Now, if you're feeling the love too, there are many ways you can help:
Thanks to all of you who have been supporting us
Zilok is the fruit of a very ambitious project. A desire to enable and promote a new way of consuming, that would give people more choices while saving natural resources. No more buying things new that we'll use once and then store forever in a closet.
In this new century natural resources are becoming scarce, and the economy is starting to notice, not just with higher prices but also with a growing concern for conservation. Because it makes sense economically too. And that's what peer-to-peer renting is offering: an economic structure for a more efficient use of the community's resources. It goes beyond hugging trees. It makes sense, economically too.
So one year after the first release of the site, we feel we're going in the right direction. Looking back, here's the achievements we're the most proud about:
Now, our objective and big challenge for the long run is to become a mainstream service. We want you and everyone you know to think Zilok tomorrow for renting as naturally as you think eBay today for selling. That's the horizon, and with the help of our community we're going for it.
We'll need all the help we can get to bring peer-to-peer renting to US homes, so if you want to get involved, contact us or start spreading the word!
A video game system, karaoke equipment, Blu-Ray movies in your living room? An air mattress, a party costume in your closet? A bike, a stroller, golf clubs in your garage? With these things alone you could make more than $40 a month. Take a minute to try out our rental income simulator, you’ll be amazed at how much money you can earn!
Did you know that in America 80% of the objects we own are used less than once a month? It’s just amazing to realize how much stuff we own and don’t use all the time. Most of it really. And these are all things that other people may need, too, once in a while. Rent them and start making money!
When people create an account to list something up for rent on Zilok, they have a specific idea of what they want to rent out. But once you open that door, and start looking around for what is in your closet, in your garage, in your living room, the list keeps getting longer and longer…
For people to realize how much money they can make, we built a powerful tool to simulate a rental income based on what’s in your house. Based on how often and the average price things are rented on Zilok, we are able to tell you what your rental income could be. Enjoy it and pass it along to your friends!
We're very honored to have been chosen by people and the jury as the best web 2.0 startup in Europe.
Zilok is very active in Europe where people from 4 countries are already renting their stuff from one another: France, UK, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The final of the Startup 2.0 contest was held in Barcelona, Spain, which is a perfect place to celebrate!
The jury included outstanding personalities from the entrepreneur, VC and media world, including Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, Martín Varsavsky, founder of Fon, Mike Butcher and Ouriel Ohayon, editors of TechCrunch in Europe, and many others.
Thanks to all the jury members for believing in us, thanks to all our users to have made it possible, we'll make sure we're up to your expectations!
Over 300 Internet startups have been submitted from all over Europe and Zilok is one of the 10 remaining ones, ready to pitch next week for the title.
Startup 2.0 is a European web startup competition, with an outstanding jury including Loic Le Meur (Seesmic's founder), Martín Varsavsky (Fon's founder), Ouriel Ohayon and Mike Butcher (TechCrunch editors)
You can learn more about the competition on the Startup 2.0 site
For more than eight years, ClickandBuy has been providing a secure payment solution. You only need to subscribe and type in your payment information once, and then can make simple payments in more than 7,000 online merchants. Now including Zilok!
Click here for more information about ClickandBuy.
A couple months ago we introduced the feature that allows you to directly contact owners on their rental listings. We decided to go one step further and now we're bringing forum boards to you so you can ask other people about their renting experiences, what items worked best for you, what to look for when you're renting something, in fact just about anything!
This is a place for you to hang out with the community, share ideas, and help each other. You can access it all here.
With your member account you can post messages, respond to other members and create your own topic for discussion, you're in control.
To get started, we created three forum boards:
Forums are a friendly place, we set up a few simple guidelines to make sure it stays this way. Enjoy and engage in the conversation!
Cresco is committed to the local communities, and offers great service and advice to their customers, making renting a much more valuable and rewarding experience than buying. These values connect perfectly with Zilok vision, and we're happy to welcome Cresco aboard.
