Hello Fellow stackers, I'm working on an app that l developed with a friend. After I bought a house and started stacking, I became a lot more conscious about what I was spending. I had little money left after the down payment but needed to do some renovations and I didn't want to buy a lot of home improvement stuff so I borrowed what I needed and bought what I couldn't get. Afterwards with the increased monthly I started buying 2nd hand more and new a lot less. I also started borrowing a lot more but there's a stigma attached to borrowing, that once you let someone borrow it, you won't get it back which then causes people not to lend anything out. I've found, people will in good faith lend to people they trust and for one reason or another will forget to return or forgot someone borrowed something, once again leading to fear of lending. Anyways, I've build an app that lets people keep track of what they are borrowing, from who, and how long they've had it. There's a function that allows for you to ask for things back. It works based on your social network so its not some anonymous person asking but someone from your social group, in this case a facebook friend or someone you've manually approved. So if a person doesn't return something they've borrowed from 3 of his friends when they'ved asked for it back, they get locked out from doing anything else until he returns things and they unlock him. In the app you can give things away or sell them to your social network. You would be able to search your social network for things you are looking for, to borrow, buy, or ask for. So you wouldn't have to buy new. The app turns your social network into a community pool, since we all have excess stuff which sits around for a long time. You would choose what you want to share, give, or sell. The goal is to minimize what you buy and leverage your social network so we can collaboratively save $$. I believe this works well for small to mid sized communities, families, and friends. If the economy goes downhill, people will naturally consume less and rely on people they trust more. I built it to get rid of the awkwardness for those that believe in 'Trust but verify' and to reduce waste by increasing utilization by introducing a social agreement, that its lending OR giving without confusion. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts, I'm in private beta now but should be releasing to the public soon. https://ikeo.com
I quite like the feature of building up a private inventory. Keeping a track of warranties etc can be a real pain. I take it the app is not available yet. I was interested in having a poke around, but I looked and couldn't find it. Also, at least on the PC I am using now (Win 10/Chrome) the top slider for your site seems broken... the first tile has text on it that is cut in half.
I just released the app quietly on Google Play store. I'm doing a soft rollout. Once Apple approves the app, I'll update the thread. If you give it a try, please let me know what you think. Download here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ikeo.app As a default, feel free to add ikeo net1 as a friend to see what I have for sale or giving away.
I strongly suggest rolling this out globally, getting a website version running, getting the apple version up and getting as much social media linking as possible on it. Could be big. need to hunt down others using the app when you link social media. Not even sure you'd need micropayments if you could just sell the usage data to show big companies who is renting/lending what where for how much. I've said enough...
I have multiple questions. I don't use social networking. So will I be unable to use this app? I returned an item to my friend. For whatever reason (laziness, were fighting, etc) they have not confirmed the return and I get locked out of the app. What safeguards are in place for people who misuse the app in this manner? What safeguards are there to keep someone from using this for money laundering? Like is it hooked up to a confirmed address, government id, or ss number? This sounds similar to other apps that I've seen advertised on youtube or hulu. Are you familiar with them? How are you different/better than them? Also, I think you need to add more pictures to your app listing. You have to remember not everyone is going to read or even understand your app description. You should have some pictures that actually show the functionality of the app so people can quickly get an idea of what your app does.
