The Master List of the Collaborative Economy: Rent and Trade Everything

My next Open Research report (see my body of research) will be about the Rise of the Collaborative Economy.  If you’d like to be interviewed for this upcoming report, please fill out this submission form.   In my career as an analyst, I often list all the players in a category, announce a formal research effort, then publish a series of analyses, as part of my continuing methodology.  In this case I will also be presenting my findings as a speaker at LeWeb, whose theme, “Digital Hippies” is directly related to this trend.  Thanks to friend Loic Lemeur for triggering this idea.

[Collaborative Economy Defined:  A digital system that manages the coordination of buyers and sellers who offer or exchange used products and remnant services]

[Market impact: These startups enable the crowd to get what they need from each other –rather than go to corporations]

The Three Categories of Collaborative Economy Markets
Within this market, there are multiple use scenarios.  Right now, we see the following three categories:

Market Type Description Examples
First Collaborative Market Manufactures and business owners that are now offering products for rent or barter BMW and Toyota have made motions to offer cars for rent from their lots beyond selling them.
Second Collaborative Market Often denoted as the “Used or Second Hand” market a consumer may offer to rent or lease of used products or remnant services. Lyft allows for any consumer to act like a taxi, and pick up members of the service.  Craigslist and eBay (disclosure: client) empowers the selling of used products, worldwide
Third Collaborative Market Barter, gifting, or non-currancy exchanges of used products or remnant services. Toyswap allows parents to exchange toys with other parents, rather than purchase products that their kids will outgrow. Giftflow encourages users to ask for what they need, then to help others in the future, paying it forward

Market Rises: Media Attention, Over $2billion in Funding
There’s been remarkable media coverage on this topic as vendors like AirBnB, Lyft, Uber and TaskRabbit have gained the media’s attention.  Pushbacks against this category have emerged in San Francisco, as well as in Amsterdam, as unofficial places of rent.  We don’t foresee this space going down, as a cursory analysis indicates that there’s been a whopping $2 billion in venture funding across a sampling of 200 startups within this category.  A spinoff from the consumer social networking category, this movement will have significant runway before true winners are determined.

Disruptions to CPG, Retail, Service Industry, and Governments
There are potentially extensive disruptions for companies that create products or services.  If this trend continues at the current speed and trajectory, it may force retail and product-based companies to acquire startups within this space or to offer products in their own stores for lease or barter.  Furthermore, governments could be displaced if the barter economy rises.  Tax revenues are diminished as people share products with no money exchanged.  We’re also seeing new forms of nontraditional currency emerging, including peer-to-peer BitCoin, which is not backed by any central bank or precious metal.  It’s backed by processing power.

How You Can Get Involved with this Research

  1. Submit a startup in the comments below
  2. Request to be interviewed for this upcoming Open Research report in this web form.
  3. Share this post with others.

List of 200 Companies in the Collaborative Economy
Using the spirit of this space, I contacted a TaskRabbit (thanks Rachel) to conduct significant research from a variety of sources over 22.5 hours to compile a list of startups in this space.  This database will be the primary source of a sample which I’ll use to parse trends and data for my upcoming report.

Update:  Many of these examples and specific language were from the Collaborative Consumption Hub, to which I failed to provide full attribution (my fault) upon first publication of this piece.  Please see the many resources available there, including their many service offerings.

Update: March 26: They’ve built a dynamic directory on their website, which you should visit.

