How did you get this started?
The idea started from home. My business partner Fenni Wang’s dad brought home these tools when he retired from his renovation business and dumped them in the storage room because he didn’t want to throw them away. Naturally, he thought these tools would come in handy at some point. I wondered if there could be an alternative use for the items and that’s when I thought of Rent Tycoons. If every household contributed to this pool of resources maintained by Rent Tycoons, imagine the high product variety there would be available for users. This translates to a low-cost business structure.

How has the response been?
Very good! Since we started in October 2011, we’ve had over 100 registered users with over 200 items listed. We also have over 6,000 unique and frequent visitors, and have processed many successful transactions. Testimonials have been positive too so we expect more Singaporeans will be using our online renting platform.

What are some of the oddest items people have put up for rent?
We’ve had people renting out Swarovski crystal decorations, an OSIM massage chair, cars for use in Ho Chi Minh and Bali, as well as laser tag remote-control tanks. We also have a regular business that rents garment steamers for their fashion events.

Share with us some other product rental ideas?
We cannot process rentals for products like boyfriends but based on a market survey we did last December, people would pay to rent party costumes, chocolate fondue, bouncy castles, as well as console and board games.

Any expansion plans in the horizon?
Service-wise, we’re working on providing paid online advertising and an e-cataloging service, where we’ll list users’ items and promote them to the relevant target market. When we have built a large base of active users in Singapore, we’d like to invite investors to partner with us to bring Rent Tycoons to other parts of Asia.