The sharing economy is exploding. Excess capacity in your home, your car, your skill set – it’s worth money and you can sell it via technology, on your schedule. It’s why companies like Lyft, AirBnB, and DogVacay are getting so much attention and press. There are 50+ services that are now available to you via a mobile app, pulled from excess capacity, via the shared economy. But not all are equal in this new marketplace, due to the actual service they provide. There is actually a spectrum that runs from legal to illegal, from good for society to a pain the butt for society. Starting on the legal/good for society is a company like Soothe. They provide a massage by a licensed/vetted therapist, at your home/office, within an hour, This service is legal, convenient, and violates no law or local ordinance. Your neighbors/co-workers aren’t going to suffer anything but jealousy if you touch the app and get a massage. Compare this to AirBnB where the service is renting one’s house/condo when you’re not using it, even if you never use it, essentially turning it into a non compliant hotel. (Hotels must be built to meet fire code, accessibility, and other requirements we all want. Houses/condos are not.) Imagine yourself landing that great condo or moving your family into your starter home, only to have your next door neighbor turn their unit into an AirBnB rental unit. One night renters don’t treat a property (or noise levels) the same as owners. It seems like it should be illegal; actually it is. Most cities/towns have local ordinances (a fancy way of saying laws) that prohibit this exact activity. Yet AirBnB thrives. A company like DogVacay is in the middle. If your neighbor already has a dog, and decides to take care of 2-3 more on the weekends, but does a good job of controlling the noise, does it bother you? Maybe yes, maybe no. I’ve got some ideas on critical components for DogVacay’s success, which I’ll post in the future.
Some how does this one end? Time will tell. There are certainly some services that are beginning a metamorphosis in how they are delivered (think: almost any service delivered 1:1 can be done in a person’s living room… whoa, there was just a run on dot coms at godaddy) But there are some services, renting your house is the big one, that have an equally good chance of being severely limited as home owners across the country rise up and say not in my backyard.