From Commune To Sharing Economy Startup

gthuang88 writes: Willy Schlacks grew up in a conservative commune in Missouri without technology like phones or computers. At age 27, he and his brother left and started a construction business. That led to their founding a Web startup called EquipmentShare that helps contractors rent and share construction machinery. The startup went through the Y Combinator program and just raised $2 million from venture capitalists. The Schlacks worldview, coming from a communal society where they never owned property, fits in an interesting way with the digital sharing economy of Uber and Airbnb that's seeping into other industries. But there's one big difference. "I appreciate capitalism," Schlacks says. "I definitely prefer it."

Comments

what patent trolls woud those be?

[FranTaylor]

This EXACT business model was attempted by dirtpile.com 20 years ago

Any patents on this sort of thing have expired long ago

It's a CRAPPY business model, that's what to be afraid of. People don't want to rent equipment, they want to pay for the service that the equipment provides. Joe the scumbag real estate developer doesn't want to rent a bulldozer to level his lot, he wants to contract with an earth moving company to get the dirt moved. He doesn't want to hire a grunt to drive the bulldozer. He doesn't want to deal with topping off the oil and the hydraulic fluid. He wants a flat piece of land so he can call in the next set of contractors to build houses made out of ticky-tacky.

Re:Capitalism is great...

[ultranova]

And since when, do you think, patent trolls represent capitalism?

Ever since someone realized they can make money from patent trolling. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

You don't get to pick and choose only the positive results of profit motive as representing "real" capitalism. The system works great at finding the local optimum; it's flaw is that it both calls for but can't handle clever pyschopaths. And that flaw turns to a fatal one when people fall in love with capitalism and refuse any attempts to mitigate less desirable effects in the name of economic efficiency - or religious orthodoxy, which is what I suspect it really is for a lot of people.

Re:Ownership and Appreciation

[jblues]

As nice as communism sounds

Never sounded nice to me, and of course it fails every where it is implemented.

I actually like communal roads, schools, police, hospitals, military and so forth. The place that I live now is more towards a completely unregulated market and its not as great as you'd think. Sure, we live well with two maids and a driver, but step outside our gated village and its total mayhem.