Archive for the ‘Peer to Peer’ Category

More Strange Rentals…

This week we have gotten a lot of reports of strange rentals happening in Germany.

Apparently the Germans are leaders in this global revolution for rentals, but it is taking some strange twists and turns that you may not have expected. Of course we are here to tell you all about it. =^)

Want to tell us what you like to rent? Take our survey here…

The most recent story came from BusinessPundit.com, where they discovered the practice of renting farm animals for yard work is on the rise. Huh?

Yes, I am a bit confused myself. Feel free to read the article here. http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/weird_business_ideas_rent_a_duck.php

Apparently people are renting animals like ducks and sheep to do such things as “mow” the lawn (eat the grass, for anyone who didn’t catch it). They even comment that they are happy with the fertilizer!? This seems strange to me as one of my most hated jobs when I was young was cleaning up the “fertilizer” that my dog left in the backyard. Not fun.

We have actually been hearing about strange rentals from Germany for a while now. They got a lot of press earlier this year for a website where people can rent protesters. http://www.psfk.com/2007/01/rentaprotester.html We think this could be a much more popular service in France, but perhaps they are so willing to protest there that they don’t need to offer to pay. =^) View the original story here. http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,460449,00.html

Of course every once in a while we all need a German to help us out. We all know they are hard workers, and know how to take a mean 6-week vacation. Well the next time you need a hand making Streusel or trying to sing Edelweiss, you can rent your own German here! http://www.rentagerman.de/

Der Spiegel, the big German publication, tells us about how German schools are renting visiting American students to help them understand us better. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,496731,00.html Apparently in some countries being American is not necessarily considered a good thing. I think it has something to do with some war, or pollution or something. Something about a big Bush? Yeah, I didn’t get it either, but I guess these German students were upset enough they needed some real Americans to come in and prove we aren’t all the great white devil they hear about.

Neighbors driving you crazy speeding around in the neighborhood? Well strap on your plastic citizen McGruff badge and give them a good scare with your rented radar gun! http://www.radargunrentals.com/ Unfortunately you can’t give out tickets yet, and could be arrested for impersonating an officer if you do it in your Halloween costume, but for only $150 a week it could all be worth it to see the look on your neighbors face as you pop out from behind his trash gun and show him he was going 40 in a 25.

Checking out ebay, we see that there is a real need for our rental service. Looks like all sorts of fun things are being offered. Unfortunately the bidding is closed on both of these auctions, but I bet if you ask real nice they will consider listing again.

You have your choice of two interesting eBay auctions. You can either rent-a-family, or you can rent-a-phone-friend.

Rent-a-family This lovely family from Atlanta is willing to offer the whole family, complete with cheafuer service, graphic design services, web design, posters, plus DJ services and even a minister for weddings. Thats quite a package!

Rent-a-phone-friend Maybe you need to talk to someone about the family you already have. Here is the answer to your needs. This young gentleman is offering his services as your new best friend, complete with four hours of phone conversation over the next month. Just what I wanted, a new best friend in Kalamazoo, Michigan! I may do it just so that I can say I have a friend there. People will think I am cool.

A couple not-so-strange rental ideas were presented in blogs this very morning! AutoBelles blog gave a great post about how to make money renting out sports cars. You can read it here.Let me just reiterate, that if anyone wants to rent me that Ferrari I have been talking about, feel free. I might even give you a ride around the block with me.

One last post was made this morning on http://nylusmilk.wordpress.com Regarding the opportunity to rent books instead of buying them. This makes great sense to us, unless you like to pile up all your books and use them to show off to your friends like I do.

Well thats it for our crazy rental roundup. Keep checking back for more crazy rental items, updates on our progress (things are really moving over here), and any other interesting thing that pops up.

iRent2u.com - the Online Rental Marketplace

Popularity: 17% [?]

Welcome to iRent2u.com!

With our impending press release for my new podcast, GreenTech.fM, I am sure we are going to see some fresh visitors to this site. For all of you let me appease your curiosity by explaining what iRent2u is.

What is iRent2u.com?

iRent2u.com is “The Online Rental Marketplace”. A place that allows everyone to get more from what they already have. It is recycling on steroids. It is a concept long overdue.

In the most simple terms possible, iRent2u.com is a new website, set to launch this fall, which will allow everyone to rent and borrow their private belongings from their neighbors. Imagine if eBay did a site for rentals, this would be it.

This is revolutionary because everyone has valuable things they own that just sit around most of the time. If we can find a way to help people get more out of what they already own, the world will be a better place. People will save money by not buying things they don’t need. Others will make money by lending out things they already have.

More money + Less trash = Happy People & Happy World.

Read more about what we are doing here…

Why Are We Doing it? We want to make the world a better place. We want to use the internet for what it was created for, to change the world. We want to do our part to stop pollution & waste. And oh yeah, we also want to get back all that money we spent on our expensive educations. =^)

So Much Potential

There really is incredible potential in making the world more efficient. If we can help out just a little bit, we can make a dramatic difference in many peoples lives. We offer some people a new way to make money, while offering others a way to reduce storage space. We help people get more from less, and others get things they could never before afford.

And the best part about it, is that we are having a blast doing it!

Tell us what you think in our quick survey here!

So enjoy the site!

Check out some screen shots on this page. http://irent2u.com/blog/how/

Get up close and personal with us, and see who has helped us out on this page. http://irent2u.com/blog/about/

Find out where & when we are launching on either of these pages

• where http://irent2u.com/blog/where/
• when http://irent2u.com/blog/when/

Read all my rantings about rentals and our company by just scrolling down the page.

Or shoot us an email and tell us what you think here http://irent2u.com/blog/contact/

Either way, we would like to welcome you to our site, invite you to sign up for our newsletter to be informed when we launch in your area (over in the blue box on the right), and have an all around great time.

Sincerely,

Tim McCormack
Co-Founder iRent2u.com

Popularity: 12% [?]

What if everyone could get more value from what they already have?

This is the question we asked ourselves last October when we began putting this company together.

How many things do you own that you don’t really need? In our survey many people told us they own multiple items that for most of the time just sit around collecting dust. Maybe its a stationary bike that you bought during a healthy kick, but now hardly use because you go jogging instead (or not).

Maybe its a tent, or a bookcase, a punching bag, some specialty tools for a one-time job, a pet carrier, a set of golf clubs, old books you have already read, your parents old furniture that is sitting in your garage… anything!

Haven’t taken the survey yet? Go here now…

The fact is, we all own things that are valuable, but are providing zero value to us. What can you do?

The first option is to just sell them. Of course you will be lucky to get half of what they cost, and then you will not have them anymore. Most people don’t want to sell their golf clubs because they only use them three times a year.

We propose a simple alternative. List your items on our site, let your neighbors borrow them, and sit back and collect the money. Everyone wins!

Your neighbors get to borrow something instead of buying it - saving money - they win.

You get to lend your items that are sitting around - making money - you win.

Together we make the world more efficient - people are buying less and thus they are throwing away less trash - all of society wins!

Together we have more. That is what we believe at iRent2u.com, and this September we will prove it to you.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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: 12% [?]

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: 10% [?]

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: 9% [?]

So, we have some very exciting news. We have solidified our timeline with our web development team. It looks like we should actually have our site by July 15th!

Of course don’t expect us to make the public launch until a bit later as previously planned. We want to take the time to verify that everything is working correctly before we launch it, but when that happens we will be happy to have you test it and tell us what you think.

But for those of you itching to get a sneak peak at the site, I will be posting some screen shots very soon.

Popularity: 6% [?]