Two sharing-based startups that are good for the earth
Have you heard of the sharing economy? It's a broad term meant to apply to any and all companies, mostly startups, who base their business models on helping people share things.
"What?" you say, how can a business be based on people letting other people use things rather than selling them more of those things that they use? That part I can't speak to. From what I see, the general model is to build a community and take a bit of a percentage anytime the people in your community exchange money. For example, if you help someone rent their apartment out for a week and they earn $1000, the company takes $100.
What's most exciting for me about this is that any company helping people co-use resources is helping the environment. Here are two of my favorite examples.
Lyft is a car sharing service that connects people who need a ride somewhere with people who are already driving around town. You can sign up as a driver or a passenger, so long as you have an account. They have a smartphone app and people who have Lyft-registered cars will appear on it when they're driving around. If you need a ride, say, back from the grocery store, you just take out your app, find a car and you're set. Yes, the drivers do get money from the riders, along the lines of what you would pay a taxi driver.
Why I love it: Less cars, more community building.
Yerdle is a platform where anyone can loan anything to anyone else. Think of Craigslist, but for loaning rather than selling. As a practice, I'll admit, I squint a little and think, do I really want to be borrowing stuff from people I don't know? But in practice it works great. And I've been hearing the same from friends. And as far as the environment goes, imagine how much less "stuff" there would be if instead of every single person having a drill, just a few on each block did and then we just borrowed them from each other. Sounds familiar, actually...
Why I love it: Less stuff, more community building.
Image courtesy of Andy Woo via flickr
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