Hi I'm Brad, Engineer, currently into aquaponics and p2p gear hire.

Forums › Introductions › Hi I'm Brad, Engineer, currently into aquaponics and p2p gear hire.

BradSands

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#207600 4-Jan-2017 17:08

Hi,

I'm Brad, I'm currently living in Auckland and working on a peer to peer equipment hiring platform, which is my main interest at the moment.

I'm also interested in Aquaponics and want to learn more about other modern ways of growing food. I'm a mechanical engineer and would like to shift my work more in that direction eventually, to incorporate engineering/inventing with my entrepreneurial side would be pretty cool.

It'll be good to have a read through all the forums here, I noticed there was a big discussion on whether the peer to peer hiring thing would work (the general consensus was probably not, but things change, we'll see). If anyone is interested in that or aquaponics or similar feel free to say hi too.

Nice to be here, happy new year.

Brad

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#1698472 4-Jan-2017 17:08

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#1698473 4-Jan-2017 17:08

Welcome to Geekzone!

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Kiwifruta

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#1698485 4-Jan-2017 17:18

Welcome to geekzone Brad.

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#1698621 4-Jan-2017 22:16

Welcome!

Dynamic

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#1698668 5-Jan-2017 07:26

Welcome to GeekZone, Brad

I'm interested in the peer to peer hiring, and looked into it about a year ago. A the time I went no further after reading that many fell over due to lack of support, but times they are a-changing. Let me know when you go to beta or go live and I'll sign up immediately.

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#1698684 5-Jan-2017 08:36

Howdy

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BradSands

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#1698768 5-Jan-2017 10:56

Dynamic:

Welcome to GeekZone, Brad

I'm interested in the peer to peer hiring, and looked into it about a year ago. A the time I went no further after reading that many fell over due to lack of support, but times they are a-changing. Let me know when you go to beta or go live and I'll sign up immediately.

Hi Dynamic

Thanks for saying hi.

Yeah, I know what you're saying about many falling over. It seems like MANY have. I think it's for a combination of reasons, timing hopefully being an important one, but the business and growth model I think is another one.

There are successful ones popping up overseas now, but they seem to be all quite niche.

As for our beta/live status: We are currently pre-registering users at a landing page on whybuy.nz, while we finish developing the site. Later this month we'll allow those users to start uploading gear. Then make full functionality live at the end of Feb.

Feel free to check it out and let me know if you have any thoughts.

Cheers

Kiwifruta

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#1698783 5-Jan-2017 11:11

Hi Brad. I just preregistered. Curious as to what precautions are in place say if the borrower damaged the gear or the lender's gear was faulty and caused damage.

Cheers
Dwayne

BradSands

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#1698884 5-Jan-2017 14:37

Kiwifruta: Hi Brad. I just preregistered. Curious as to what precautions are in place say if the borrower damaged the gear or the lender's gear was faulty and caused damage.

Cheers
Dwayne

Awesome, thanks!

The precautions have definitely been the hardest part to work through. It's also the first question most people ask. We're still in the process of figuring out the details, which we'll release as T&C's and FAQ's when we start allowing gear to be uploaded.

Here's a rough guideline: *Edit: TLDR: It's just like buying stuff second-hand, it's between the buyer and the seller with feedback to weed out the bad users.

In terms of hired gear being damaged:

The terms and conditions include a contract between the gear borrower and owner, users may also wish to add extra terms as a separate contract (for example, if hire companies choose to list their gear).

There will be pre- and post-hire checklists that you can download, take photos of damage that's already there, or new damage. We won't enforce these as mandatory but it will be recommended that you fill them in.

The damage will either be wear and tear or misuse. Wear and tear is the responsibility of the owner, damage caused by misuse must be paid for by the borrower. We'll try to mediate where possible but it will fall back to the two parties to sort out and get costs off one-another. This is what the Disputes Tribunal or Courts are for if needed, similar to if anything goes wrong when buying stuff second-hand.

