It only took about 50 years, but someone finally found a way to monetize Herb borrowing Dagwood's garden tools.
GoodShuffle is a new startup in the peer-to-peer sphere that launched this week. Built by Erik Dreyer and Andrew Garcia, GoodShuffle helps you make money from unused stuff that's lying around in your cupboards and closets by lending it to your neighbors for a fee.
"Your neighborhood is your greatest resource," explains Dreyer. Since the days of knocking on a neighbor's door to borrow a cup of sugar are admittedly behind us, GoodShuffle formalizes the borrowing process. Here’s how: Dagwood has an extra ladder or power drill or food dehydrator he's not using. He creates an account on GoodShuffle and posts his item, setting a per-day price and a security deposit. Herb decides he needs a power drill for a project but doesn't want to buy one. He logs on to the site to see if he can rent one from a neighbor instead. He finds Dagwood's drill, agrees to the price, puts in his credit card and Dagwood can agree to the transaction or reject it.
GoodShuffle wants all parties involved to feel secure with the transaction. "We have a patented double authentication system, with check-in and check-out codes," Dreyer says. The codes are submitted via text message to indicate that the item has changed hands, which releases money from one account to the other. "It mitigates the risk of peer-to-peer transactions," he explains.
Users specify locations for drop off and pick up, which enables "geospatial searching," explains Garcia. Since Goodshuffle knows people are busy, it is in talks with local delivery and courier services to ferry items between users for a per-mile fee. The company is also working with
Old School Hardware in Columbia Heights, bringing its items online for Goodshuffle users to rent.
Besides giving GoodShufflers a way to profit from their rarely used items, Garcia is giving them a look at the back end, including access to analytics to see which items are frequently requested in their neighborhood and how similar items are priced. "Our objective is to empower each user to become a microentrepreneur," Garcia explains.