“Buddy” collaborative consumption: not all sharing startups are created equal

Posted: April 24, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Opinions | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments »

The term “collaborative consumption” was inked a few years back (see the TED video below) and has since led a sharing revolution through technology, which makes 10000-year-old human habit “sharing” easy and fun. The “sharing” mechanism is “what is mine is yours”. In fact, it really is “what is mine is what you can ‘rent’ or ‘borrow’”. It involves consuming, collaborative mechanism, trust, and trading.

Ever since using airbnb and made bunch of friends and money, I’ve been thinking: Not all sharing experiences are created equal. While lots of technology startups simply enable sharing transactions, others are creating meaningful human relations while sharing: I think “buddy” collaborative consumption says it right.

Mark my words on it: only those who can create human relationships while sharing are built to last, and loved by people.

Airbnb and zimride are just two such examples of “buddy” collaborative consumption.

The key characteristic for a “buddy” collaborative consumption is “time together”. When a group of people are brought together by airbnb or zimride to share resource, they spent a lot time together. Many of my airbnb guests become my dear friends and each other’s resource, because we spent a lot of time together talking, sharing. Zimride literally put together people in one moving car for hours if not days, imagine how many jokes they are telling each!

On the contrary, lots of other sharing enablers simply provide a trading mechanism.

If we can create a platform not only enabling age old sharing mechanism, but also bring people to spend time together while sharing, it’s more likely to be loved by our users.

Complete list of airbnb like startups in sharing economy

Posted: April 8, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Opinions | Tags: , , , | 17 Comments »

I say complete, you say comprehensive. Either way, let’s have a look at all the startups in the “sharing economy”, which has a newly minted term “collaborative consumption”.

Newly added
1. threadflip.com: peer to peer buying/selling women’s fashion stuff, started by a few causes.org alumni.
2. netcycler.com: let you swap old things for items you really want, in europe only
3. minuteBox.com: a social marketplace for real-time advice that helps users to buy and sell expert advice via multi-media chat on multiple social platforms
4. MaestroMarket.com: is a talent marketplace where you can find and connect with influential and exceptionally skilled people­
5. theamazings.com: supports retirees to package their passions or skills into activities to share with the rest of the world

Classic sharing sites
gumroad.com: airbnb for selling stuff you make/have
Skillshare.com: airbnb for teaching
localharvest.org: nearby community supported agriculture farms (CSAs), offering the public farm “shares”, usually in the form of boxes of vegetables.
Any airbnb for nannies?
Scienceexchange.com: airbnb for scientific research, it allows scientists to outsource elements of their lab work (fact: phds outsize faculty positions by a factor of 10)
Getaround.com, relayride.com, spride.com, whipcar.com: airbnb for personal vehicle rental
uber.com: airbnb for taxi service
Taskrabbit.com, Exec (iphone app), airbnb for errand hirings
rover.com; Dogvacay.com, airbnb for dogs lovers/owners
spinlister.com, airbnb for bike lovers
publicbikes.com, airbnb for bikes
42floors.com, airbnb for office space
YourMechanic, upcoming service, airbnb for car repairing
zimride.com, airbnb for ride share
snapgoods.com: airbnb for stuff u want to borrow or rent
loosecubes.com: airbnb for office space
shareddesks.net: airbnb for working space
eventup.com: airbnb for event venues
shorttermhousing.com: airbnb for short term vacation housing (sounds more like high end copy cat of airbnb)
fun2rent.com: airbnb for vehicle rental (cars, bikes, boats etc.)
thredup.com: airbnb for like-new cloth rental, I heard they started with baby cloth rental.
uk.zopa.com: peer to peer microlending
toolspinner.com: an airbnb for tools
rentstuff.com: an airbnb for “stuff” rental
neighborgoods.net: airbnb for your stuff rental with your friends
us.zilok.com: rent anything online
snapgoods.com: snap up stuff as it sounds like
rentalic.com: peer to peer rent anything

Travel seems to be filled with airbnb types:

tripping.com: kayak for airbnb style traveling
Gidsy.com is the biggest “activities organized by real people” site.
guidehop.com: airbnb for local tour/activity guide, associated with ex-NFL star Darren Goodson
carnaryhop.com: airbnb for travel hop, associated with Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg
uniiverse.com: sharing real world activities
vayable.com: one of the first “airbnb for travel experiences” that I knew of.
bartercard.com: cashless exchange among people

So is parking space sharing
Parkingpanda.com
Parkme (mobile app) (cofounded by William Clay “Bill” Ford Jr., the great-grandson of Henry Ford (and Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company)
Parkingwhiz.com (old school, launched in 2006)
Parkcirca.com
mobileparkingapps.com
parkatmyhouse.com/uk

Ride sharing has ton of interesting entries, Quora has in depth detail on this

wheelz.com: on campus car sharing with hardware gear, it’s started from Stanford campus in 2011; it’s similar to getaround but more niche play. They just got $14 million funding.
zimride.com
ridejoy.com
eRideShare.com
carpoolworld.com
pickuppal.com
Avego.com
catchalift (Australia)

European ride share sites:
liftshare (UK)
covoiturage.fr (french site, pretty big traffic)
carpooling.com
buzzcar.com
rent-n-roll.de

crashpadder.com, airbnb competitor in UK, just acquired by airbnb
Wimdu.com, airbnb copycat in europe
Airizu.com, Chinese copycat partially produced by wimdu guys

Trustcloud.com tries to “consolidate” your sharing credit in one place to make your reputation mobile across the web. Great idea.

See any interesting article about webstartup attacking offline opportunities