Rentified: Epiphany to Entrepreneurship

Rich people buy, but richer people say,” Why buy when you can Rent?”

Most people hailing from major metros would be familiar with the word ‘rent’. For them, rent is basically a term used in conjunction with property, machinery and other stuff reserved for grumpy adults. For their small town counterparts, renting would be a mostly alien concept. But now, thanks to the effort of four budding entrepreneurs, renting is soon becoming a household term in Manipal.

Most end of the month conversations:

Bro #1: Bro, it’s dominoes one on one day. Let’s binge on pizza?

Bro #2: Lemme check…..

Bro #1: ……….

Bro #2: Can’t bro, completely outta dough!

We’re all painfully familiar with this line of conversation. So one day, co-founder Saswat decided to banish such financial evil and formed the idea of a dedicated renting service.

Rentified: The Concept and Breakthrough

Well, as stated earlier, the Idea for Rentified started due to a necessity for an economical and permanent solution to temporary needs such as books, sports equipment etc. If you look around your house, you’ll be surprised by the amount of stuff you’ve bought, used a few times and never since glanced at it. Rentified is the service between those who MAY need an item in the future and wish to retain it and those who’d wish to sell it off. An example would be the nation of Germany. In Germany, a majority of people live in rented accommodations instead of buying since financially speaking, it just makes more sense that way.

Here is how Rentified functions:

• The Client (you) puts up a certain item for rent with all the necessary details on the Website. Registration is mandatory for putting up a listing and takes exactly 1 minute.
• The folks at Rentified contact the client and ensure the genuineness of the item.
• Any person looking to rent the particular item pays a fixed security deposit and takes possession.
• On return of the said item, the money is deducted from the security deposit and the remaining balance handed back.
• In case of misuse/damage to the product, the Rentified team takes responsibility and ensures that the person responsible for it compensates the client fully.

On Entrepreneurship

[This article wasn’t just intended to glorify a single innovative venture in Manipal. This article is a shout out to all those people who’re being remarkably conservative with their ingenuity and sheer brilliance by keeping it to themselves. For all those whose procrastination abilities, laziness, limited motivation prevents them from scaling peaks, here, this is for you.]

“Stop Thinking, Start Doing!”

The above quote is the mantra by which all the co-founders swear by. When the idea of Rentified was conceived, the founders knew that further delay would only lead to procrastination and eventually the thrill of it would die down. Hence, they jumped at the first opportunity, put together a team and started development of the website in the same month as the conceptualization. This was way back in November 2015.

Despite the standard hurdles they faced i.e. parental pressure, attrition, academic and financial pressure, the spirit of entrepreneurship always won over and they persevered on. Things escalated when their Idea was presented at Manipal Entrepreneurship Summit(MES) where Rentified secured the first place.

The 14 member team worked nonstop, daily from 5:30 to 11:30 PM. Pouring their heart and soul into their brainchild paid off and in the month of March, their website was launched. The hierarchy of the team is completely flat with every member being treated equally and no predefined notion of a “boss” per say.

To sum it up, for all budding entrepreneurs out there:

• Get off the couch and get to work. The circuit won’t solder itself nor will the website develop itself.
• Finding like-minded people is really important since they may provide each other motivation in tough times.
• Hard Work and Perseverance are the magic words one must recite continuously.
• Seriously, get off that couch.

There you have it folks, straight from the horse’s mouth. Remember,

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”

The link to the website can be found here or (www.rentified.in)