iRent2U.com
iRent2U.com is a web based marketplace for people to lend/borrow goods and services, for real money. The site provides features that let you manage what you want to lend out or borrow, search for good/services in the area and promotes sharing of the things that we already own but may not use frequently. You can lend almost anything that’s legal.
For example, take a look in your garage. Lawnmowers, weed whackers, bicycles, and such equipment. We use these items once in a while, and the rest of the time they are just sitting there, idle. That extra bandwidth can be put to use by lending it out. The site offers a pretty good description of how it works on their blog.
This is an interesting site in the peer to peer lending space (non-financial lending). Many people already lend within a small group centered around where they live, kind of like a physical garage sale. A good execution of this idea has the capability to do what eBay did for garage sales.
A couple of things will need to fall into place before this idea catches on. First, a critical mass of people will have to warm up to the idea of lending/borrowing beyond their locality. The company is also focusing on providing their services to businesses in the lending space, taking a cut of the revenues. Second, concerns around liability can prevent people from lending out, specially dangerous equipment such as garden tools. The site facilitates some paperwork in this area – contract, third party mediation, optional insurance, deposits etc. I guess lending in “good faith” – if there is such a legal thing – may encourage people to lend more. A rent vs buy calculator on the site may help steer people toward renting, specially for items with a low usage-to-price ratio.
They have some competition in this space – BorrowMe.com (site seems non-functional), NeighBorrow.com (organizes lend-able items into groups, focused on books/DVDs/music/games) and iLetYou.com (rent movies and games). Also, they could face competition from classifieds in categories such as “Real estate and Roommates” and “Vacation Homes”.
An integration with a service that makes it easy to list items on the site (by UPC code, ISBN etc) will help folks in getting started quickly. They are planning to integrate with Paypal and Facebook – which makes sense as p2p lending is essentially a social activity. The site has a clean and friendly interface (see below).
The company received their initial investment (15K) by winning the Pepperdine Business Plan competition in February 2007. They are raising about 250K from friends and family. Their revenue model is primarily commission on transactions and some advertising. They are hoping to launch in mid September 2007, possibly at the TechCrunch20.
iRent2U.com is a web based marketplace for people to lend/borrow goods and services, for real money. The site provides features that let you manage what you want to lend out or borrow, search for good/services in the area and promotes sharing of the things that we already own but may not use frequently. You can lend almost anything that’s legal.
For example, take a look in your garage. Lawnmowers, weed whackers, bicycles, and such equipment. We use these items once in a while, and the rest of the time they are just sitting there, idle. That extra bandwidth can be put to use by lending it out. The site offers a pretty good description of how it works on their blog.
This is an interesting site in the peer to peer lending space (non-financial lending). Many people already lend within a small group centered around where they live, kind of like a physical garage sale. A good execution of this idea has the capability to do what eBay did for garage sales.
A couple of things will need to fall into place before this idea catches on. First, a critical mass of people will have to warm up to the idea of lending/borrowing beyond their locality. The company is also focusing on providing their services to businesses in the lending space, taking a cut of the revenues. Second, concerns around liability can prevent people from lending out, specially dangerous equipment such as garden tools. The site facilitates some paperwork in this area – contract, third party mediation, optional insurance, deposits etc. I guess lending in “good faith” – if there is such a legal thing – may encourage people to lend more. A rent vs buy calculator on the site may help steer people toward renting, specially for items with a low usage-to-price ratio.
They have some competition in this space – BorrowMe.com (site seems non-functional), NeighBorrow.com (organizes lend-able items into groups, focused on books/DVDs/music/games) and iLetYou.com (rent movies and games). Also, they could face competition from classifieds in categories such as “Real estate and Roommates” and “Vacation Homes”.
An integration with a service that makes it easy to list items on the site (by UPC code, ISBN etc) will help folks in getting started quickly. They are planning to integrate with Paypal and Facebook – which makes sense as p2p lending is essentially a social activity. The site has a clean and friendly interface (see below).
The company received their initial investment (15K) by winning the Pepperdine Business Plan competition in February 2007. They are raising about 250K from friends and family. Their revenue model is primarily commission on transactions and some advertising. They are hoping to launch in mid September 2007, possibly at the TechCrunch20.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing such great post, it will surely help many people who want such detailed information about p2p. According to me lower interest rate is very much important and beneficial for borrowers. For more details on p2p refer peer to peer lending
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