When Marlon Taylor was studying architecture at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he ran into a problem that many college students face: He was low on cash.
"I found myself really limited in resources," he said. "As a college student, there’s times when you don’t really have a lot of money but you have things that you feel you could utilize and make money off of."
For example, he had camera equipment that he wasn't using but selling stuff on Craigslist is a bit "sketchy" he pointed out, and he wasn't sure he was ready to sell his equipment for good.
Now, three years later, he's launched Frntal, a platform that brings a bit more transparency to the peer-to-peer marketplace, and can help the broke college student (or broke anyone) create cash from the stuff lying around their apartment.
Frntal (pronounced "frental") a peer-to-peer rental app. Users can create listings with photos for their stuff, as well as set a security deposit, rental price and rental period (up to 364 days). Renters can browse listings by search or geolocation, request to rent different items, and message with the lister in the app. Both the lister and renter can be reviewed on the platform, creating more accountability on both sides, and the payment is done in-app.
"It’s like Airbnb but for things and spaces," said Taylor.
Taylor, who cofounded the startup with fellow UIUC alum Hameed Bello, just launched the app in February, so he's still building up a base of users and listings. They've been able to facilitate about 10 rentals so far. He notes that every listing has to be approved by an admin before it goes on the site--nothing violent or profane is allowed on the platform (in other words, no renting knives). Listings run the gamut, including parking spaces, an ice cream maker, speakers, camera equipment, lenses and lights.
Taylor and Bello hope to target college campuses, the freelance community and residential buildings to grow their user base. They're bootstrapped to date, and take a 10 percent cut on rentals for revenue.
There are other peer-to-peer rental marketplaces out there including Zilok and PeerRenters (and many others have come and gone), but none have taken off just yet. Taylor added Frntal is different because it only focuses on rentals (they don't plan on expanding to buying and selling) and they're targeting college campuses specifically, which he believes could be a big customer base. They also have an in-app timeline feature that's similar to Venmo's public newsfeed. Taylor hopes this will create a public dialogue that could give people new ideas about what they could rent or list.
