Ever gave up the idea of trying something new because it required a lot of initial investment? The folks at iRentShare might have offered you a solution. iRentShare is based on this simple idea of providing a platform where people who want to rent out their goods can do so and make some money from it whereas borrowers borrow these goods for a small amount of money. Currently the site deals with goods in books, computers, cameras, furniture, home & kitchen goods, sports goods, musical instruments, travelling equipment and a few other categories.
“IRentShare was born out of the philosophy that people should be allowed to rent/share the extra stuff; through a monetary deposit system ” says Rishabh Kapoor, the cofounder at iRentShare. Along with the ‘rent’ and ‘share’ options the company now also provides ‘give’ and ‘swap’ options. In ‘Give’ the owner can offer his goods to the community members without receiving it back. In ‘Swap’ the company allows barter or permanent exchange of goods on mutual consent.
The company was started by Rishab Kapoor in mid 2011 when he tried to help some friends in his college to set up an internal network where students could offer their items for rent as well as for borrowing. However he was unable to execute the idea then. He met his cofounder Vardhman Jain who then helped him realized his vision. “I realised that for such a venture to subsist, there had to be a commercial angle to it as well. Things really took off when our third co-founder, Abhishek Ambatipudi, stepped on board and helped us develop the website,” Vardhman explains.
Vardhman is responsible for the overall Operations of the firm from logistics, hiring and funding. Rishabh takes care of the overall strategy and marketing whereas Abhishek is the Technical Head and undertakes overall Technology Development and Maintenance.
The founders realize the complications involved in running such a marketplace. Trust is maintained on the platform through Legal Support, Verified Users and a Security Deposit of the owner’s choice for mishaps. iRentShare has a team of five lawyers who are there to look into any disagreement or disputes between renters and borrowers. “For high end items like SLR cameras, ipads, iphones, laptops, etc, we have brought in a professional renting company because we know that individual owners might hesitate to offer their expensive, personal gadgets. However, our aim is to make sure that eventually even individuals feel comfortable sharing or renting their items, no matter how expensive they are. Our intention is to reduce wastage and unnecessary expenditure,” says Rishab.
Currently the company has its operations in Delhi but they are planning to expand to other cities such as Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
