A Visit to Garageville in App-land.

Why would anyone want to compete with craigslist, amazon or ebay, never mind every local classified section in the country? Good question.

Short answer...why not?!

Disclaimer: I'll assume what I am about to write exists or is being made as we speak. If not then lucky me and lucky you.

Here goes:
My wife and I have a collected a bunch of junk over the last 15 years of living together and being married. We have gone through three major life changes during that time, each one carrying with it its own artifacts, experiences and beliefs. Over that time we've moved from hip-tropolis to collegetown to kidville. Honestly, I am blown away by how different our life is now (kids-mega different), AND I am astounded by the amount of things we've collected [from previous life stages] that still populate our space.

So over breakfast we were discussing our stuff reduction plan. Our options:
1. Garage sale
-Pro's we just walk stuff to garage, put prices on stuff, sit and sell.
-Con's we have to get change/cash, deal with garage sale culture where everything is valued at a quarter (25cents), sit all day w/ said stuff that we don't care about and tend to our two little boys. Then end of day we have to pack all the stuff that didn't sell. -Lame.
2. Ebay
-Pro's are an established brand and network plus bidding that hopefully adds value to our junk rather than losing it. Web based payment and not having to meet potential buyers in person.
-Con's are non-local buyers, packing n shipping, worldwide competition and who-knows-how-long to sell it all.
3. Craigslist
Pro's are local buyers and no shipping, cash only rocks the house, an endless supply of "craigslister's" looking for weird deals and in my experience less haggling than a garage sale.
Con's are people want to "see" it before buying which means you are at the mercy of buyers. Like ebay you get the who-knows-how-long to sell problem, and similarly yet not stated above, you have to photograph each item and manually load them to the site's server. Worst of all you have to field questions about the stuff you want to get rid of while pretending to value it long enough to can get a good price for it. (Whew that was long...I must be trying to talk myself out of that option! ;)
4. Donate to Goodwill.
-Pro's are plenty. You get to feel good about helping out a good organization. You can drop off functional stuff without paying a dump/landfill fee. You get to feel smugly Green. In some cases you can claim as a deduction on income taxes.
-Con's are you don't get paid for stuff that might actually be of great value like that brand new stereo receiver you never use because you only listen to the radio over the internet on your mobile phone now. The only significant con is loading and transporting the stuff to the reception center...esp if ya have a lot of stuff to purge like my wife and I do.

Ok, so my wife and I are going with

a mix of option 4 and option 3. But what we really want is a non-lowball version of option 1 and the ability to do all transactions with Square or PayPal! Most of all we want to be able to target people who'd have value for some of the things we want to purge. These people include a mix of local friends and their extended network of local family and friends. They include people we don't know, who would never go to a garage sale but do have value or use for things like new/never used cloth diapers or that stereo receiver I mentioned above. We want to be able to broadcast to people of similar tastes and interests and life stages in a big data, Amazon style! Ultimately we'd want an app or widget that leverages the power of existing networks like Facebook or Twitter.

Here's the pitch:
The GRRage widget and ipad app is the latest rage in social network enabled sales.

GRRage mixes the concepts of garage sales, weekly classified ads, big data analytics and a dating service to deliver on point, on price and on target barter, trade or sale of personal goods and services.

GRRage reads your network's mind (plus extensions) to find people, groups or organizations who will most likely want the crap you are selling. Furthermore they assure you that the buyer/user will find value in your stuff, liberating it from the clutches of your apathetic and marginalizing descriptions.

GRRage scans the landscape based on criteria of your choosing. You want someone local to see your stuff? You got it. You want a couple who recently began a family and is looking for used cloth diapers? No problem, GRRage found em! You want to tell everyone in your Facebook inner circle that you are selling your beloved Eames chair to pay for your first condo? GRRage does that and provides them a place to like, hold (show interest), share, buy or offer a barter/trade opportunity.

GRRage also helps you find groups of like minded individuals. Are you leaving hip-tropolis for kidville? GRRage shows you similar people who either live in kidville, recently relocated to kidville or live in kidville desperately wishing it was more like hip-tropolis! Whatever your needs, whatever your stage in life, GRRage has a ragin' great idea or connection.

GRRage works in reverse as well. You need a used XBOX Kinect for a super secret startup project that creates a height/weight measurement service/app for inner city convenience store retailers? (No more measure tape on the door jam or shaken memories post robbery!) No problem, GRRage finds the Kinect and goes the extra mile to get you that much needed missing link, your technical partner!

GRRage is GRRate!
At least I think so, but then again I made it up. Founders always love their creations in a way that is blinding.

Ok, rock the day people!
CL