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Comment by derwiki | Hacker News Reader

I didn't apply, but because I thought my business wasn't mature enough for YCombinator. BUT last time I started this thread, I was criticized for not being as forthright. So! my bootstrapped startup:

www.CameraLends.com, P2P camera rental. We've reached 500 users and nearly 100 transactions to date (and growing and accelerating week-over-week). We did not apply to YC because all YC alums who gave me advice said that YC is looking for "10% week-over-week growth" and our numbers are low enough to not be able to show that consistently.

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Nice. I like the design and good product photos. Not sure of the market size. That would be a good part to focus on if you apply in the future imo.

Thanks for the kind words! Re: market size, BorrowLenses was acquired by Shutterfly for ~$14m in equity (http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/10/25/shutterfly-a...). The market for pure consumer cameras is shrinking based on industry reports (~$100m/year and decreasing) but professional cameras aren't bleeding as bad. And Calumet (a HUGE national rental shop) closed it's doors recently, leaving a lot of photographers not knowing where to rent from.

Ya, I figure your market is the SMB that needs high end equipment. Very cool. I know guys that could use this.

But I bet you'd have great funding success if you broadened the concept beyond just cameras and became Borrow.it or something. I was recently wishing there was a service that rents espresso machines since I've never used one before and the ones I want start at $700. Similar theme but another passionate crowd :)

We're testing the waters for lighting equipment (which is as expensive as cameras) and high-end video, like the RED ONE and Epic-M. It's funny that you suggest becoming more generic -- that was specifically why we began focused on camera gear. There are existing "P2P rent anything" sites like Zilok, Snapgoods, and the now defunct Rentalic. The main problem is that most items aren't expensive enough to be worth the hassle. The frustration that lead to CameraLends was my girlfriend complaining that renting a sewing machine for a few days would require $100 and renting a car to drive across town to pick up, whereas buying a brand new one on Amazon was only $150.

Ah snap! That's good stuff right there. What else can we think of renting? P2P game rentals?

nothing in it really for the renter. you would need a decent size collection. how are you going to large advantage enough over these guys to make it worth while: gamefly, redbox, gamestop

Photojojo released this today as well. http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/16/photojojo-gets-into-camera-...

Have you thought about letting photographers advertise their services? If some of your customers are amateur, or just need nice cameras for a party, they might be willing to pay for the services of a photographer.

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