You may have seen somewhere in one of our social media platforms an experiment we ran for NO RISK LENDING. The pilot went so well that we are pleased to announce it is available site wide.
As long as you document the exchange and get the BORROWER to do the same, any item lent though neighborrow is now protected. That means if the lender does not get it back in the agreed upon amount of time, we will replace it or send you a check for $100.
To qualify as a lender you most...
LIKE US ON FACEBOOK or FOLLOW US ON TWITTER.
When you lend something you most post a photo, the borrower's handle, and the due date.
Use the #LENDERGT hash-tag and the @neighborrow mention on twitter. For FB make sure you do it in one of the groups or just mention it on our page.
IF YOU GET THE BORROWER TO acknowledge the post, the protection goes up to $150.
I have spent the last 5+ years thinking, talking and writing about what is commonly referred to as the sharing economy. There is so much we still do not know about what it is and what it will be. Even the terminology is a variable. Is it the sharing economy, the access economy, collaborative consumption, peersourcing, p2p, c2c, underused asset utilization? There is no consensus just yet.
I don't even know what I think is the best term for it.
I do know one thing though. It is not the FREECONOMY.
I'm not talking about no free shit. Free is not sustainable. The funny thing about sustainability is, you have to sustain it.- Ron Finley
The one thing I believe is that this reinvented, democratized, decentralized way of accessing things we need to use but do not necessarily need to own is not about FREE. That model is simply not sustainable. Beyond the obvious economic flaws, there are psychological issues about free as well. People ascribe low value to free stuff believing "You get what you pay for".
Many sharing economy founders (myself included at one point) looked at all the extra stuff lying around and determined that that was the problem. The solution was making a free market for this stuff that was otherwise being wasted. I think the solution is more complex than that and by the time this stuff is sitting around, it's already too late.
The solution needs to effect change on how these items are purchased and accessed in the first place, disrupting the traditional notion of ownership from the very beginning.
The answer is not making the unused stuff, "Free".
Rental Car Agent: Would you like to purchase the renter's insurance? Jerry: Yeah, you better give me the insurance because I'm going to beat the HELL out of this thing.
While it is true... people may have a tendency to use 15 towels at a hotel sometimes... there is another side to the story.
In fact, evidence is starting to suggest that people borrowing and renting things from other people, not corporations - are not only returning items in good condition, but returning them in BETTER condition than they received them.
The golden rule is coming true:)
We recently lent out a camera as part of an experiment - and it came back with a charger and a travel bag. We have had steam cleaners returned to other members with extra cleaning solution. Someone borrowed a tent and returned it with a bottle of wine from a vineyard near where they camped out.
And even personally, when I stayed at an Airbnb - I treated the place better than my own apartment:) I didn't even think of using more than one towel... even though, in my sordid past I may have used 2 in a hotel!
When people have a vested interest in sharing and when it is personal... the tragedy of the commons turns into a romantic comedy of the commons.
Many people believe that borrowing is synonymous with free. I believe borrowing has more to do with the temporary nature of the use, and less to do with the price of access.
I believe that systems like neighborrow are a success when they increase the velocity of turnover and overall frequency of use -- especially for items whose marginal cost of additional uses per lifetime is near zero.
Therefore, our job is to identify the items themselves where high velocity is desirable -then create and design systems, infrastructures, and business models to facilitate high frequency turnover.
There are a ton of smart people trying to solve this problem, with limited success: here's what I think the next phase should look like. It has nothing to do with p2p trust, or existing (free) supply- like many of us thought in the beginning...
NOT FREE - the point is to get HIGH QUALITY, DURABLE GOODS, that have enough demand to be used over and over again... these items cost money to introduce to the system. Someone (either the individual owner, or the site) needs to be motivated to purchase, maintain, and deliver these items. Business models that create a hot potato effect will work best. Users should be motivated to use the item and pass it on as quickly as possible. Some bike sharing systems are doing this well, making the first hour relatively cheap and extra time is disproportionally more expensive. This pricing model runs counter to the buy in bulk dynamics we are used to- but it makes sense. It provides incentive for the rider to put the bike back and re-borrow another one on the ride home. This model maximizes exposure.
CONVENIENCE IS KEY - the model above only works if is incredibly easy to access the items in need at exactly the right times and exactly the right places. Cameras for rent at airports and tourist attractions and in Airbnb houses. Drills and other tools in member only lockers at Whole Foods.
THE ITEMS THEMSELVES must be designed better. More durable. More flexible. One size fits all. Built in accessories.
When we start solving these problems, and stop trying to build systems to help people share things no one wants for free- or stop thinking trust is the issue when people on Craigslist meet strangers EVERY day when it's worth it to sell a concert ticket... we will be one step closer to solving this important problem!
Perfectly MINIMUM - Any more would be a waste. Any less... well, how much less can you do than a FB post.
Perfectly VIABLE - Anyone who truly wanted to borrow this camera for $20 a day would, at LEAST, understand the value proposition and be in a position to act on it.
Perfectly EXPERIMENTAL - An experiment is defined (by Wikipedia) as "A scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact". In this case we were testing a hypothesis: I believed that at least one person would make a comment to reserve and show intent to pay to borrow this camera for at least one day. That was the minimum... I actually believed that with the right amount of page views, that I could have bookings that paid for more than half of the camera's value in 6 months time.
5000 views, 1 share, 5 comments (excluding my own)... = ZERO REQUESTS TO BORROW. Requests are the true metric in this experiment, followed by payments. The rest are, as Eric Ries says, vanity metrics. The failure of this experiment shows 2 important things...
The value of testing and Lean in general - Not only could I have gone through the cost and expense of building an entire social network compete with reservation features, payment features, product listing, etc - I did! I now teach Lean as a way to help other people avoid the same mistakes...
The fallacy that adding more people to the "funnel" will have an impact on conversion rates. For some reason, smart entrepreneurs have the ability to convince themselves that when something is not working, the solution is to show it to more people. The logic does not hold up. There was no point in figuring out the right distribution channel or the true economics of this venture before figuring out how to get ONE PERSON to pay and convert.
Now, Lean does not teach people to give up after the first experiment. It is possible that this experiment was flawed in ways that I hope the comments reveal. But it is certainly more scientific and much faster to test this hypothesis with a Facebook post than with a full working web platform built from scratch. It is also incredibly empowering for non engineers to be able to run their own experiments. By the way... it's an experiment... but the camera really is available if you want it! (and ready to pay:)
