Community Equipment Rental/Exchange

[BeniRose]

I've had this idea floating in my head for quite some time, but I didn't know how to go about it until I stumbled upon BorrowLenses.com.

The idea was originally a community mic exchange, since I'm sure we can all relate to having been in a mic buying position where we really wanted to test out a mic before we buy it but had no way to do this. However, I figured no one would want to pay shipping or risk their gear getting damage just so someone could try out their mic, so I realized, what if it was a community rental service. It could combine aspects from a lot of sites.

The premise would be that we all have some gear lying around that we're not using, so why not make some money off of it, while at the same time allowing someone else to get use out of it. As a user you could post all the gear you have that's available (or you're willing) to rent out. This would be for studio use only, so you don't have to worry about people ruining them at live shows, and only other registered users could rent the gear you've posted. You could rent out your mic for a period of days or weeks. I'd like to keep the price low to encourage use, so I'm thinking like 5 dollars a day, 15 dollars a week kind of deal for cheaper (think NT1a) mics, and obviously more for more expensive stuff, but hopefully not exponentially. The person renting it would pay shipping (which we would be able to automatically calculate after the database gets built up) and the person renting it out would be able to decide of they required insurance on the shipment.

So how do you know you're not renting it out to some snot nosed teenager who's gonna beat the shit out of your stuff? Well first off, this would be a community first before a way to make money of your gear, so hopefully we'd start to get a reputation that it's reliable and not just a bunch of people needing gear for a one time, last minute thing and then disappearing. But to ensure this, we'll set up a validation system similar to CouchSurfing.net. A few of us will start out as the only validated members and only validated members can validate other members. A validated member will take risks and rent to non-validated members. If they get their mic back and it's in the same condition they lent it out to, and maybe get a chance to hear what they recorded with it, and build up the community, the validated member can validate the person they rented to. Now people will know this is a reliable person. Non-validated members can of course rent to each other and leave feedback to encourage (or discourage!) validated members to rent to these people.

Again, this would be a community site, and it would be not for profit. I might put some google text ads at the bottom of the site and accept donations, but I'm not looking to make money off this. I have plenty of hosting and plenty of bandwidth, so I'm not worried about that. I'm planning on developing this in Python using the Django framework, in case anyone is interested in helping, but I thought I'd do some user feedback before I started in case there's a great idea I'm missing (or no ones into it at all, in which case I might not waste the time). Also, if you think this is a good idea, please don't be a dick and steal my idea. Thanks!

Let me know!

 

[stevieb]

I like your idea and will support it (PM me when progress has been made,) but there needs to be a modest, fair profit in it. We take a risk on damage, even with the most careful user, and all equipment has a life- the more you use it, the sooner it wears out. My AT-4033, for instance, will last a lot longer sitting in my closet most of the time, only being used, carefully, occasionally, by me, but if I send it out, it gets jostled in shipping god-knows how much,etc. I suspect it will go bad a lot quicker in that duty than my careful use. Having rented equipment out, I can tell you you can only bill someone for damage if it comes back damaged, not if it fails some (even if short) time later- and even then, sometimes you have to eat the cost of repairs. It's not just about care taken or lack of abuse- things wear out and break.

Perhaps a means of addressing that would be if you could find a source for insurance that would cover ALL repairs, that might help. This probably would not come cheap, and might eat up all "profit," but you want it to be a community service, not a profit source, so that might be okay. If you have a friend at Sam Ash Music (I find them to be more open to creative solutions than Guitar Center, but that may just be my experience,) you might start there.

Keep me informed.

 

[moresound]

Sounds kind of good ..... maybe the risk factor can be that you rent the stuff for what it cost to replace it, then if it comes back as it left do the calculations of rental and the rentee gets the refund if not you have the money to do repairs or worst case purchase a new unit. Seems win win.

 

[Toddskins]

And Paypal makes this possible nowadays.

As a keyboardist, I offer to rent my time and services for your tracks that require something more. As a creative synthesist programmer, I create sounds that give a song that something it's missing, and as a player/arranger can add some creative riffs, too.

But I'm not cheap. At least a good bottle of Crown Royale. <grin>