Should I Build It Should I Build It
23 Mar 2025
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A marketplace for renting out underutilized home appliances and tools ...

...to neighbors, fostering a sharing economy and reducing consumption while earning passive income.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a neighbor-to-neighbor rental marketplace for home appliances and tools is conceptually appealing, aiming to foster community and sustainability. However, it falls into what we call a 'Swamp' category. This means the market has seen numerous similar attempts – we found 12 matching products, indicating high competition and likely market saturation. Despite this interest, engagement with past launches has been quite low (average of 2 comments), and there are no strong signals from user feedback indicating a pent-up demand or willingness to pay for such services currently. Critically, similar platforms like 'Borrow' faced significant hurdles around user trust, item quality control, logistics, and fee sensitivity. Essentially, while the idea seems intuitive, many have tried and seemingly failed to create a solution that truly resonates or solves the core operational challenges effectively, making this a very difficult market to succeed in without a truly novel approach.

Recommendations

  1. Deeply investigate why the 12 previous similar platforms haven't achieved significant traction or user love, despite the apparent need. Analyze the feedback for competitors like 'Borrow' and 'Rentle' focusing on their struggles with trust, logistics, fee structures, usability issues, and truly integrating sustainability (beyond just renting). What specific, critical failures can you identify and learn from?
  2. Given the high competition (12 similar products) and the 'Swamp' nature of this market, strongly reconsider proceeding unless you have identified a fundamentally different approach or a severely underserved niche. If you do proceed, define precisely how your platform will uniquely solve the trust, insurance, and logistical challenges that plagued others from day one. Don't just build another generic marketplace.
  3. Consider focusing hyper-locally or on a very specific category first to validate core assumptions. Could you pilot this within a single apartment building or for a niche category like 'professional-grade baking equipment' or 'specialized gardening tools'? This minimizes risk and allows you to prove the model, especially addressing the trust and logistics issues, on a manageable scale.
  4. Explore adjacent opportunities or pivot your focus. Instead of building a consumer-facing marketplace, could you create tools or platforms for existing sharing initiatives? Think about software for community tool libraries, neighborhood associations, or even platforms like 'Rentle' that serve businesses. This might allow you to leverage the sharing economy trend without directly competing in the crowded consumer space.
  5. Honestly assess if this specific idea is the best use of your entrepreneurial energy. The data (high competition, low engagement, known operational hurdles, 'Swamp' category) strongly suggests this is an uphill battle. It might be more strategic to channel your passion for community and sustainability towards a problem space with clearer demand and fewer established, mediocre competitors.

Questions

  1. Knowing that at least 12 similar marketplaces exist and competitors like 'Borrow' specifically struggled with building trust between neighbors and managing item quality/disputes, what is your concrete, unique strategy to overcome these critical hurdles from day one, especially in a low-engagement environment?
  2. Considering the operational complexity (pick-up/drop-off coordination, potential damages, insurance) and noted user sensitivity to fees ('Borrow' feedback), how will your marketplace realistically achieve financial viability and scalability without alienating the very users you need to build density?
  3. Instead of a general appliance/tool marketplace, what specific, high-painpoint niche (e.g., infrequent-use specialty tools for a specific trade, high-cost baby gear) could you focus on initially to prove demand, refine logistics, and build a loyal user base within a defensible segment?

Your are here

Your idea for a neighbor-to-neighbor rental marketplace for home appliances and tools is conceptually appealing, aiming to foster community and sustainability. However, it falls into what we call a 'Swamp' category. This means the market has seen numerous similar attempts – we found 12 matching products, indicating high competition and likely market saturation. Despite this interest, engagement with past launches has been quite low (average of 2 comments), and there are no strong signals from user feedback indicating a pent-up demand or willingness to pay for such services currently. Critically, similar platforms like 'Borrow' faced significant hurdles around user trust, item quality control, logistics, and fee sensitivity. Essentially, while the idea seems intuitive, many have tried and seemingly failed to create a solution that truly resonates or solves the core operational challenges effectively, making this a very difficult market to succeed in without a truly novel approach.

Recommendations

  1. Deeply investigate why the 12 previous similar platforms haven't achieved significant traction or user love, despite the apparent need. Analyze the feedback for competitors like 'Borrow' and 'Rentle' focusing on their struggles with trust, logistics, fee structures, usability issues, and truly integrating sustainability (beyond just renting). What specific, critical failures can you identify and learn from?
  2. Given the high competition (12 similar products) and the 'Swamp' nature of this market, strongly reconsider proceeding unless you have identified a fundamentally different approach or a severely underserved niche. If you do proceed, define precisely how your platform will uniquely solve the trust, insurance, and logistical challenges that plagued others from day one. Don't just build another generic marketplace.
  3. Consider focusing hyper-locally or on a very specific category first to validate core assumptions. Could you pilot this within a single apartment building or for a niche category like 'professional-grade baking equipment' or 'specialized gardening tools'? This minimizes risk and allows you to prove the model, especially addressing the trust and logistics issues, on a manageable scale.
  4. Explore adjacent opportunities or pivot your focus. Instead of building a consumer-facing marketplace, could you create tools or platforms for existing sharing initiatives? Think about software for community tool libraries, neighborhood associations, or even platforms like 'Rentle' that serve businesses. This might allow you to leverage the sharing economy trend without directly competing in the crowded consumer space.
  5. Honestly assess if this specific idea is the best use of your entrepreneurial energy. The data (high competition, low engagement, known operational hurdles, 'Swamp' category) strongly suggests this is an uphill battle. It might be more strategic to channel your passion for community and sustainability towards a problem space with clearer demand and fewer established, mediocre competitors.

