Inspiration
We've all been there. You need a calculator for an exam, a projector for a club event, or a mini fridge for a few weeks. Buying something you'll barely use feels wasteful, but finding someone willing to lend it can be surprisingly difficult.
Meanwhile, students around campus have perfectly useful items sitting unused in their dorm rooms.
We wanted to answer a simple question: What if accessing the things you need was as easy as buying them, without actually having to own them?
That's why we built Borrowers, a community-powered platform that makes borrowing, lending, and sharing everyday items easier, more affordable, and more sustainable.
What It Does
Borrowers is a campus-focused marketplace that helps students share resources instead of constantly purchasing new ones.
Borrow, Lend, and Exchange
Students can list their belongings, discover available items nearby, and request to borrow them for specific periods. Lenders can approve requests, coordinate with borrowers through built-in messaging, and track returns.
Switchies: A Community-Powered Economy
Instead of relying on real money, Borrowers introduces Switchies, a virtual credit system.
Students earn Switchies by lending their belongings and spend them when borrowing from others. This encourages participation and rewards people for contributing to their community.
AI-Powered Event Planning
One of our most exciting features is our AI event planner, powered by Google Gemini.
Instead of searching for individual items, users can describe what they're organizing, such as:
"I'm hosting a movie night for 20 people."
Gemini helps generate a checklist of necessary supplies, which Borrowers can match against marketplace listings.
The goal is to help users coordinate resources from multiple lenders, turning event preparation into a simpler, more collaborative experience.
Built-In Trust and Coordination
Borrowers also includes:
- Real-time messaging between users
- Booking requests and lender approvals
- Return deadlines and borrowing status tracking
- Notifications for important updates
- Saved listings and borrowing activity
- Issue reporting for problematic transactions
Together, these features make Borrowers more than a place to find items. They help users manage the entire borrowing experience.
How We Built It
We developed Borrowers using React, TypeScript, and Vite for the frontend, with Node.js and Express powering our backend APIs.
We use TigerData (PostgreSQL) to persist marketplace listings, user information, borrowing requests, transactions, and other application data.
Google Gemini powers our AI-assisted event planning functionality, helping translate natural-language event descriptions into actionable item requirements.
We also used AI-assisted development tools, including Claude Code and Cursor, to accelerate implementation, debugging, and iteration.
Challenges We Ran Into
One of our biggest challenges was managing the complexity behind something that sounds simple: borrowing an item.
We had to account for availability, overlapping requests, lender approvals, Switchies transactions, return deadlines, and different borrowing states.
Connecting our application to TigerData also involved troubleshooting database connectivity and SSL certificate verification.
Another challenge was designing an experience that remained intuitive despite having multiple interconnected features. We wanted users to focus on finding what they need rather than navigating complicated workflows.
Accomplishments We're Proud Of
We're particularly proud of turning a simple idea into an interconnected platform with listings, borrowing workflows, messaging, a virtual credit system, and AI-assisted planning.
We also designed Borrowers with a cohesive, student-friendly interface that makes sharing feel approachable.
Most importantly, we created a foundation where the same marketplace inventory can support individual borrowing and larger collaborative needs, such as organizing campus events.
What We Learned
Building Borrowers taught us how to connect modern frontend development, backend APIs, relational databases, and generative AI into one product.
We learned that AI is most useful when it works alongside real application data, rather than simply generating text.
We also discovered how much thoughtful state management and transaction handling matter when building a platform where multiple people interact with the same resources.
What's Next for Borrowers
We envision Borrowers growing into a trusted campus-wide sharing network.
Future improvements include campus email verification, stronger reputation systems, smarter item recommendations, and more advanced event coordination.
Eventually, we'd love to see Borrowers expand beyond college campuses into neighborhoods and other communities.
Our vision is simple: borrow more, buy less, and make better use of what we already have.
Built With
- claude-code
- css
- express.js
- google-gemini
- javascript
- node.js
- postgresql
- react
- tigerdata
- typescript
- vite
