Recycle, Reduce … Neighborrow?
What does your business plan look like? When do you plan to start making money?
As long as it is used in moderation, we think advertising is a great way to glean revenue from our members, especially for access to the free elements of the site. We are promoting local neighborrow-ing, but we do allow exchanges through the mail. We will make money on nominal shipping surcharges, a model employed by many of the swapping sites currently. We believe there is a huge source of revenue in the premium items and sharing those as you mentioned.
Who is your target audience? Have you noticed any trends in registered users so far?
We know we cannot do it all and attempt to be everything for everyone. That is a common problem that new companies face. We would like to think that everyone with a computer and something to share will be using neighborrow, and one day that very well may be the case.
Right now, however, we have seen those whom are actively trying to reduce the waste and impact on the environment, and others with large collections of books and movies, as well as groups of suburban types that recognize the value of chipping in for high value items as the most receptive groups.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments.
The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
derrick
posted on August 8th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
What a great idea- go neighborrow
jcsekhar
posted on August 9th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
When someone neighborrows from you, how do you keep track of the items you lent them? What if they simply.. disappear with the last HP book that you would have loved to read one more time?
Overall, great idea though – and very simple too !
neighborrow
posted on August 10th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
When we designed the site, one of our biggest priorities was to make it easy to keep track of the items you own, the items you have lent out, the items you want, etc. On your homepage, you can see items that are currently checked out, and you can see who has it. You also have a lending history and a borrowing history. Soon, you will be able to map out the exact locations of your “checked out” items as well as the items you have lent out in the past. There will also be a series of reminders and alerts when items are almost due or past due as well as penalties for returning things late (and rewards for being a good neighborrow-er). We may also allow users to charge late fees to other members but it will be a while before we make that decision.