Questions

  1. Knowing that at least 12 similar marketplaces exist and competitors like 'Borrow' specifically struggled with building trust between neighbors and managing item quality/disputes, what is your concrete, unique strategy to overcome these critical hurdles from day one, especially in a low-engagement environment?
  2. Considering the operational complexity (pick-up/drop-off coordination, potential damages, insurance) and noted user sensitivity to fees ('Borrow' feedback), how will your marketplace realistically achieve financial viability and scalability without alienating the very users you need to build density?
  3. Instead of a general appliance/tool marketplace, what specific, high-painpoint niche (e.g., infrequent-use specialty tools for a specific trade, high-cost baby gear) could you focus on initially to prove demand, refine logistics, and build a loyal user base within a defensible segment?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 12
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 2
  • Net use signal: 26.4%
    • Positive use signal: 26.4%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: -0.8%
    • Positive buy signal: 2.8%
    • Negative buy signal: 3.6%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.
TheFullStack
March 25, 2025, 6:20 p.m.

Yeah, I kinda agree with the recommendations. I've seen this done before and it's always a mess with the logistics and trust. Maybe if it was hyper-local, like just within an apartment building, it could work. But otherwise, seems like a big risk.

Similar products

Relevance

Rentables, the Community Rental Marketplace

15 Sep 2023 Design Tools

What started as a learning project that solved a problem of mine, snowballed into a product that I'm working to grow.It's called Rentables. It's a community marketplace that allows anyone to rent their things to their community.I'm big on DIY, but with every project I do I'm always finding myself buying a new tool, using it once, and then it lives in the shed collecting dust.This was a problem I thought I could solve, and so I set myself the challenge to build something that did. I believe the concept has the potential to change behaviour around buying, and make so many things accessible to everybody.I've built this as a solo-dev, completely bootstrapped, and I'm wanting to grow this into something great.Right now I'm starting small – I'm working with my local community, engaging with people on a small scale to iron out as many user wrinkles, iterating, rinse and repeat.They key challenge I'm trying to overcome at the moment is the dichotomy of a two-sided network, and ensuring that I'm focusing on the right audience at the right time. For now I see the most important audience being the Owners who will be listing their items. Doing that should help develop more of a catalogue of items, in turn making the platform more appealing to renters.It's not perfect, but I know there's a lot of bright minds here on HN so I wanted to share and hopefully get some feedback, perspectives and challenges on how I'm approaching things. All of these will help me, and Rentables grow.Edit: It's currently locked down to Australian sign ups so that I can keep it manageable.

A user is building a similar product for the Canadian market and is seeking feedback. Another user commented that the product looks pretty cool.

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4
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Borrow - Borrow everyday things from your neighbors

24 Jan 2024 User Experience Community Appliances

An easy way to borrow everyday things you might not already have or don't want to buy, all from your neighborhood. Power drills, sushi-making kits, camping gear,-- join our community to help one another toward a more sustainable future.

The launch received positive feedback, with users excited about the community involvement, potential for reducing waste through tool sharing, and the usefulness of the service. A user mentioned that "nebenan.de" could provide inspiration for a similar service. Several users joined the waitlist and congratulated the launch. Concerns were raised about inventory, quality control, and trust. Some users, particularly apartment dwellers, expressed interest in tool rental due to space constraints.

The Product Hunt launch received criticism for lacking trust features and charging fees for borrowing items. Users questioned the absence of item sharing in general chat and expressed concerns about unclear location filtering. The primary issues revolve around trust, cost, and usability.

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LocalSwapHub - Connect, Swap, and Discover Your Community

18 Sep 2024 Climate Tech Social Networking Messaging

Join LocalSwapHub to easily connect with your neighbors and swap items, services, and experiences. Discover a vibrant community marketplace where you can find unique treasures and share what you no longer need. Start swapping today!

Users express excitement for LocalSwapHub and the concept of swapping with neighbors. There is optimism about the platform's potential to reduce waste within communities. Praise is directed towards @ibsukru for creating the platform.

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Rentle - World's first circular commerce platform

07 Feb 2023 Website Builder E-Commerce Climate Tech

Rentle is a fit-for-purpose white-label commerce platform for circular economy and recommerce. Both small merchants and global retailers use Rentle to launch and scale subscriptions, rentals, and buyback-driven second-hand sales.

Rentle's Product Hunt launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with users congratulating the team and praising its eco-friendly approach and potential as a game-changer for the circular economy. Many expressed interest in the platform's use cases and its ability to help merchants scale their businesses sustainably. Users also highlighted the platform's usefulness and problem-solving capabilities. Some users inquired about unique merchants on the platform, while others voiced their support for increased sustainability initiatives on Product Hunt.

The product's design overlooks key aspects of sustainability, specifically repairability, recycling, and reusability. These factors are critical for environmentally conscious consumers and should be addressed in future iterations of the product.

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Rentle – first circular commerce platform

07 Feb 2023 SaaS

Why can’t we already go to the nearest big-box store to update our subscribed TV to the newest version? Or order a drill from Doordash to install the TV to our apartment wall? Do I really want to own and store a power tool in our two room apartment, if I use it 6 minutes a year?We've built Rentle to solve these and other problems that should have already been solved.

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