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Comment by gojomo | Hacker News Reader

My own thoughts:

- what's the cost advantage over the usual buy-and-sell-back-to-used=bookstores approach?

- do enough students want to hold the inventory and take on the risk of nonreturns/expiring editions/etc.? (If this is a economic winner, I would have already expected it to be done informally already by hustling undergrads... is it common?)

- how much more lifetime does the physical textbook have?

And if you've been at this since 2007, you probably know that various kinds of textbook exchanges are so commonly proposed (and go nowhere) that they're (in some circles) a running joke. Google [sethi "trade your used books"] for what I mean.

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Good questions. Let me try to respond by line.

- Renting a book out once will yield the renter within 75% of what they'd get by selling back to the bookstore. You should be able to rent it out 2-4 times which means it yields more than selling back to the bookstores. This, of course, implies demand for your book.

- That's the big question. We believe there's enough interest by students who want to save money and/or are sick of bookstores.

- Long enough for a venture. Ultimately, this will go digital but that'll be a slow process. There's a lot invested in physical textbooks. It's something we're keeping our eyes on.

There are tons of "trade your used books" sites. We believe our advantage is that we simply act as a facilitator. We don't have a warehouse of books or employ people to manage inventory. We can, on a dime for the most part, start operations in Germany or India.

Hopefully our advantage keeps us from ending up like the rest of the "trade your used books" sites.

It seems like what you've done is to reduce your liabilities (you hold no textbook inventory) by pushing that onto a student. If it works, awesome -- brilliant business strategy!

However, a few questions: - do you have reason to believe that there is a small entrepreneurial subset of students who want to deal with the extra hassle of shipping/receiving books for a few extra bucks? - do you think students won't realize that they can buy used, sell back, and end up ahead (versus your system)?

Have you done any customer development or validation on this? I highly recommend Steve Blank's method. Students are easy to get ahold of, and generally willing to talk to people, so it'll be a good test of your idea. Go through his customer discovery and validation steps first, before you build any more.

In short, it seems like your value add to the student who owns the book is to say "hey, rent your books and own them, make more than you otherwise would!" This implies that the other side of the transaction will be the source of this revenue. I don't see the renters getting very much value from using this system (versus buying used and selling at the end of the semester). THen again, I'm not your target, so get out there and talk to students!

We've done a survey and have had positive feedback so far. We don't believe that means the idea will work because there's more friction in real life than in taking a survey. But it's given us enough motivation to determine if students will really use this system.

We hope that in time we can make it more financially viable for students. At first we'll need early adopters who buy into the idea of renting from students instead of bookstores. That seems to be an easy sell since few students aren't frustrated with the options available. The trick will be providing them with a great experience so they, in turn, become evangelists to the rest of the student population.

But yes, we share your concerns...and plan to squash them :).

If this is a economic winner, I would have already expected it to be done informally already by hustling undergrads... is it common?

Going only off of personal experience I frequently swapped or loaned books within my social circle. Already had trust established and knew where I could get my hands on them. Facebook app facilitating trading between established connections?

I think a big barrier is making it easy for students to complete a transaction. Students with a social circle (fraternities, etc.) may not find as much value as students without big social circles. I had a social circle but they all needed the same books as I did.

Also, we don't expect this to be useful for every single student. We're looking to identify a niche and provide an excellent experience for them.

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