This is part of a series of posts I call “Weird startup ideas.” These are just some ideas on top of my head for new startups/businesses. These are usually crappy because I didn’t research well, but they still have some nuggets of information from which we can get inspiration. So feel free to steal them or destroy them and tell me why they suck or how I can improve ‘em.
Full list of weird-startup-ideas here
Idea:
Rental container service that delivers storage containers directly to your home.
Problem and Value Proposition:
When people need to store their stuff for the mid/long term, they usually pack it, go to a rental storage unit, and dump it. And do it in reverse when they have to bring their belongings back. It is painful and time-consuming.
On the other hand, storage units have fixed land spaces around cities to meet demand. As a result, real estate prices could heavily affect the storage capacity and rental costs.
What if we could have a shipping container delivered by a truck to your place directly as a rental storage unit? Customers just have to order it online, and we bring a small to mid-size (depending on their needs) shipping container to them. After loading, we transport the container to some far-off location with cheap land rent (reducing our storage/real-estate cost), unload it from the truck, and store it long term.
When the customers need their stuff back, they just request delivery, and we load the container back on the truck and ship it to them.
Benefits:
- Customers:
- Save time and effort moving stuff to rental units
- Business:
- Reduce our long term land cost by renting out space in far off cheaper locations
- Using standardized shipping containers helps in optimizing storage spaces by stacking
Issues
- High capital requirements
- Shipping containers
- Delivery trucks and manpower
- Loading/Unloading infrastructure at storage sites
- Storage lands
- Similar services exist out there.
- There are similar rental services that bring a truck and help you load/unload stuff. But they still rent land nearby, so there’s still some scope around optimizing that.
I haven’t researched this thoroughly, so this kind of service already exists out there, probably (at least in Tokyo, they don’t, where I live).
This could be a nice idea, especially in expensive cities.
