Rentoid blog

I watched an interesting TED talk recently on the world being full - while it is slightly scary - it is worth considering. Especially given that over consumption is a massive problem in the world. I’m not sure it’s a people problem or a consumption problem?

Here’s some stuff people are requesting a zillion times each day which we just don’t have any or enough of.

1. 3D printers - We estimate a 4 week payback period on investing in 1 to rent. By the way - the type of techie nerds who would rent this would definitely not damage it… (we reckon)

2. iPads - The iPad 2 we have very few of, and hundreds of requests and searches daily.

3. Galaxy Tabs - Again people are doing their comparisons on which one to buy.

4. XBox Kinnect - Not just for gaming. People ant to test their software mashups.

5. Car Roof boxes - Thule are most popular.

6. Caravans & Camping gear - Basic idea of temporary needs.(Get your tents on rentoid peeps)

7. Projectors - People are sick of hotels & conference rooms charging $300 a day for a simple laptop projector and would rather rent yours for a reasonable price.

8. Chainsaws - the ultimate temporary need for when a tree falls down.

9. Trailers - You could really spin some money if you have one sitting in your drive way.

10. Ski gear - Same lesson here. peope would rather rent your ski / snow gear at a reasoanble price than get ripped off at the mountain.

There isn’t much to say about some of the whacky things that people have put up on rentoid apart from that they are freakin’ awesome and hilarious, or just plain weird. My thanks go out to them for brightening my day!

Wife - ‘does not nag! Supportive & Respects Shows Love Happy to do House chores’

http://www.rentoid.com/item/1WIFEFORRENT-AustraliaWide-9076

Air band - ‘This is not a joke - we will play at your party - and we rock out and are always dressed up in killer 80\’s cock rock fashion’

http://www.rentoid.com/item/Airband-Werribee-9217

7 Seater bike - ‘The most enjoyment you will have with your pants on!

http://www.rentoid.com/item/7SeaterBike-SouthMelbourne-7221

StarWars Chewbacca Supreme Edition Costume - ‘Great for dress up parties and special events…

Body-suit and mask completely covered with hand layered multicolored long hair fur, for an authentic blended look’

http://www.rentoid.com/item/StarWarsChewbaccaSupremeEditionCostume-Whittington-4650

High striker - ‘Adults and teenagers alike can never resist testing their strength by swinging the big hammer and trying to ring the bell’

http://www.rentoid.com/item/Highstriker-Cheltenham-5075

Private Jet - Seats 8 in comfort, leather seats, in-flight refreshment centre & restrooms… Special event? Why not travel in absolute comfort and live the high life’

http://www.rentoid.com/item/Privatejet-Melbourne-5359

Segway - ‘The ultimate in personal transportation’

http://www.rentoid.com/item/Segwayi2-Sydney-7502

Cheers, Geordie

The traditional approach for most businesses has been to: create a product/service, sell it, end of story. This has worked well up until recently. But now many consumers are looking for a change. There’s a couple of good reasons for this:

Financial - The GFC has bred distrust of old companies and has also forced or at least encouraged many people to tighten the belts, downsize and re-examine what is actually important to them. Many are actually finding that they prefer simpler lives, with less stuff and want invest more in the things that actually make them happy such as their friends, family, health, traveling and new experiences.

Environmental - Growing awareness of environmental issues is causing people to question the consequences of our lifestyles - where do these products come from? What does it cost to produce them? What are the unintended side-effects of our production system? Where do they go once they’re no longer useful or wanted? It is an inescapable fact that we live on a planet with finite resources and need to find a better way of doing business.

The solution is a model based on sharing that Lisa Gansky calls ‘The Mesh’. The mesh is a new business model that is taking the world by storm. It is about giving consumers more tools, choices and information. It is about sharing products and services - giving people superior access without the burden and expense of ownership.

Mesh businesses work by leveraging the following growing trends:

Urbanisation - The increased population density caused by urbanisation makes sharing networks possible. Once people are living nearby one another in large numbers, sharing of certain items such as cars and tools can become practical.

Use of Data & Social Media - Whereas a buy/sell model encompasses one transaction, a sharing model inherently creates a conversation between providers and customers as they need to continually interact to do business. Every time a product or service is rented, leased, or borrowed the company can collect data about the transaction. This lets them get to know the customer better and then use that data they have compiled to personalise the offerings for the customer for next time. These conversations are happening in real life but also online with the explosion of social media, which provides an effective platform but also another point for data collection and further personalisation. Conversations over social media tend to be much more genuine and human, as opposed to the traditional scripted press release/sell approach.

