Gone are the days when people would knock on their neighbor’s door and ask to borrow a cup of sugar. Now, in a city like Boston, you’re lucky if you manage to make eye contact with the person who lives across the hall. But a startup called Doorbell is trying to bring back the neighborly nostalgia using technology.
As the venture describes on its website, it wants to “transform your building into a community.” Doorbell was founded this past January by three Harvard undergraduates - Aleeza Hashmi, Ben Pleat, Steven Petteruti - and is launching its initial testing in a couple of residential complexes in Cambridge next month. Through its platform, the venture will enable building residents to connect with each other for anything they might need from one another, like borrowing a vacuum cleaner or finding a pet sitter.
The inspiration for Doorbell came about when the students had a taste of the real world, working in cities like New York and Washington, D.C. They quickly realized that the tight-knit dorm communities to which they were accustomed don’t transcend into life beyond school.
“I knew maybe three out of 350 people in my building,” Pleat joked about his Greenwich Village digs.
“It will allow you to share resources between neighbors, optimizing the use of things we already have.”
To be clear, both Hashmi and Pleat emphasized that Doorbell isn’t a social network. Instead, it’s really a peer-to-peer platform that lets neighbors link up for whatever needs they may have - whether it be that they are looking to access a printer or find a workout buddy. But, as the Doorbell team sees it, if friendship or continued communication goes beyond the initial exchange of goods and services, all the better.
“We want to facilitate communities, let residents make connections with one another and make it really easy to share good and services in a building,” Pleat explained.
“You can also think about it from a sustainability standpoint,” he continued. “It will allow you to share resources between neighbors, optimizing the use of things we already have.”
Hashmi also mentioned that Doorbell will also be adding property managers to the mix. Essentially, the startup will build a one-stop-shop for all of its users’ residential needs.
“We’ve realized there should be functionality to it, as well as,” Hashmi said. “It’ll become a hub where people can pay rent any way they want...make maintenance requests and talk to their building’s property management company in general.”
Once property managers - as well as nearby businesses that could use Doorbell to run targeted marketing campaigns - are incorporated into the platform, the team anticipates having two strong revenue streams. They’ve been bootstrapping up until this point, but they want to ensure that residents are able to enjoy Doorbell for free.
Image via flickr
