Grrr... - Get anything Rented, Repaired or Remade

Making it easy for consumers to get anything rented, repaired or made out of second-hand material. Supporting entrepreneurs in rental, repair or recycling business.

In one website you can type what product you want and tick whether you want to rent it, repair it or buy it second-hand or so that it's made of second-hand material. Then you get a list of companies that are doing the selected thing to the selected product. You could easily compare prices and check other info and pictures of the rentable/recycled products.

Challenge - What societal challenge does it combat?

Mass-consumption which results to over-use of natural resources and other negative impacts of material production. The idea uses the stuff we already have in the world to satisfy almost all needs people have.

Markets - Who will buy, what, why and how much they are going to pay for it?

Ordinary consumers who would otherwise buy themselves new clothes, skis, mousetraps, sofas, computers, screwdrivers, cars, suitcases etc.  They choose to rent the product or repair their broken one or buy old one or one that is made of second-hand material. Their reasons for doing so are different in each case:

   1. Renting - cheaper if you only need the product a few times; stuff is in better condition when you need it because the renter is taking care of it while you aren't using it; you can use different models/colours/sizes every time you need the product (e.g. you need a different kind of car for a summer cottage trip with your fiancee than for a roadtrip with seven friends); no need to store the product at home

   2. Repairing - cheaper in some cases; keeping up relationship with the product (e.g. kids can prefer getting their beloved teddy-bear repaired rather than getting a new one. Adults might have this kind of issues e.g. with a broken chair that is one of a set of four but the production of the model has ended)

   3. Recycling - better quality, developing a special relationship to the product (especially if it's custom-made)

They are going to pay as much or less than is the whole cost of buying new, taking into account that

   1. they would need to store the stuff at home

   2. they would need to deal with the waste (if e.g. a TV is broken it's not as easy as a repairer who has a fetching service)

   3. the quality might be worse and they'd need to by a new one sooner

Consumers would pay to the service providers who would pay a provision to Grrr... in exchange for the promotion they get. By paying extra they would get highlighted. They could also buy extra services, e.g. book-keeping, brand design, operating space or website maintenance. They could get them with discount or pay for them with more provisions. Grrr... would also organize networking and information-sharing events for its entrepreneurs; tour schools and factories promoting Grrr...-entrepreneurship as a career choice and run public awareness campaigns on benefits of renting, reparing and remaking.

When the website grows big and has under it almost all rental, repair and recycling companies of Helsinki area, it becomes interesting advertisement space for other companies, too. There could be policy that only service sector advertisements are allowed, because otherwise advertisements of new stuff would spoil the whole idea.

Profit prospects - What investments are needed? What operating costs are there? How much revenue is expected during the whole life-cycle of the business from the birth to market growth to stagnation to perishing of the product/service?

A lot of work is needed before it's as big as it should be. But it can start very small. It could start e.g. from kuinoma.fi, where at the moment private people are renting their stuff to other members of the community. First thing would be to bring rental companies along and later bring in also repair and remaking services.

Operating costs include keeping up the site and running the services for the entrepreneurs. Most of them would be bought from external providers. Also this could start small by first building the community of Grrr...-entrepreneurs and getting them to coach each other forward.

Revenue depends on how big the provision is that the companies pay and how much highlighting and advertisement space is sold. Revenue from extra services for companies should be the same as the cost of running them, to ensure that Grrr... fulfills it's mission of removing obstacles for building a successful rental, repair or recycling business. When as many companies as possible can afford the services, the provisions will also increase.

Competition - What competing products or services there are? What are their market share, pricing, strengths and weaknesses?

Stores that sell new stuff and sites that help to compare them. Other internet communities.

Differentiation - How does this idea differentiate you from others in the markets?

All the services need to be very good. They need to outstand the alternative of buying new. Rentals need to keep their stuff in top condition. Repair needs to have fetching and delivery service to the door with big products. Remade products need to be of outstanding quality.

Grrr... needs to be able to help the entrepreneurs make their performance top. E.g. their marketing and customer service needs to outstand that of stores which sell new stuff. Everything has to support the new message using less new material makes life better than using more. Grrr...-companies could even develop a reputation that they are, in general, better employers than new-stuff-selling stores or new-stuff-producing factories.

Grrr... could be a community. People could rent their own stuff there and repair or remake things for others in exchange for other services (service-exchange community already exists somewhere in Internet). If Grrr... could bring a feeling that both the entrepreneurs and the consumers are in the same community, all striving for more quality of life and more sustainability, buying experience could become something quite different from how we see it now.

Verified need - How many people you have found that are ready to buy your products or services?

Impact - What positive impact does your idea have on society and environment?

It makes more and more people choose renting, repairing or remaking instead of buying new. It also inspires more and more people to build their career in rental, repair or recycling business. Thus is can significantly contribute to separating the developments or GDP and material consumption. Bigger and bigger part of GDP is scratched out of immaterial things: skill, design, sharing and experience. In addition to this, people develop social networks.

- What negative impact does it have?

Sometimes making a new product consumes less natural resources than repairing old one. It those cases consumers should not be encouraged to repair.

Some people get inspired to buy stuff after renting it and experiencing that it's cool.

- How can the negative impact be eliminated or made remarkably smaller than the positive one?

The price of everything (buying new, renting, repairing and remaking) should reflect the amount of natural resources it consumes. If that is the case, consumers just need to choose the cheapest alternative and it goes always right. At the moment it's not the case so a law should be lobbied through that every company would have to track how much new material it uses and announce a material audit every year (just like financial audits are required at the moment). Then companies would pay an environmental tax reflecting this audit.

- How can the positive impact grow bigger?

This is quite simple to scale up. The website would just need a new area slot. Grrr... network could be built up in new places e.g. through franchising.

Should be combined with education about how to buy those products  with which there's no hope of renting or recycling, e.g. toothbrushes, food, washing powder etc. There are already services for it, e.g. Tuotewiki. More about it in the donation portfolio management idea.

Maybe even food could be included. This might require major lobbing towards EU, but maybe some day restaurants and shops could pass their left-over food forward with the help of Grrr.... Lobbing could be made easier by developing some ray scanning method that would re-sterilize the left-over food before it goes forward.

The website could be expanded so that instead of a product, you'd type there the need you have (there's always a deeper need behind a desire of a product) and then you'd get a list of suggestions for satisfying it. E.g. if you'd type 'going to a conference in Moscow', you'd get alternatives such as flying (link to list of airlines), own car (link to list of car-rentals and second-hand car dealers) and online participation (link to list of places where you can borrow a video conference system). This would help people think out of the box what their alternatives are when making buying decisions.

This could be combined with open money idea. Consumers could buy services from Grrr... without transferring any money. Everybody could have an account which would grow negative as much as the price of the service they used, and positive as much as they earned through the system, e.g. through renting their own stuff or repairing or remaking something for somebody else.