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Mobile - the Internet started by moving data around but now with widespread adoption of smartphones it is also moving around physical goods. Mesh companies are leveraging this trend to enable their customers to reserve cars, bikes, homes, meals and more - on the go.

Examples of mesh businesses are popping up everywhere. Here are a few to check out if you’re interested!

Carsharing - www.zipcar.com

Entertainment - www.netflix.com

Kids clothes swap - www.thredup.com

Collaborative funding - www.kickstarter.com

Group discounts - www.groupon.com

And there are plenty more here - http://meshing.it/

Geordie - rentoid team.

A few bits and pieces I have lying around the house…

Books - don’t read them every day (and hard to read more than one at a time.)

DVDs - I’ve already watched the.

Clothes & shoes - can’t wear them all at once.

Backpacks - I have 2. I might use one in a day, but almost never need to use both at once.

Musical instruments and gear - that guitar has been sitting in the corner for quite a while now. But I’m still very attached to it and don’t want to sell it.

Bubble machine - bought it for a party but I don’t have parties very often.

Hard drive space - I while back my external hard drive was having some problems and needed to be reformatted. The problem was I didn’t have anywhere to put all my files so I had to go out and buy another one just so I could copy over the files and fix it. Crazy right?! I hope I can help someone else avoid this conundrum by listing my own hard drive space on rentoid.

Dumbells - These are something that many people have, but think about it, if you’re like me, most people don’t use them every day and the days I do use them it will only be for 15 minutes or so.

Suit - what do I need this for? Weddings and funerals. Do these come around often? Nope.

TVs - Sure, it might turn out that nobody wants to rent your old TV but you never know, and it certainly doesn’t hurt trying.

I’ll be listing these on rentoid in the next few days. What items do you have lying around the house that could be out there making you easy money?

Geordie - rentoid team.

Trying to make some extra dough? Want to do work that feels meaningful? Rent yourself out on rentoid! (No we don’t mean it like THAT)

Rentoid is all about creating value from things that aren’t being used as much as they could be. The stuff we own is a classic example of this, but something else that isn’t being used as much as it could be is us - or more specifically, our labour, time, skills etc

• Do you have any skills that someone in your community might need?
• Can you can make a good curry? Put yourself up on rentoid and I’ll hire you to cook for me one night!
• Can you speak a Chinese? I’ll hire you to be my tutor!
• Can you play jazz guitar? I’m having a dinner party and it would be SO cool to have some live music!

People often have many special talents they have acquired over the years, and they don’t have to be things you have learnt during your formal education or in your professional life either!

If you don’t have any skills that’s fine too! Want to earn some extra cash and do some good? Rent out your physical labour to the older lady next door who needs some furniture moved. Go and baby sit for the family down the road. Come over to my place and I’ll pay you a few bucks to do the washing up because I had a long day at work and just don’t feel like it!

So list yourself on rentoid to make some extra cash, help your community and hey, you might even have some fun doing it!

Geordie - rentoid team.

How to be your own boss, make money and create value for your community - become a rentrepreneur!

I’m sure that most of you have heard of a little company in silicon valley called eBay yeah? (If not you’ve probably been living under a rock, but that’s ok!). Well I don’t know this for sure, but I would guess that the vast majority of people that use ebay are ordinary folk like you and me - people who want to sell something they hardly ever use or buy something online because it is often much cheaper. Well did you know that there are also a large number of people who sell things on eBay for a living, not just for a bit of extra cash? So here’s a thought, why not do the same thing on rentoid?

1. List the items that you already have and that you are happy to rent out on rentoid
2. Tell your friends, family, neighbours or heck, anyone who will listen to do the same
3. Ask those people to also list which items they would like to rent themselves
4. See which items are in high demand on the rentoid wanted list
5. Go and buy those items yourself, list them on rentoid for a price that is fair and will cover the cost of the item and there you have it! You have set up your own mini rental business!

By doing this you will:
-help your community make money from their idle assets
-help your community save money by encouraging them to rent instead of buying goods that are used infrequently
-help your community create closer relationships by doing business with one another
-save the environment too by reducing the number of things that need to be produced
-create value for other rentoid members, because like the telephone or the Internet, the more people use it the more valuable it is. You know it makes sense - Jusk like Keka said.

So give it a go, and please let us know if there is anything you would like help with that we could cover in future blog posts - such as how to convince people to use rentoid (it makes perfect sense to us! But we realise the rentoid model is something that most people are new to).

Cheers, Geordie.

We’ve decided to make rentoid Free to list your items to rent. After a few years of trying to work out the best system, we think we’ve landed on what works best for everyone. It’s sometimes known as the ‘Freemium‘ model.

So what does this mean for you?

