unstash - peer-to-peer platform for sharing (Finalist.)

great point of if people are motivated.  some people don't like to share, and i'm fine with that.  but there are a number of communities that are trying to find ways to share and don't quite have the best tools for doing so.  we'll be starting with those communities.  we think there's an inflection point happening in culture as a lifestyle of 'access' over 'ownership' becomes embraced.  With enough people on board - my dream is that one day not owning things will be cooler than owning them.  

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.  Adopting new practices will be an a challenge - as it will be for many of the proposals here - social change is never easy.  Our strategy early on will be connecting with groups that are either early adopters, tech savvy, values-aligned, or already doing it to some degree - We want to assist those who 'get it' first and building up critical mass before even attempting to reach out to the regular Joe.  

Condo boards are an excellent idea - we've got a number of potential leads with condo developers already.  Some of the newer condos already have a web presence for tenants already (they're usually just static info of when the party room is open etc.) but it's great because it's another opening for us to share our service.  

There's definitely an exciting future in leveraging online tools to help people share physical goods and build community in the real world.

Thanks for the good feedback - we'd love to find a way to make our service available for YUF!  And you provided a great use case for it as well!

At a bare minimum we'd like to be 'the' utility for sharing in the city.  We don't necessarily need to force a community to engage one another - and we could see people using the site as needed - much like a craigslist or ebay.  We think that as people use it, they'll fall in love with it further.  Our hope is that every time someone wants to buy something or needs something (and this happens often for most of us) - the very next thing they think about is if they could 'unstash' it somewhere.  So having engaged returning users who have gained value from the site shouldn't be too much of an issue.

We would however love to create deeper engagement between people.  We're designing the site to have a balance of automation and ease of use, but also for natural conversations to spring up.  We don't want to become yet another social network - but we will have a number of ways to broadcast info/data/requests back into people's existing online social networks so we remain tightly integrated where people spend their time online.

Our customized groups feature will also be very important.  Giving community developers the tools to customize the look and administer their community helps offload work on our end, but also entrusts people who know their community best to cultivate deeper engagement themselves.  

I've outlined a number of our revenue streams in the proposal above - though different levels of this group customization feature will carry the weight of our ongoing viability as a service.

thanks for the great feedback.  good point on how to describe this.  peer to peer is what it is - as we're trying to differentiate it from business-consumer - however you're right about some of the negative connotations - though i wonder if that's just for the tech crowd.  Collaborative consumption is a far better term, though a mouthful - hopefully the phrase becomes more mainstream soon

We actually already have a 'deal' with google/froogle - we shared our project with them and they gave us some extra access to api's with their catalog to make unstash work even better.  

amazon's used section would be an interesting partnership, thanks!

We're looking to circumvent some of the obvious logistics by really focusing on existing communities that regularly connect in person.  rather than strangers who have to arrange transfer points - clubs, faith communities, associations, work places, mommy-groups, etc. would make the logistics a whole lot easier.  we want to try and leverage existing communities and the ways they already work while adding value through sharing.

Thanks - it's very easy to blame environmental issuse on corporations and governments 'over there' - but really at the core of the issue is us - and our consumption habits.  we vote through our endless purchases on what matters most to us.  We're really hoping we can provide an alternative as we move into a healthier 'sharing economy'.

Thanks for taking the time to read over the proposal and the responses.  We are definitely trying to expand on the  unique under-served space of 'sharing'.  

Libraries are the forerunners to this and Bixi bikes is a great evolution.  We are very much focused however on the peer to peer space - As opposed to having a warehouse of stuff that people borrow from.  This allows the nature of what's shared to be far more organic.  

Examples of things people would be sharing- Books & media (cd, dvd, video games)- Tools - power drill, workbench, sanders- Gardening equipment - leaf blower, wheelbarrow, snow blower, lawnmower, trimmer- Sporting goods - snowboards, bikes, camping gear, tents, hockey gear- Home - appliances, bread maker, ice cream maker, bbq, humidifier- baby stuff - strollers, exersaucer, carrier, car seats- others - photography lenses, projectors, guitar, board games, electronics We've got a number of partnerships forming both around groups centered around common products - as well as communities that simply see value in sharing assets with one another - whether for community or environmental reasons.

i think this is suppose to be a postiive comment - but not sure if you intended to finish a sentence here.  thanks for chiming in tho.

Thanks for the positive comment.  Partnering with physical agencies is definitely something that's on our roadmap, though we haven't honestly fleshed out what that may look like.  I think there's definitely some type of good fit here though - matching those with excess and those who are very much in need.  Thanks for getting us thinking more on this.

