When exploring a brand new city, lugging around a bulging backpack of belongings is the last thing you want to do.
Fortunately, Boston startup Cubbyhole has come up with a solution to relieve you from that bulky burden.
Created by a crew of Boston University graduates, Cubbyhole is a mobile app that instantly connects people with self-storage needs with those nearby with extra space to spare.
Sound familiar? It’s not a far cry to say that the startup was inspired by Airbnb, considering that Cubbyhole Co-founder and CEO Nus Sharif is an avid user of the crowdsourced accommodations company.
According to fellow Co-founder and CMO Jason Kaplan, when Sharif playing the hosting role, he would often get asked for a late check out by travelers hoping to squeeze in a few more hours in Boston – minus the pain of hauling around of luggage.
“He recognized there was a void or lack of short-term storage available in the city,” explained Kaplan.
But not only were short-term storage options non-existent, long-term storage market was overpriced and misleading. Anyone who has had his or her hand forced into shelling out hundreds for a storage unit understands the dilemma. Storage insurance is often mandated, but rarely included in the price of the unit, shared Kaplan.
To solve these problems, Cubbyhole offers a de facto insurance policy for both short- and long-term storage options. People can use the startup’s app to search for those options based on location and user approval ratings in their quest to securely place their items for a few hours or a few months.
Daily storage options start at $15 and go up from there depending on duration and size of space. Kaplan assures that all users on the platform – both renters and hosts – undergo a background check. Users must sign into the app through Facebook and their credit card history, at which point Cubbyhole can assess their credit score and whether or not identities align, so the team “can ensure that the people in our system are real people,” notes Kaplan. Plus, users post a picture of the items they are hoping to store, so hosts are always in control of what comes into their houses.
When the deal is done, both renters and hosts rate one another. Three bad reviews are all it takes to wipe a user off the platform, giving the platform all the more legitimacy. There’s no cancellation charge either, and users can call Cubbyhole’s 800 number at anytime, day or night.
Cubbyhole plans to rake revenue by swiping 30 percent of the transaction (done via PayPal) to pay for credit card fees and taxes, leaving the host to pocket 70 percent of the deal.
The four-man company is currently only serving Boston in its beta, but has big dreams to move into other cities around the country. Though currently bootstrapped, Cubbyhole has peaked the interests of a few investors. If the startup’s story plays out anything like that of Airbnb’s, we’ll be hearing a lot more about Cubbyhole in the coming months.
