The Resourceful Economy
It’s an exciting time to be in San Francisco. I’m living in a house where every week people list their room on Airbnb. They meet new people and make a nice chunk of side income. It’s especially useful when going on a trip and you’re paying for travel and residential costs.
On the flip side I open Sidecar or Lyft almost every day to grab a ride from someone I’ve (usually) never met. I’ve used Exec to help me assemble furniture, Fluc to deliver dinner and Instacart for groceries and when required FlightCar or GetAround will lend a car.
Don’t be deceived into thinking this trend is about vanity. Although some products may seem to fix ‘menial problems’ or may be more transactional than shared, they all fit together embracing a change in consumer behaviour.
People are able to achieve/request more on demand and freelancers are taking control of their employment or are just gaining more flexibility from extra income.
The key to these services is that they must be ubiquitous enough for users to know they’re going to get what they’re looking for on their first try but must also be simple enough for the “seller” to not have to checkin at every step. For some marketplaces they’ll eventually reach a point where most of their users are both a buyer and a seller. (Bike couriers like food as much as the rest of us).
With the product we’re working on, Spot I believe this will quickly become the case and the early data we have supports this assumption. Before we launch the beta in late-September we’re bringing on hosts and allowing parkers to signup in advance but I think the two groups will quickly merge.
We’re building Spot because we want to connect parkers with unused space in cities and if it’s simple enough on both ends then hopefully we’ll be able to create a whole new affordable and efficient way to park. One-tap booking on mobile is key, you don’t have to deal with the host but can share your experience after.
Spot (home driveway or garage) owners will earn significant passive income from little to no work required and when they get home their spot will be empty, as they set the hours. Making sure this happens is key and that’s why we’re focusing on accountability and security. Variable pricing means more people can park and owners earn more money when there is a spike in activity such as a sports game or music event.
Parkers won’t have to worry about driving around for 30 minutes to find parking as they have on-demand private parking spots and they won’t have to deal with coins or calling a number to pay.
So far we’ve had a great reaction from parkers and hosts that experience these problems on a daily basis and we’ve been answering their questions.
If you’re based in San Francisco feel free to signup if you want to hear more before we launch and to spread the word:
Sign-up as a Host - Sign-up as a Parker