6 Future Blue Chip Companies in the Sharing Economy
A recent article in Forbes called “Airbnb And The Unstoppable Rise Of The Share Economy” gives a great overview of the nascent sharing economy. It tells stories of people like Frederic Larson, who brings in $3K/month renting his home to Airbnb and his Prius through Lyft, or Dylan Rogers, who makes $1K/month renting his BMW out and plans to buy a couple extra cars to make his own micro-rental car fleet. It explains how more and more average people are making and saving dough through resource sharing.
The article is a worthwhile read as it gives a balanced look at the opportunities–the millennials growing receptivity to renting and sharing versus ownership, a southbound economy–and challenges–getting people to share low-cost goods, restrictive commercial regulations–facing the sharing economy
The article also turned us on to a number of sites we didn’t know about. Stahlwarts like Zipcar, Zimride, Neighborgoods and Taskrabbit appeared in the article, but so too did some newer, more specialized sites. Here are a few of them:
- Parking Panda is a peer-to-peer parking garage. Rent out your vacant parking spot as you would your unused room for Airbnb. PP also allows booking standard garage parking, using their mobile app.
- Dog Vacay is like Airbnb for dogs. Give your dog to “one of thousands of vetted and insured dog lovers” when you leave town (or need a reprieve from your pooch) for “cage-free” boarding starting at $15/night.
- EXEC is an on-demand cleaning and errand running service with a lovely web interface. An added bonus is that they use all organic cleaning products.
- Liquid is a peer-to-peer bike rental service. Rent a bike for $20/day or let your bike out for some extra cash (note: the site is down for the winter).
- Fon is an international peer-to-peer wifi network with over seven million Fon Spots (aka hot spots). Private wifi providers can make money off people accessing their signal.
- Zaarly allows you to sell your homemade cookies and other shippable custom goods.
Most of the services seem to have a Left-Coast bias, though ones like Fon and Zaarly have national appeal. And of course, as the article mentions, Airbnb started in San Francisco and can now be found in Peoria, Il. You gotta start somewhere.
Do you have more sharing sites we should be looking at? Let us know in our comments section.
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