MakeSpace, A Dropbox For Real Life Storage, Launches In NYC, Raised $1.3M

Great observation. You should take that to another thread where people are lamenting that the "It's like X for Y" pitch has jumped the shark. You've added nothing of value to the conversation with respect to this company's business model or the problem they are tackling.

People please don't upvote this stuff. You're hurting HN.

Hi,

I'm Sam the founder of MakeSpace. It's been a long day so my apologies for the delay.

3D printer jokes aside, I had the problem of not remembering where things were in my girlfriend's storage unit. A lot of storage customers have trouble remembering what's in the storage unit in the first place! (The lifetime average $PSA customer is 3 years and 50% of customers > 1 year). So the "access anywhere" analogy to Dropbox is what people (and not just tech people) like to reference when they hear us talk about it.

Also, to your point about "x for y," it works only for a certain type of crowd if both things are well known (and Dave McClure mentions that here: http://image.slidesharecdn.com/howtopitchavc-090321140851-ph...). A lot of YC companies do it when they pitch investors because it's a great way to connect quickly to their audience. When customers call up my 1-888 number; however, "Dropbox for real life" aren't the first words out of my mouth.

I like using "Its the X for Y" but in a negative way. "This startup is the Google wave of Y".

Manhattan Mini Storage does free trips to/from your storage unit, you just have to book in advance and fit into a van. It was awesome when I was using them.

Given this pricing model, it's more like Amazon Glacier than Dropbox.

Won't people just use them to store their junk and never ask for it back? How is that business model sustainable?

"Honey, where's that extra photo album?" "It's in storage, do you want to pay $29 to have them bring it over?"

The real problem is people have too much crap and are unwilling to get rid of what they don't use. I'm a data packrat but at least it only costs me a $100 3TB drive every few years.

EDIT: I should have read the article. The parent comment didn't mention the annual fee. That makes more sense.

Or in London with http://www.boxload.co.uk/

Note: I have nothing to do with that company :)

The best part for operators (and the shitty part for consumers) is after you have their stuff, you can increase their rates every three to six months! What are they going to do, take it all back?

Happy Boxbee user here.

The real thing I love about it is that it's per-box pricing. The thing I hate about storage spaces is that if you get rid of some stuff in it, you are paying exactly the same amount. With Boxbee if you get rid of a couple of boxes, your bill goes down the next month.

Heheh, if I move to Des Moines, and press the 'retrieve' button on the website, will they still deliver for $29?

It sounds a lot like BoxBee which I think launched earlier this year.

$6.25 for a 3-cu ft. box (presumably something close to 18" per side) sounds like a really terrible deal.

Put it this way: as long as you let me look inside first to make sure you aren't storing anything that will get me arrested or burn my house down, you're welcome to store four 18" cubes in my garage for $25/month.

The pricing is definitely geared towards city living. $300/yr for 12cu ft of storage. I paid $600/yr for 600cu ft of storage at my local U-Haul. So about 25x wholesale/suburban prices. For the price, you get really easy web interface and almost no hassle pickup/delivery. If I lived in a city and had no storage, I would consider it but I don't know how much one can pack in just 3cu ft boxes.

I hope they offer larger boxes or rather, standard pallets. After all, the boxes will be storage in typical bins in a warehouse. Industrial warehouses rent out indoor pallet-sized bins (4ft x 4ft x 5ft = 80cu ft.) for about $12/mo. If they charge a customer $25/mo for 12cu ft and stack even 5 customers in one pallet (60 cu ft), they make $25*5 - $12 = $113 => 90%+ gross margin. This is just monthly storage. Of course the warehouse charges handling fees but they would certainly offer price breaks when 1000+ bins are rented out.

This can be a very profitable venture if the marketing and customer service is done right and their small apartment dwelling customers wouldn't have to rent a car or ask friends for a ride just to storage the christmas decorations each year. All in all, just what a real-world startup is supposed to be.

About four years ago, I used a service like this to move between homes [1]. It's particularly useful if your move out dates don't match up with your move in dates, and if you want to load/unload at a more leisurely pace. At first glance, the only difference seems to be the size of storage units, and maybe a bit more automation in the web interface.

The Pod moving/storage unit was basically in units of half-size shipping containers. They would deliver on a date, you'd move your stuff in, and schedule a pickup. Keep the unit in their facilities as long as you care to pay the rent, then kickoff the "download" process whenever you were ready.

[1] http://www.pods.com

I don't think this is a new concept. I used "The Box Butler" when I moved to NY about 4 years ago. They would pick up and drop off and even supply boxes to store the stuff in. It wasn't the cheapest thing ever but it was convenient.

New York apartments can have very little storage space when I was looking for a studio some had one small closet and no bathroom storage at all. People I know use them for out of season sports stuff and clothes, especially couples where two people are sharing one small closet.

I think you would find this article really interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06self-storage-t....

Yes. The boxes have eyelets (for locks or heavy duty zip ties + security tape) and are sealed in front of the customer.