1. It is still free to join.
2. It is now free to list as many items as you like.
3. You still pay the rental fee to the owner of the item when you exchange the goods.

We will shortly be adding some very nice ‘paid only features which people renting out their goods - to make their items more attractive. But more on that in later posts.

Why have you done this?

It’s pretty simple from our perspective - we want to reduce the barriers that exist for peer to peer renting. What we are doing here is very important to us - personal in fact. While we have had steady growth, most people are slow to embrace the idea of renting instead of buying. (Not you - hey, your reading this!) Sure, we’ve got a loyal group of innovators, but a bigger community will benefit everyone using the site.

How will rentoid make money now?

Well thanks for caring, but that too is not important right now. It’s more important that we create as much value for our community as possible and that’s why we are reducing the barriers to come and play rentoid style.

So feel free to spread the word to your ‘less adventurous’ friends.

The rentoid team.

I’ve been thinking recently about the concept of ‘Ownership’. What do we really own in life? What do we aspire to own? More importantly, how do these “assets” and desired accumulation of assets impact how we live? But before I answer these questions, I’d rather make a list of things we think we own, but actually don’t.

Our House: If it’s mortgaged, we clearly don’t own it. If it is unencumbered it is still owned by the government. Real Estate, is Spanish for Royal Estate. All land is ultimately owned by the crown or the government of the day. Stop paying your ‘rates’ and they will repossess your house. The rates we pay are a form of rent from the true owners. What we have is a lease without an expiration date.

Our Body: In actual fact it owns us. It demands what we feed it, how we treat it and how we exercise it. Disobey and it will cut our lives short.

Our Car: We can’t drive it without insurance and licenses, or the fuel which is taxed. Our car is a liability we hold for which fees must be paid to make it ‘usable’

Most things we think we own, we have greater access to. If we ‘own’ it in law, it just means we have permanent access, not true ownership. The only things we ever own are our thoughts, our memories and our hopes. Why most people spend their lives accumulating liabilities instead of experiences is beyond me. The real cost of perceived ownership is the pillaging of the planet, and locking ourselves into the industrial complex. All we really need is the right level of access to assets and we’ll be able to do and achieve more than people who go around buying stuff.

We had a rentoid customer asking for advice on how to get more rentals. We sent him the information below and thought it was worth sharing here on our blog. Our little bag of tricks!

We get many thousands of rentals every week. There are however some keys to getting your items rented out and they are as follows. I guarantee if you follow these rules you will get rental income:

1. Make sure your pricing is right. We recommend the following pricing structure (that is rental fee on your items).

• Charge 1% of the items value for 1 day rental.
• Charge 2% of items value for a weekend.
• Charge 5% for a weekly rate. and
• Charge 10% of items value for a months rental.

Check your pricing.

2. Write a long and detailed description of your rental items. People want detail so they don’t waste their time. Give your item the full description.

3. Have many photos. You can upload many photos for each item. Make sure you have pictures which show what they are renting so there are ‘no surprises.

4. Share your rental listings. Once you have listed an item on rentoid.com - make sure you share it on your facebook account and twitter (if you have one). You can also like your own items on rentoid… so your friends will see your stuff for rent. You’ll notice every item on rentoid has the ability to “like” it on facebook and also twitter. Just click it - it is very easy. This also adds your Google ranking of your item.

5. Share rentoid - the more people that use / know about rentoid the more they share it - which equals renters for you. So share the goodness. Post it on your facebook page…. tell / email to friends. Favourite the rentoid facebook page - share it:

6. List items people want. Like all businesses it is about 20% of the itms that get 80% of all the rental transactions. So make sure you are renting stuff people need / want. The most popular items are those things that people only use temporarily. eg A Lawn mower, A caravan, a tent, A nintendo Wii, a jetski. Stuff we love to use on a weekend or for an event / party or for a project. These are the things that people need and want, and would rather rent than buy. If you want to know what people want. Then a good trick is to check the catalogs from retail stores. People generally rent the same things that people buy…. items in demand.

7. Trial - A lot of people rent things as a try before you buy. I personally rented out my iPad and had it ‘paid off’ in 5 weeks because so many people wanted to rent it before they bought one…

8. Send us a list of the items you want to list. We’ll give you some advice on their demand (how often they are searched) and some pricing / promo advice.

9. Have a ‘reasonable’ bond & terms on conditions which are ‘fair’. If your bond price is crazy people will say ‘too hard’ and rent the next thing…. Just make it like 20-40% of the items retail value.

Let us know if you would like any further advice - also send me some links to your items and I’ll put them on the blog to promote them for you which will help for sure.

Cheers, the rentoid team.