Background
Today we waste endless amounts of money buying things that we will use once and then never use again. Why buy something and spend money for only one use? Why not just share it with someone around you? Chances are that there is someone around you that has the item you're looking for just lying around ready to use. Thus we built sendr. We believe in the power of community and we believe that sendr can connect more people, reduce personal spending, increase recycling and reusing, and create an underlying shared economy.
Where'd the Idea Come From?
When I visited Spain this summer, I knew I was only going to be there for about a month and so I wanted to avoid buying as much stuff as possible (after all I would throw it all away coming back to the states). I knew that someone in my general area had pots and pans they weren't using and that they could easily allow me to borrow for a month; but there was no way for me to organize the transaction. Thus, we built sendr: an app that uses location services to create a shared economy where you can share everything.
What it does
Sendr allows you to simply enter what you're looking for (let's say an iPhone 5 charger), how much you're willing to pay for a specific amount of time (for example $2 for 1 hour), and then any sellers in the area receive a notification that you're looking to buy the item. Sellers can then login and say that they are willing to rent out their item for a particular price (while providing a picture of the product as well). Then, the buyers ("renters") pay for the transaction and will be able to chat to determine a place where they can meet. The app is completely location based so that users only see items that users are looking to rent in your near vicinity. In the meantime, the company--sendr--will monetize by claiming 5% of all transaction costs. Users can pay with their bank information or using Apple Pay; we integrated the vital Capital One API to allow uses to pay with and to transfer funds between them.
How I built it
We built Sendr completely on iOS Swift (mainly) with a Parse backend.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We integrated the innovative technologies such as Capital One API and Apple Pay into our app. The app is also completely location based and so you would only see items that people are looking to rent in your near vicinity.
What's next for sendr
We're going to commercialize sendr at Penn and try to build up a critical mass of users. Because the product does follow network effects, we're going to try to start small and convince everyone in one floor of our dorm-room building to use the product; we're going to continually iterate and build up a product that these 20 college students just love and use on a daily basis. Then we will spread to other floors in the same building and then the building itself. With this "fail early and fail often" technique, we hope to eventually create a product that becomes as synced into our society as Uber or Airbnb are.
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