Chris Smith, President of Cresco, gave us his feedback about the experience: "We're very excited at Cresco to join Zilok and help homeowners find the rental equipment they need, when and where they need it. We are committed to support and service the community, locally and conveniently, and Zilok will help us do just that through the Internet. We hope that the Bay Area will fully embrace Zilok and further discover the benefits of renting. The integration of our inventory was straightforward as Zilok took care of all the technicalities. I think Zilok is a very powerful online marketing tool and we are happy to be participating."
Zilok is a member of the American Rental Association and has been welcoming rental businesses from all over the United States to join and list their rentals for our members to benefit from. Our ambition is to provide a convenient access to anything that can be rented locally, thus supporting a new, sustainable and community driven way of consuming.
Cresco Equipment Rentals is the largest independent rental business in the Bay Area. With 18 locations spread out around the Bay, there is always a store you can go to if you need a tool, from a simple drill to a big backhoe. And if you need extra chairs for a party, or production equipment for a movie, they have it too!
We really appreciate this award, it is definitely the most meaningful to us. We say this often, but our members are what make Zilok a great place for finding great, fun and useful stuff. Our members help shape and reshape the website, suggesting features and categories.
So when we feel the interest of people face to face, it is most rewarding!
Here is what the Plugg Press Release tell us about the event: "Plugg’s Start-Ups Rally, a competition for European companies to showcase the most promising young technology ventures, drew 65 exceptional start-ups from 18 countries. The jury, made up of members of Europe’s leading venture capital firms, incubators and renowned internet experts, selected ultimately 20 semi-finalists who pitched the 300-headed audience on stage at the event. After a highly competitive morning session during which the 20 companies each pitched for 2 minutes, the jury and audience jointly voted 3 finalists (Bragster, Viewdle and Zilok) to the afternoon session, where they got 10 minutes to explain what their business is. The jury finally awarded Viewdle (US / Ukraine / Luxembourg) with the first prize, while Zilok (Belgium) walked away with the People’s Choice Award for getting the best ratings from the audience."
Congratulation to Viewdle.com for the Jury's award.
You can read about it on TechCrunch with this post from Mike Butcher.
Since we launched, people have given us lots of tips and suggestions about how they would like the website to evolve. We listen, we respond, we adapt, and we appreciate all this valuable feedback and conversation.
So today, we are very proud and happy to present you the new face of Zilok. This new face resembles our community and features the heart of our project: making everything accessible to people at a bargain.
You'll see some of the faces and stories behind the first items that were available on our site, you'll see more examples of cool things to rent for a project, for a weekend, for a visit, you'll see more in-depth stories about Zilok and our community.
This wasn't easy, but we're happy about the result. We hope you are too, and keep on the good work by telling us what you'd like to see changed, updated, or just what you like!
Special thanks to our members that were specially involved in the suggestions, content, testing of this new homepage: Karen, Adrianna, Zach, Brandy, Bob, Jimmy, Claire, Thierry, Valentine, Nicholas, Marie, John and Byron.
If you'd like to submit your own story about Zilok, contact us! We love to hear from you.
We are very excited to be considered the top of the crop by industry experts, and hope to bring the Award back from Brussels.
For more information, check out this article from TechCrunch UK, and the Plugg website.
Imagine 650 manufacturers of heavy-duty machinery and event rentals, spread out on 750,000 square feet in 3,500 booths, visited by 11,000 rental businesses owners and managers!
This year, however, it is very special. One, because it's happening in Las Vegas. And two, because Zilok is there for the first time!
We want to promote renting as a new, sustainable and community driven way of consuming, as opposed to buying and accumulating. Our mission is to make anything that you can possibly rent accessible to our community, locally and conveniently.
One very good way to do this is to support local businesses, and that's why we are rallying rental businesses from the 50 States today, to help them be a part of the online marketplace, and to help you find what you want, when you want it, and where you want it.
