Should I Build It Should I Build It
18 Jul 2025
Tech

Like Wallapop but for renting tools (eg electric saws, or other ...

...mechanical tools)

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

The idea of creating a peer-to-peer rental marketplace for tools, similar to Wallapop but specialized, falls into a challenging category where many have tried and few have truly succeeded. We found 5 similar products, putting our confidence at a medium level, but it also indicates existing competition. The low average number of comments (1) across these similar platforms suggests low engagement, which is not ideal. There's no strong 'use' or 'buy' signal, suggesting people are either neutral or haven't expressed strong interest in similar platforms. Given this landscape, you need to be extremely critical about what makes your solution different and superior to existing solutions. Unless there is a fundamental differentiating element, it might be very difficult to create a successful tool rental marketplace, but do not be discouraged by these metrics.

Recommendations

  1. Deeply research why existing tool rental platforms haven't achieved widespread adoption. Understand the pain points of both renters and lenders. Talk to your potential users and understand their needs
  2. If you decide to proceed, identify a specific niche or underserved group within the tool rental market. This could be a specific type of tool (e.g., gardening equipment), a specific user group (e.g., DIY enthusiasts in urban areas), or a geographic area with limited access to tool rentals. Focusing on a niche can help you build a loyal customer base and differentiate yourself from larger competitors.
  3. Instead of building a direct competitor, explore providing tools or services to existing rental providers. This could involve offering software for inventory management, marketing, or customer support. This allows you to capitalize on existing infrastructure and customer bases.
  4. Consider focusing on adjacent problems related to tool ownership and usage. For example, you could create a platform for tool maintenance, repair, or storage. Addressing these related needs could be a more promising avenue for success.
  5. Given the challenges in the tool rental market, carefully evaluate whether this is the best use of your time and resources. It might be more prudent to explore alternative startup ideas with greater potential for success.
  6. Given a similar product 'Rentables' got some positive feedback in the comments, look into what they are doing in the Canadian market and if you can reproduce or build on their idea to create a better platform.

Questions

  1. What are the primary reasons why existing tool rental platforms haven't achieved mainstream success? Is it a matter of trust, convenience, pricing, or something else?
  2. How can you create a platform that offers a significantly better experience for both renters and lenders compared to existing solutions? What unique features or services can you offer to incentivize adoption?
  3. What are the potential risks and liabilities associated with renting out tools? How can you mitigate these risks and ensure the safety of both renters and lenders?

Your are here

The idea of creating a peer-to-peer rental marketplace for tools, similar to Wallapop but specialized, falls into a challenging category where many have tried and few have truly succeeded. We found 5 similar products, putting our confidence at a medium level, but it also indicates existing competition. The low average number of comments (1) across these similar platforms suggests low engagement, which is not ideal. There's no strong 'use' or 'buy' signal, suggesting people are either neutral or haven't expressed strong interest in similar platforms. Given this landscape, you need to be extremely critical about what makes your solution different and superior to existing solutions. Unless there is a fundamental differentiating element, it might be very difficult to create a successful tool rental marketplace, but do not be discouraged by these metrics.

Recommendations

  1. Deeply research why existing tool rental platforms haven't achieved widespread adoption. Understand the pain points of both renters and lenders. Talk to your potential users and understand their needs
  2. If you decide to proceed, identify a specific niche or underserved group within the tool rental market. This could be a specific type of tool (e.g., gardening equipment), a specific user group (e.g., DIY enthusiasts in urban areas), or a geographic area with limited access to tool rentals. Focusing on a niche can help you build a loyal customer base and differentiate yourself from larger competitors.
  3. Instead of building a direct competitor, explore providing tools or services to existing rental providers. This could involve offering software for inventory management, marketing, or customer support. This allows you to capitalize on existing infrastructure and customer bases.
  4. Consider focusing on adjacent problems related to tool ownership and usage. For example, you could create a platform for tool maintenance, repair, or storage. Addressing these related needs could be a more promising avenue for success.
  5. Given the challenges in the tool rental market, carefully evaluate whether this is the best use of your time and resources. It might be more prudent to explore alternative startup ideas with greater potential for success.
  6. Given a similar product 'Rentables' got some positive feedback in the comments, look into what they are doing in the Canadian market and if you can reproduce or build on their idea to create a better platform.

Questions

  1. What are the primary reasons why existing tool rental platforms haven't achieved mainstream success? Is it a matter of trust, convenience, pricing, or something else?
  2. How can you create a platform that offers a significantly better experience for both renters and lenders compared to existing solutions? What unique features or services can you offer to incentivize adoption?
  3. What are the potential risks and liabilities associated with renting out tools? How can you mitigate these risks and ensure the safety of both renters and lenders?

  • Confidence: Medium
    • Number of similar products: 5
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 1
  • Net use signal: 0.0%
    • Positive use signal: 0.0%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

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.

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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Relevance

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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