

Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff - elbuo8
http://rentzar.co/

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rgarcia
Some honest feedback, FWIW...

What's your plan to get users? A large part of the success from other asset-
sharing services is due to the fact that they initially chose a vertical
(Airbnb: apartments, Getaround/RelayRides: cars) and made a small number of
people in that vertical incredibly happy. Generalizing to "all things" has the
advantage of making your target audience/market bigger, but also seriously
risks making the average experience worse for a couple of reasons: (1) you're
constrained to keeping the interface generic enough for "all things", and (2)
by not targeting a vertical, demand/supply becomes much less targeted, meaning
you need a large user base for the marketplace to be useful.

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elbuo8
Thanks for the feedback we really appreciated your input, well keep everything
you mention on hand to solve those issues.

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bravura
You have a chicken-and-egg problem.

Also, each renter now must do fulfillment themselves. If I'm renting my bike
for $5/day, it's a huge pain if the person that is renting from me is twenty
minutes late to pick up and return it.

What I want to see is someone who focuses on have all the household essentials
for rent, and does fulfillment themselves. I think electric drills are
typically used for 5 minutes total by most owners. Could I please rent
hardware and one-off supplies from one place? Pretty please?

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elbuo8
Thanks bravura for the feedback we really appreciated your input, thats great
to see what type of listing you will get the most benefit.

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joenathan
Rentzar.com where you can find next to near free stuff! Seriously, what's to
keep people from just paying for one day only to never return?

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marcospolanco
Reasonable concern. A credit card hold or a cash deposit could solve that.
What solutions have been used for other 'sharing economy' startups?

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joenathan
If the cash deposit covered the complete value of the item no renter would
want to pay such a high cost(the renter would _then_ be vulnerable to theft;
same with a credit card), and if the deposit didn't cover the value of the
item then a thief would still benefit.

>What solutions have been used for other 'sharing econom[ies]'?

Two things come to mind, rental cars and places like rent-a-center. To rent a
car you have to give ID and a credit card, and if the car is stolen the police
can and will be contacted. Whereas with rent-a-center they can't call the
police, police don't deal well with "small" stolen items. Rent-a-centers
employ call centers that harass the person into paying or retuning and calls
family and friends to shame the person into paying. If that doesn't work they
turn it over to a collections agency who has the power to continue to harass
and even ruin someones credit.

I don't see something like this working P2P and in the startup space, it
requires too much "infrastructure" if you will, to work and be successful in
deterring and overcoming theft, loss and damage.

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marcospolanco
This would work well if it were also a storage service...charge for storage,
rent to offset costs, send me the difference.

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johnrgrace
Not bad, but you've got a two sided marketplace you need both people with
stuff to rent and people who need to rent stuff.

I'd start with a metro area and get ahold of existing rental places and get
their inventories listed to break the chicken/egg issue you face.

Rgarcia makes a great point, you should think about focusing on a specific
vertical as it will make it easier to get both sides of the market
jumpstarted.

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055static
Dear Would-Be Entrepreneurs Wanting to Use Buzzwords:

It's not peer-to-peer ("P2P") if peers are not communicating _directly_. If
they are using your server to communicate, e.g. post ads, then it's NOT peer-
to-peer. It's a bulletin board. There is a difference between a) a
switchboard, b) a bulletin board and c) a person-to-person telephone call.

Sincerely

End-User Looking for REAL P2P Services Not Fake Ones

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DanielOcean
Great idea, but without venture funding this is a tough operation to scale.
With such low barriers to entry for this market, other local markets can
easily replicate this model if it is indeed successful.

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gosu
Great idea. I'd use it, if there were things to rent in my area.

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elbuo8
Thanks for the feedback we really appreciated your input.