So we built a set of generous incentives so you can make money while spreading the word. That's the Partner Program.
With the Partner Program, we offer you a set of tools so you can invite your friends and advertise Zilok online and offline. Every new Zilok member that will have signed up using one of your tools will become your affiliate.
That means you will earn 10% of the rental commission on each transaction involving your affiliates, whether they are the owner or the renter. And that's going to be valid for a year!
Not only can you make extra money renting your stuff, now you can make even more inviting friends and visitors!
We set up many tools (and more to come) so you can get lots of affiliates:
Zilok Invitations
Zilok created for you a system that allows you to very simply send to people you know invitations to check out and sign up to Zilok. Each invitation email will include a referral email. When your friends subscribe by using this link within 15 days, they become your affiliates for a year!
And for even more convenience, you can automatically retrieve all your contacts from your favorite webmail provider.
Advertise Zilok
You can get easily get lots of affiliates by promoting Zilk, either online or offline.
Offline, all you have to do is give your friends your Parner Code. You'll find it with the other Affiliation Tools. When they sign up, they enter your code, they become your affiliate for a year.
Online, you can display Zilok banners on your blog or personal website. When people sign up through these banners, they become your affiliates!
In 2008, Zilok will keep adding more and more features and welcoming more countries, to better serve all of you!
And if you already have some of these items but are not planning on using them, here's your chance to try renting them out on Zilok. Because that's where people are looking for them.
We are achieving this by:
So we are happy and honored to be recognized by the American Rental Association as a valuable resource for their members, the American Rental Businesses.
ABC 7 sensed this new trend and worth a big story. They interviewed two of our fellow users, Melissa who borrowed a ladder from Jimmy through Zilok.
Here's what they say about their experience :
Jimmy: "I needed money and I had a lot of stuff to offer. I thought it was cool! I like the idea of neighbors doing it - people who live close by. So you feel like you're kind of lending to a neighbor. I think if the right people are connecting on it - it will work out!" Melissa: "Because this is more of a community thing and regular people, the prices were more reasonable. Most people agree that's a reasonable rate for renting a ladder!"
Thanks Melissa and Jimmy for sharing your experience!
Watch the video below or read the article here!
But if you're looking for tables, chairs to welcome your family, or fun toys to entertain the kids, like, say, an inflatable castle, come get it from your community on Zilok!
We were rewarded today with a most beautiful surprise, as Zilok was awarded site of the week by PCMag.com!
After months and months of hard and exciting work, it feels great to be on the same pedestal as LinkedIn and Last.fm.
But let's hear what the expert says:
"We all have a ton of stuff we barely use that's just gathering dust in the garage or closet. You could justify your purchase of that cordless drill or ski set by inventing new ways to use them between uses, but why not put them to work making money for you? Zilok.com gives you an online place where you can easily do just that and also easily find items you'll only need for a short time. The creators hope to make their site the one-stop online shop for locating anything you need on a temporary basis."
Our favorite quote: "Zilok sounds like a fantastic idea", we sure love the sound of that!
We've been very inspired, at Zilok, when reading the article The Compact in the excellent GOOD Magazine.
The story starts on New Year's Eve 2006, when a group of environmentally concerned San Francisco friends vowed to spend the whole new year without buying anything new. Sort of a group rehab for guilty feeling consumers, if you will...
They called themselves The Compact, created an online group, and soon enough the buzz became so loud that 9,000 people from all over the world responded and asked to join the initiative! Unfortunately for the compacters, Zilok was not online at the time for them to use their communities hidden ressources!
The impact and momentum this small group of individuals had is unintentional, and striking. From regional stories to national broadcast with Today, Good Morning America, and CBS News, everyone could relate to what they were saying.
What were they saying? That they want "1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc; 2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes; 3) to simplify our lives;"
We think that sharing and renting from your community fellows and local businesses can serve exactly these purposes, and we hope that Zilok will somehow contribute spreading and supporting more sustainable consuming habits!