  • Personal Services
    • Rent a Friend Rent a friend for family events, social, business, workout, companionship
    • Hire A Boston Wingwoman Your WingWoman will put YOU in the spotlight (help you meet women in a social scene).
    • Airtime The platform for great video conversation
  • Miscellaneous Services
    • Nanny in the Clouds Changing the way young families fly by connecting them with an in-flight nanny
    • Wello Bye Bye Gym, Hello Convenience
    • GetMaid Instant booking, effortless payments, and exceptional home cleaning at your door within two hours.
  • Car sharing
    • Uber Everyone’s Private Driver
    • Zipcar Wheels when you want them
    • Sidecar Connects people with space in their car to those who need a ride
    • Lyft Your Friend with a Car
    • GoGet Get going fast. Never look back.
    • WhizzCar Wheels on Demand (Singapore)
    • Autoshare Keys to Wonderful (Toronto)
    • Stattauto CarSharing – Munich Germany
    • CarSharing CarSharing Austria (operated by Zipcar)
    • Zazcar Car Share Brazil
    • City Car Club Book, jump in, drive away…
    • Cambiocar CarSharing
    • Autolibre Car Share – very small cars, maybe electric with battery packs and stations around France to recharge. No English translation
    • Enterprise has purchased IGO carsharing in Chicago
  • Car sharing (from big automobile manufactures)
    • BMW Drive NOW Premium Car Sharing by BMW i, Mini, and Sixt
    • Volkswagen Quicar Car Share by VW (Hanover)
    • Peugeot Mu Mobiliy Services Rentals
    • Daimler Car2Go Spontaneity on Wheels
  • Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing
  • Bike sharing
  • Ride sharing
    • Zimride Grab a Seat. Save money and meet people heading your way.
    • Nuride Get rewards for greener trips
    • Liftshare Travel Together UK
    • Jayride Travel A to B with Jayride – UK/Ireland, AUS, NZ
    • GoCarShare Life’s a journey…share it
    • Carpooling Join the leading Global carpooling network!
    • Caronetas Smart Rides – Brazil
    • DuckSeat Ridesharing for Events
    • Avego Welcome to Avego, your ride sharing network
    • Amovens Find ridesharing partners
    • Tickengo Click to get a ride
  • Solar Power
  • Toy Rental
  • Textbook Rental
  • Art Rental
    • Art.sy Learn about and collect the worlds greatest art
    • Artsicle What’s Your Art Style?
    • TurningArt Art that speaks for you
  • Fashion Rental
  • Movies
  • General Online Rental
  • Peer-to-Peer Rental
    • Zilok Zilok Rent anything, On-line! Rentals from Businesses and Individuals.
    • Neighborgoods Save money and resources by sharing stuff with your friends
    • Rentoid The place to rent anything
    • Ecomodo The marketplace of good returns
    • HireThings Hire in what you need, hire out what you have
    • Rentalic Rent anything anywhere (site under construction for another month)
    • RentStuff A RentalCompare Company
    • Open Shed Why buy when you can share?
  • Neighborhood Rental/Share/Market
  • Unique Eperiences
    • Gidsy Find Unique things to do
    • Vayable Book an experience when you travel
    • Sidetour Challenge the Ordinary
  • Peer-to-Peer Travel
  • Errand/Task Networks (general and professional)
    • RedBeacon Trusted Pros for a Better Home
    • Expert Bids Submit your bids. Get proposals and reviews. Save time and money.
    • Crowdflower “The World’s Largest Workforce – large, data-heavy projects broken into small tasks, distributed to < 1.5 million on-demand global contributors”
    • Taskrabbit Outsource Errands or Tasks at the Touch of a Button
    • Zaarly Life is short. Do what you love.
    • Airrun It’s everyone’s personal assistant.
    • Mytaskangel An online marketplace where people connect to get everyday tasks done in their local communities
    • Gigwalk Gigwalk connects businesses with the best people to get work done anywhere
    • Airtasker Find people to help you around the home and office.
  • Social Food Networks
    • Gobble Personalized Dinners Delivered
    • Grubwithus Never eat alone on Grubwithus
    • Eatwithme Food. Photos. Writing.
    • Wok+Wine Wok+Wine is the world’s most effective serendipity machine
  • Storage Networks
  • Parking Spots
  • Shared Studios/Workshops/Workspaces
    • 3rd Space Studios 3rd Space Studios benefit from large spaces and studio members with a range of disciplines
    • Techshop Build your dreams here
    • Newworkcity Working for yourself doesn’t have to mean working by yourself.
    • Studiomates STUDIOMATES is a collaborative workspace of designers, illustrators, bloggers, writers, and developers.
    • Bees Office Work alongside amazing people!
    • Coloft LAs startup hub
    • Desksnearme Need a space to work?
    • Deskwanted Find your ideal working community
    • Opendesks OpenDesks helps you find, share, and manage places to meet and work
    • Desksurfing Coworking spaces around the world
  • Social Lending
    • Zopa Get a loan today
    • Prosper We connect people who want to borrow money with people who want to invest money
    • Lending Club Investors earn better returns, borrowers pay lower rates
    • Enterprise Den The marketplace for success
    • Qifang P2P Lending for Chinese Student Loans
  • Social Currencies
    • Ven It’s time for a new kind of money
    • The Liquidity Network Developing a complementary currency for Ireland
    • Timebanks Building equality and caring community economies through inclusive exchange of time and talent
    • Letsystems Local exchange trading system
  • Taxi Sharing
    • Taxi2 Share. Get there.
    • Taxistop More with less…
    • Weeels More riding, less driving, no parking
  • Bartering
    • Ourgoods A barter network for the creative community
    • Itex Connect. Trade. Save.
    • Bartercard The card that works for you
    • Tourboarding How to stay and play in China for Free
  • Crowdfunding (investments, not loans)
  • Gardens
    • Urbangardenshare Urban Garden Share pairs together eager gardeners with eager gardens
    • Landshare Connecting growers to people with land to share
    • Yardshare Front yard, side yard, & backyard landscaping ideas & garden design pictures shared by homeowners and landscape contractors.
    • Servicevines Cherry pick the best landscapers from your back yard
  • Skill Sharing
  • Big Marketplaces
  • Free/Gift Exchanges
    • Freecycle Changing the world one gift at a time
    • Giftflow Give what you can. Ask for what you need. Pay it forward.
    • Ziilch Where good stuff goes free
    • Exchango Welcome to the freeconomy!
    • Freally An online community that help you save money and environment.
  • Used Electronics
  • Swap Sites for Books/Media
  • Swap Sites f0r Baby Goods/Toys
    • Toyswap Swap, Buy, and Sell New and Gently Used Toys
    • Thredup Just Like a Consignment Shop – But All Online!
    • Kinderado (formerly Tauschteddy) Second hand children’s clother for parents. From parents.
  • Clothing Swaps
  • Pets
    • Rover Find your perfect dog sitter
    • Dogvacay Board your dog in a real home
  • Education/Language
    • EduFire A social learning community
    • Udemy Udemy helps students make moves
    • Myngle Language lessons that come to you
    • Glovico A social network where people from developing countries can offer their services as language teachers
    • Livemocha Creating a world without barriers