In terms of damage caused by faulty equipment:

This will most likely be covered by your own insurance. For example, if your house burns down from a fault in a hired fridge, your home insurance should pay.

You may be able to claim from the manufacturer if the equipment is still under warranty, otherwise it will be up to you and your insurance to pay for.

It's actually just like buying stuff second-hand. The same rules and covers apply.

We'll also have account verification processes (ID, Address, Etc) and there will be a ratings system to incentivize good behaviour and take out those that are bad. A gear owner will have the option to reject hire requests if they like.

As I said, we're still working on details. To be honest it's going to take time and feedback to get right. I'd be happy if at the start people don't put their very expensive and fragile or dangerous gear up, until we can establish trust and have solid guarantees in place.

Cheers,

Kiwifruta

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#1698896 5-Jan-2017 15:29

Cheers Brad.

Dynamic

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#1698938 5-Jan-2017 16:55

BradSands: As I said, we're still working on details. To be honest it's going to take time and feedback to get right. I'd be happy if at the start people don't put their very expensive and fragile or dangerous gear up, until we can establish trust and have solid guarantees in place.

I like the idea of a mobile phone app that would allow you to take a photo of the hirer with the gear, and make this a part of the standard procedure so nobody feels singled out by their photo being taken. Items would be checked back in also with a photo to reduce or eliminate disputes, with an 'override' for the hirer to accept an item has been returned without personally verifying it and without the photo.... e.g. I'mm out when something is returned but my Mrs calls me to say 'that guy Brad has dropped the sander back and it looks in OK condition to me', and I can terminate the hire on my mobile phone at that time.

Like with any hire there needs to be a a multi-pronged disincentive for returning gear dirty or broken, both in the form of feedback and likely in the form of some sort of deposit. Have you got a basic plan in place for a deposit system?

A local auction site has a pretty reasonable Address Verification system in place where a postal letter is sent with a code the recipient types into their account. I would absolutely want that for higher value goods.

I wouldn't mind my trailer paying for its own upkeep, but it's an expensive item to lend to a stranger. I would only consider hiring it to someone with a verified address, a certain level of feedback history, and a decent deposit.

I would also assume the feedback system is two ways, so less than desirable hirers can be weeded out along with the less than desirable hirees.

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BradSands

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#1698953 5-Jan-2017 18:05

Dynamic:

I like the idea of a mobile phone app that would allow you to take a photo of the hirer with the gear

Interesting idea, we had thought of an app that takes the checklist instead of a download and upload, which a photo could be incorporated into. It wasn't going to be part of the first launch, but I'll ask the guy who is doing the development how long it would actually take.

Recently I did an ID verification for a Bitcoin account and they used a video call to get me with my passport. Something like that, plus the mail address verification could be good alternative. The address verification will definitely be part of it though.

Dynamic:

Like with any hire there needs to be a a multi-pronged disincentive for returning gear dirty or broken, both in the form of feedback and likely in the form of some sort of deposit. Have you got a basic plan in place for a deposit system?

We have, sort of, I agree that it is 100% needed but we're still sorting out exactly how it will work with payment providers.

I wouldn't mind my trailer paying for its own upkeep, but it's an expensive item to lend to a stranger. I would only consider hiring it to someone with a verified address, a certain level of feedback history, and a decent deposit.

Of course, that's the difficult thing at the start when no-one has any feedback. But the deposit will help, plus verification will be there too.

People also have different levels of attachment to different things, and some things won't really break, like one of those plastic kayaks for example. But they can be over $1000 new.

Another feature that I want to incorporate is allowing people to say "this comes with an operator." Then for something like a drone, you can get the owner to come along, get the footage you need from someone who knows what they're doing, and there isn't that feeling of a stranger using your drone. Obviously this would cost more, but I'd feel more comfortable doing that than hiring a drone itself, because I would almost certainly break it ;)