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Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

startupdaily.net

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Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#31

Post by dean_mcpherson »

jsankey wrote: post #28
dean_mcpherson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey jsankey, the advantage of Curbit is simplicity. All existing solutions require a fair amount of effort of the person wanting to get rid of something. Freecycle is solving the exact same issue, but I feel that the burden that comes from having to manage pickup / messaging / condition reports all from a very rough web UI deters a huge portion of the population. We shouldn't have to work to get rid of something for…

Thanks for the reply Dean. It seems there is room to make this easier, although it can be hard to find and convince the market of that when there is something "good enough" out there. Hope you have some luck. An idea, to take or leave: a very active niche for this kind of thing is parents of young children. Very young kids (babies/toddlers) in particular churn through a lot of "stuff" by growing out of it before it w…

Thanks jsankey, I agree. One of our key target demographics are parents home with children. From anecdotal experience, they are a good fit to both the supply and demand of temporary use items, and also more likely to be working on restoration projects or DIY that will benefit from free materials.

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#32

Post by danieltillett »

endual wrote: post #23
danieltillett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is illegal, but if my council is anything to go by the chance of anyone using curbit’s data to prosecute anyone is close to zero. This basically happens organically anyway. There are teams of pickers who come around just before council pickups and take away anything of value (and lots of stuff of no value too). All that gets left to be collected by the council is the absolute rubbish (rotting mattresses, etc).…

Councils picking up and disposing of stuff is paid for by the council. Councils are your customer. Collect stats on the number and type of items picked up per council. If you get any traction, tell the councils it will cost X$ to keep the service running in their area.

This will only work if it solves the problem of illegal dumping. I have yet to see anything of any value dumped in my area outside of the normal council pickup times and during these times the pickers do this job already of hauling away all the stuff of value.

I am amazed at how low in value the pickers will go. I have thrown out stuff with almost zero value and they have taken it away. My wife and I are always amazed at what gets taken by them.

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#33

Post by danieltillett »

dean_mcpherson wrote: post #15
danieltillett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is illegal, but if my council is anything to go by the chance of anyone using curbit’s data to prosecute anyone is close to zero. This basically happens organically anyway. There are teams of pickers who come around just before council pickups and take away anything of value (and lots of stuff of no value too). All that gets left to be collected by the council is the absolute rubbish (rotting mattresses, etc).…

At the moment, we're not really interested in monetising. We're treating this as infrastructure that we wish existed that doesn't. However, if it does turn out to solve a problem for people, I'm confident that we will be able to generate enough small methods of monetisation to keep the doors open.

It might be worth teaming up with a local charity in this case. You could give the charity first pick of the items and then open it up to the public.

Good luck with the project.

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#34

Post by dean_mcpherson »

femto wrote: post #21
dean_mcpherson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey femto, I'm Dean McPherson (@dean_mcpherson), the dev making Curbit. Our current plan is exactly that, if the user is posting their own stuff, we ask them to place it in a legal, accessible location. This is accomplished by asking them for special pickup instructions (e.g. "On the porch", or "On top of the mailbox"). The other big use case though is reporting stuff that others have dumped. Using the app makes no s…

Thanks for the response Dean. One also needs to be careful if picking stuff up without the owner's permission, as it is technically theft. Granted that prosecution is unlikely. Maybe councils would be prepared to pay for the "reporting stuff that others have dumped" aspect? If not, they might pay for a "report stuff that needs our attention" aspect: using Curbit's infrastructure to provide a stream of pictures of pot…

Creating services for local government to use is definitely an avenue of monetisation we will investigate later down the track if the app gains traction.

Obviously however, user privacy and encouraging the core use of the app is the primary concern, and we won't pursue any method of monetisation that will jeopardise that.

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#35

Post by jonesb6 »

This is a very, very, very, common problem in American college towns where students frequently have to move on short notice. It is very common for the local homeless and impoverished to idle outside dorms, apartment complexes, or rental units, and immediately dig through anything left out on the curb or in the garbage. They're often able to scrounge items still in their original packaging, you know that stuff mom sent you that you never needed, and will sell them at the local pawn shop etc. for pennies on the dollar.

Having recently necessitated the service, it is very expensive to store or move even medium sized items in this situation, as local and national movers/storage companies are well aware of the situation and will fleece customers with outrageous fees and even vulturous customer service (oh you didn't pick up our call? +$20 reschedule fee..).

If 1) they can make themselves accessible to a large number of college students and 2) they provide a smoother user experience then craigslist and co (possibly by partnering with University housing associations cough cough) I can see this being incredibly successful.

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#37

Post by dean_mcpherson »

specialist wrote: post #27
dean_mcpherson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey femto, I'm Dean McPherson (@dean_mcpherson), the dev making Curbit. Our current plan is exactly that, if the user is posting their own stuff, we ask them to place it in a legal, accessible location. This is accomplished by asking them for special pickup instructions (e.g. "On the porch", or "On top of the mailbox"). The other big use case though is reporting stuff that others have dumped. Using the app makes no s…

I'd use something like Curbit if it matched my stuff with charities that want it. I believe (on faith) that local charities make better use of my stuff. My "go to" charity is the local services for the blind, because an ex-gf works for eye surgeons. Though it'd be more convenient, I'm loathe to give to Goodwill (greedy execs, bad labor relations), Salvation Army (homophobes, jesus freaks), Red Cross (misrepresenting…

That's a cool idea. A lot of charities in Aus will come and pick up stuff that's valuable if you organise it.

With Curbit we're really trying to create infrastructure for one way gifting that takes the weight of organisational weight off the donor. There is nothing stopping charities from picking up items listed on Curbit though.

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#38

Post by dean_mcpherson »

jonesb6 wrote: post #35

This is a very, very, very, common problem in American college towns where students frequently have to move on short notice. It is very common for the local homeless and impoverished to idle outside dorms, apartment complexes, or rental units, and immediately dig through anything left out on the curb or in the garbage. They're often able to scrounge items still in their original packaging, you know that stuff mom sen…

Thanks jonesb6 :)

Re: Sydney startup Curbit lets users pick up someone’s unwanted goods from the kerb

#40

Post by yitchelle »

mrmondo wrote: post #14

In Melbourne people seem to leave stuff out on the curb all the time and people just come and grab what they want, after its been there a week or so the council comes round and picks it up (I assume).

I can confirm this, especially for inner suburbs like St.Kilda, Brunswick etc. I did it a couple of times when I have excess stuff that I don't need anything further.
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