 "Oxford alumni bring sharing back to India with RentSher.com")
In 2007 and 2008, as the world was pushed into the greatest recession anybody in the workforce had seen, three Indian students at Oxford were discovering ways to live light, have variety, and yet save money. It was a simple concept of collaborative consumption by means of renting. They were not only renting houses and cars, but also things like books, dinner jackets, bicycles and even power tools. It was a great economical and environmental friendly way of living, and seemed even more apt under the circumstances, and was definitely gaining momentum there.
In a stark contrast back in India, the boom in economy in general and e-commerce in particular, a wave where heavy discounting by competitive Flipkarts, SnapDeals and Jabongs led to people to shop frantically and owning things more than they ever needed.
Abhijit Shaha and his wife Ketaki as new parents had the idea of raising their child in an environmentally sustainable manner. One way was to increase the consumption of already manufactured goods and the best way to achieve that was by means or renting. This led to the idea of RentSher .
Soon Abhijit's Oxford classmates and now family friends Harsh Dhand and Karandeep S Vohra joined the team and are promoting collaborative consumption through the online platform www.RentSher.com. The team figured that the idea of peer to peer renting and sharing is simple, but effective only when executed in an end to end manner the way RentSher is doing it.
Harsh, who graduated from IIT-D in 2004; heads the venture as CEO and Business Development, bringing suppliers, vendors and institutional buyers on board, besides handling the overall operations of the venture.
Abhijit, passionate about strategy and product development talks of the RentSher platform as a hybrid of Olx, Flipkart and Makemytrip as it not only connects the owner and renter of the product, but people can also place orders and book a product for required dates and can opt for online payment or COD, and the product is delivered and picked up from doorstep to doorstep.
Karandeep, the third of the gang, was so inspired by the idea's execution in Bangalore, that he also took a plunge from his job in PWC to launch and lead the Delhi operations. He subsequently plans to take RentSher across cities in India and outside.
Manufacturing every kilo of technology leaves behind an average 3700 kg of waste material. Yet, for decades, the whole premise for a successful economy and successful companies is based on more production and more consumption-buy more, sell more. This mind-set creates an unending cycle, depleting valuable resources and creating mountains of waste.
RentSher aims for a fresh approach towards a world where consumers consume the things that they require, without the burden of owning them every single time and in the process, not only do we save some money, but also rightfully gain a sense of pride in having played our part for making the earth a more sustainable place.
