maybe you can buy the new mower yourself for $323, because the price of mowers just dropped considerably (turns out fewer mowers are being purchased, so they are slashing prices). Rent or buy, either way you come out ahead.

Everyone Wins, Except the Lawnmower Companies

In a normal neighborhood, 4 or 5 neighbors could share a lawnmower without any inconvenience. This would save tens of thousands of dollars just on mowers alone. That is money that could be invested, used for vacations, or used to pay off those credit card bills.

Do this with multiple items, not just your lawnmower, and the effect is truly incredible. With one website and a bit of coordination you save thousands of dollars, have more storage space, get to know your neighbors, and reduce trash.

An Unsustainable System

The present system where everyone buys everything is unsustainable, and frankly it is ridiculous. Billions of dollars every year are quite literally thrown away. Things are purchased, used once or twice, sit in a garage for 10 years filling up space and deteriorating, and then thrown away. Where is the value? Who gains from this system?

Companies do. Big companies that pay lots of money to bombard you every day with message after message about how buying their product will make you happy. But will it? In our hearts we all know that buying things will not make us happy, but at the same time we have been trained to do it. How many of you get upset and go out and buy stuff to make yourself feel better? I know I do. I guess the advertising companies are really doing their job well.

Here are iRent2u, we don’t want you to stop buying things. We are just creating a system where you can spend your money on things you really want, instead of wasting it buying 100 lawnmowers. Use your money for vacations with your family and friends, or just work less and spend more time at home. Use your money to buy that new shirt, or a new car, instead of buying an extra truck you use twice a year that sits in your driveway rusting.

Together We Have More

Here in America we are individualists. We love our freedom, and we have been graced with the liberty and opportunity to do as we please. This is a great thing, and has given us the opportunity to achieve incredible feats. Is it possible though that we have taken this liberty too far? We are the largest polluters in the world. We consume more than most other countries put together, and throw away things that have hardly been used.

Our wealth and abundance make it easy to waste, but we are the people who ultimately lose in this cycle. By working together in such little ways as sharing our lawnmower we start to change our world. With iRent2u.com it has never been easier to get more from what you already have. Start sharing today, and together we will build a better tomorrow.

iRent2u.com - Launching this September.

Popularity: 17% [?]