Summary and Next Steps
This trend is just getting started.  Expect many traditional business models to be disrupted as these startups and large companies adopt new methods for deploying and consuming goods and services. Don’t expect more than 20% of these startups to survive, as categories will expand and collapse in the traditional innovation environment.  I’ll keep a continued focus on this market trend over the coming future.  Please leave a comment with your thoughts and submissions.

106 Replies to “The Master List of the Collaborative Economy: Rent and Trade Everything”

  1. Sweet lord, who knew there were so many of these kinds of services?!?! It’s almost as if a person no longer actually has to buy….well, just about anything. I don’t have any suggested adds to this list, but will be very interested in the output.

  2. For years, we have been going from addressable “documents” to addressable “people” – back in 2009 Danny Sullivan described how Twitter was facilitating faster answers. Ultimately I think this collaboration trend is about managing business processes, not just the stuff we use computers for, but tapping people’s expertise for the insights you can’t find on a search engine.

    http://searchengineland.com/how-we-search-with-twitter-16920

  3. You can add Cookening.com in the “Social Food Networks”, or perhaps take Grubwithus apart from this category and put them with us in a “Meal Sharing” one.

  4. Great to hear from you Mark! I’ll take a look at GetARound. Note that a few Auto Brands are now renting from dealerships to combat the P2P sharing economy.

    How many can survive? Low barriers to entry, but with funding (average is funded about 20m) they can sustain for a few years. I expect lots of M&A, but will find out more through the research interviews. Love to pick your brain if you’re up for it.

  5. Boatbound.com is AirBnB for boats. Nextdoor is a community software platform within which lots of sharing, giving and commerce is happening. Great list – great project – I look forward to seeing the research, and an interview sounds great! Well done!

  6. The first places that I think of are Quirky and Innocentive, riskier environments that have real companies on the back end. Collaboration after all should have more lofty goals. Additionally, as far as the world of code is concerned, this is an area that needs to be altered in legislation. As a result of the fact that we can now see what a person is witnessing via cache and other impressive technologies, it seems only fitting that when someone “walks on the shoulders of giants” that they should serve their giants porridge on the back end – ideally without a guiding hand of threatening litigation.
    A large part of the problem with any world wide and anonymous collaborative project (as seen in some of my research on Wikipedia) is a tragedy of the commons. Even in something as idealistic as Wikipedia, it is EXTREMELY rare that someone edits more than once a year.

  7. Fantastic list, really insightful to see what other startups have accomplished. A few more for the task/errand network category, though more focusing on home services: Thumbtack, ServiceSeeking, Oneflare, etc.

  8. Amazing list! Just need to add Sold (usesold.com). We sell your high demand goods for you. Simply download the app, easily post an item and we price, sell, ship, and pay. No hassle. No hidden fees. No tomfoolery.

  9. There’s also BorrowedByDesign.com – rental community for women with formal/semi-formal wear. They can rent out the dresses already in their closets or find something to wear at a fraction of the cost to purchase. Rental platform is launching Fall 2013. (early stage startup at the moment)

  10. EvoLux Transportation is building the world’s first helicopter charter marketplace with rideshare, making helicopter travel more affordable and accessible as an alternative mode of transport! We plan to go live with a more robust per-seat reservation platform in 3-6 months. Stay tuned!

  11. Jeremiah, please add m.brightneighbor.com for selling, renting, bartering, and lending. Thank you, great list!

  12. I knew you were on to something talking about this being an emerging trend but this list makes it appear like the “emerging” has already occurred. Great page to bookmark and return to again and again. Thanks.

Comments are closed.