Thanks for the comment - recycling is great, but reusing is definitely better - plenty of unnecessary waste/emissions gets produced in the recylcing process.  I'd venture to say we're about reusing as well as reducing though - if unstash can offer people a solution to reduce net-new consumption - it's a huge win for environmental sustainability.

thanks for the feedback.  you're right - like digital social networks - the value of this rises as more people are connected and using it.  i'm counting on climatesparkers also being on the forefront of the sharing revolution!

thanks for the postiive comment!  we definitely don't want to be pushing people to share things they don't want to share - we'll be giving users full control of who they're connected to, what's made visible, and who can make requests of items they choose to list.  

thanks - it really is a simple idea (there's lots of complexities in managing some of this, but that's the problem we're here to solve).  we believe with the proper mechanisms in place, we really can use today's technology to make sharing awesome again.  

We're already anticipating a number of great stories coming out of this - and would love to share them with green heroes some day!

Marketing - our users will be our primary marketers.  it'll be an invite-only system for a good while - this reduces our user base, but we strongly believe this will make first contact with users a far greater experience as there's already someone willing to share with them.  We'll be focusing soley on Toronto as our beachhead city before even attempting to roll out to other cities.  we've divided toronto up into further user segments we plan on reaching.  

we'll also be adding incentive to early community builders.  can't give away all of our secret sauce but like many web services - it's highly spreadable once it gets going.

and yes, that's absolutely in the works.  we're going to have a number of different forms of widgets, not only pointing people back to the site, and embedded listings, but we're going to have dynamic widgets people can easily post to show 'i saved $475 this year through unstash!" or "this year i saved my community $2042 through sharing on unstash!"  it'll definitely had a viral nature to it while keeping things lively.

we're definitely a triple bottom line organization - people, planet, profits (really sustainable will do for us, but we thinkt here's a big opportunity here to be profitable and give further back to our communities)

definitely in the works - thanks for helping validate that idea for us!

that's what we're about.  it's bound to happen... people began using the internet to share information, then media, then socially - we believe it's about to spill back out into the real tangible world and make a real impact for a better planet!  So much of overconsumption today is due to a lack of awareness of what's already available in our own communities, or a feeling of scarcity - we think we can be a part of changing all that.

thanks for the in-depth feedback!

- unlike bixi bike - unstash really is a peer-to-peer sharing service rather than a business-consumer service.  Bixi allows for anyone to use their bikes that's willing to pay with a form of a damage deposit.  We operate in a space of existing relationships rather than brokering something between strangers.  A big part of our value proposition is raising awareness of what's already there, sitting idle, within your own trust network.  While we have terms of use that users agree to where it's clear who the owner is - we intend for the rare occasion that something breaks while it's being borrowed to be organically resolved between friends -> as it happens in borrowing even without an online management system.

- Regarding climate impact - you bring up a good point regarding energy efficiency and having older products in circulation - this is an ongoing debate depending on the product - usually measuring the cost of the new product and it's energy efficiency, vs. the energy deficiency of maintaining the old product.  However we often find these comparisons don't measure out the full carbon impact of the very creation of new products (extraction, manufacturing, distribution) vs. the use of an existing product.  

However, regardless of the above debate, our core of the problem unstash is tackling is further up the waste hierarchy.  While recycling, delaying disposal, and replacing with higher efficiency greener products are great - it's still not enough.  We want to reduce consumption to more sensible levels altogether.  

ie. our typical knee jerk reaction to needing use of something is to go buy it - a tent for camping next week, a stoller for the next year, an ice cream maker for a birthday party, a telephoto lens for an upcoming gig, an lcd projector for a business presentation, a snowboard for my daughter, etc, etc.  These are some examples of items that we tend to purchase and then leave idle - without realizing the carbon footprint we've induced - we want to change this.

critical mass is definitely important - and the more mass it has- the more valuable it becomes to everyone.  We've identified a number of people/groups/orgs that have stuff they can't stand collecting dust and want it shared!

This is definitely our most frequent critique - and it's a part of anything worth doing.  whether you're risking your heart or your 'things'.  It's a tiny leap, and hopefully it's not much of one between friends - however speaking as a community developer - i've found that every time that risk is honored, trust is deepened, and community develops.  We're in the business of making cycles of virtue

thanks for the comment!  this really is something for the every day common person (though we think everyone's special!)  The great thing is if you have no need to share or borrow, that's absolutely fine!  We've come across an endless number of people who do want to make a vote for sharing.  

There will also be an internal reputation system of sorts to help people make informed decisions as they share - even as it's with people they trust.

we've got a system precisely to help you easily mark who's got your stuff, and where it is, and when it's due back.  It was a personal pet peeve of mine to resolve as i kept loaning my stuff out and had no idea where it was.  We'll have a simple and dynamic page showing you what's on loan and to who - with notifications and reminders for users who prefer it as well.