Reborrowed Case Study
Reborrowed Case Study
Product: End to end application
Duration: 2 Days / 13 hours
Role: UX/UI Designer
A project via Techstars Startup Weekend, ReBorrowed is a tool crowdsourcing app designed to allow people access to tools already in their neighborhoods to finish one-off projects – instead of buying new tools or paying exorbitant amounts to rent.
It Should be easy and cost effective to get the tools you need for a single project without having to buy them or rent for an excessive price point
After having the experience myself of needing a ladder to hang something in my apartment, but not wanting to buy or store a ladder and also not being able to find a place to rent one, I understood the need for this tool solution.
The general consensus from User Research seemed to agree:
People find that when doing home projects, they tend to only need a carpet stretcher or a floor sander once. They don’t want to buy it and renting is up to half the cost of buying new.
People would be open to loaning out their toosl if there was a guarantee they would get them back in good condition (aka with umbrella insurance coverage like Airbnb or Getaround).
People with tools love to show others how to use them, show them off, and would enjoy utilizing the tools sitting in their garage to create an income stream.
Introducing: Reborrwed, a tool crowdsourcing app
The solution for tool enthusiasts to tool novices to access the tools they need, create income from tools they barely use, build community, and contribute to sustainability efforts in the tool space. ReBorrowed allows users to see which tools are already in their neighborhood to reduce time and money invested in their home projects.
My Process
To start, it was important to Understand: what actually impacts people when it comes to renting tools?
In order to discover user needs and wants, we utilized Comeptitive Analysis and User Interviews.
We discovered that there are other apps like this, yet they are confined to specific cities on the east and west coast, none in the midwest
According to competitive analysis, many of these apps focus solely on the “make money” aspect, not creating community around tools or getting to know neighbors.
The majority of these apps only utilized a rental business model, not a subscription model.
It also became clear that having functions outside of simple borrowing/rental is important to users. For example, delivery features or the ability to have the owner of the tool explain how to use it or give a demo.
We then used User Research to discover what users truly needed and wanted when it came to renting and lending tools.
We did interview over 16 different users on their experiences, to which we learned:
1. There is a need for renting and borrowing tools for less time, hassle, and money
2. People with tools do want to loan them out as long as they are safe
3. Users would enjoy a delivery option
4. They would also enjoy a way to learn directly from the owner on how to use the tools, i.e. a demo or otherwise
There’s a Market for that
Due to time constraints, it wasn’t possible to build out full personas. However, there were three distinct types of users:
The renter, a person who lives in an apartment or beyond who doesn’t have the space for large tools and can’t particularly augment their living arrangements, so didn’t have a huge use for tools but when they needed them they definitely didn’t want to buy them.
The home owner, home owners, especially new ones, who have projects to complete around the house, but don’t have interest in building an extensive inventory of tools.
The “tool guy”, the person with tons of tools that can’t possibly be in use at all times. This person saw value in allowing others to use their tools and allow their tools to pay for themselves, also the ability to build community around their tools and share the joy of them.
The main piece that defined these Users was they all had a need to lend or borrow tools in A Way that made more sense for Their lifestyles.
Based on feedback from User interviews, I created A user flow to direct our work on the Reborrowed app:
IF I WAS Brenna, I WOULD WANT TO HIT A BUTTON AND be able to see all of the tools available in my neighborhood.
Low Fidelity WireFrames
The Low Fidelity Wireframes gave a rough outline for when and where to place different elements + the components needed to make the user flows a reality.
Reborrowed’s brand underlines its ideals of community, connection, and sustainability.
With the layout from the wireframes, I began to build ReBorrowed’s brand.
I built a style guide that encompassed ReBorrowed’s modern aesthetic accented with an inviting teal, the blue/green being reminiscent of sustainable messaging, pairing it with a logo that accented togetherness and community.
Ultimately, the app is meant to speak to people who would like to use the functionality of the app to borrow tools while creating community around the experience, so it stands out as being warm and inviting with the sleek feel of a SaaS app.
The Final Product
Insights gathered from Our pitch presentation:
Judges were unsure about user retention, which would be something to research and address more in later presentations.
Judges wanted more substantiation around the subscription model we are suggesting.
A clearer idea of launch cost was requested.
Feedback from my teammates:
Although we have concluded that there is a need in the market for this solution, our next steps would be to do further user research, specifically with the users with tools to list, around what would make joining the app and listing their tools a “no brainer”, as well as further research into payment structure and what users are willing to subscribe and rent/borrow tools. All of this would determine launch cost as requested by judges.