Sharing - Watch This Space
Airbnb, Fon, and Withlocals - it's time to start paying attention to these businesses that are disrupting the economy, which provide services to customers seeking alternatives to the mainstream.
Airbnb, Fon, and Withlocals - it's time to start paying attention to these businesses that are disrupting the economy, which provide services to customers seeking alternatives to the mainstream.
Sharing – to join with another or others in the use of (something).
Digitize this concept and we get the sharing economy or peer economy where owners rent out something they’re not using – their homes, their bicycles, their cars, their Wi-Fi connections, or even their spare time to do tasks.
If you’ve not stumbled upon these businesses that are helping everyday people provide services to customers seeking options alternative to the mainstream, it’s time to start paying attention to them. Melissa O’Young, founder of the event series Let’s Collaborate!, says the sharing industry is only getting stronger and will pull in $350 billion in transactions in 2013 alone.
Some of my favorite businesses in this fast-growing disruptive economy are:
Traditional businesses may wonder how these companies are disrupting existing business models and, being a regular buyer in the social economy, I summarize the pluses I repeatedly experience below:
Being a fan of social businesses, a company that caught my attention recently is Lensy, which is described as a marketplace where everyday photographers can sell their photos to other individuals and businesses that require stock photography. What piqued my interest, and that of various photography enthusiasts in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, is it’s value proposition.
The creators came up with this marketplace to address the challenge of finding Asian photographs from traditional stock libraries but also to champion hobby photographers by providing them an opportunity to make their photos available for sale to brands and businesses.
“Lensy is built upon the sharing economy, where people are able to leverage on unused or excess capacity (in this case great photos they’ve taken and are really proud of but would otherwise just sit in their hard drives and image hosting sites) and monetize these assets,” says founder Vincent Teo.
Upon browsing its library, I’m surprised by the quality of photographs as well as the opportunities provided to photography enthusiasts.
So does Lensy disrupt the traditional stock-library business model in a similar way to other social businesses I’ve experienced?
The sharing economy and the businesses that it inspires are a natural outcome of the connectivity the Internet fosters. So take a close look at this exciting space if you haven’t already. There are plenty of amazing opportunities for a brand or individual looking to buy or take up a service. And you probably already have something that’s of value to sell.