Build a feature for lending (goods) on Facebook.

Before going further i want to understand the purpose of this features and its goals.

• What is this feature ?

• Who is this for ?

• Why do they use it ?

Now Assuming that -

• The purpose of the feature for FB is to increase engagement (GOAL), it wants to facilitate lending between people, basically to promote the benefits of shared economy 

• This feature helps people to share their owned goods and services with other people, may be to make some cash or to help others with 

• This feature is for two type of people 

  • Lender - people who own certain goods that is not been used by them currently, they want to lend it to others to make help them or make some cash 

  • Borrower - People who want to borrow goods from lender, may be in exchange for some money

• People will use this feature for 

  • Lenders 

    • Want to help other people, might also need to make some cash out of it 

    • Have unused owned goods, that is not used by them, that could be used by someone else 

    • Might want to get rid of some of the belonging as they consume space at their place

  • Borrower

    • In need of some item, which they want to use but dont want to purchase it 

    • Might be willing to pay some money for its use

Base on above understanding, lets check the challenges faced by the both lenders and borrowers

Lenders Challenges

1. What goods can be lend to others ?

2. Finding out whom to lend ?

3.  At what price and for how much time to lend ?

4. How to come in consonance with the borrower for the price, time, and mode of delivery?

5. How to actually exhange the good ?

6. How to make sure that lender would return will return the good ?”

7. What if the leder wont return the goods ?

8. What if Lender returned the goods late ?

9. How to facilitate the return of the good ?

Borrowers challenges 

1. To figure out what goods are available for borrowing ? 

2. Who is the owner of the good ?

3. At what price and for how much duration is the good available ?

4. What are the terms and condition of borrowing ?\

5. How actual exchange of good will happen ?

6. How to return the good upon use ?

Based on the needs of both borrowers and lenders, the most important problem to solve seems to be who can lend whom ?

The reason for choosing above is simple, that all the other steps, what price to be paid, how to exchange goods, how to agree upon term and conditions, how to return goods etc depends on who is lending to whom, because these aspects would matter differently based on who is lending to whom i.e if a person is lending to his friend or if a person is lending to others (not known person), for eg

• If a person is lending a book to his friend who stays in some different city too, person will make an effort to make sure that logistics are sorted 

Another reason for choosing friends to lend is that we want to make sure that people keep using this lending feature, people have reservation when lending to others, they are more likely to lend to their friends hence other bottlenecks like price determination, returns etc can be sorted much easily among friends as compared to when people are lending to others

Once we have decided, that users will have the option to lend to others, next thing is what could be lend ? As they are lending to their friends only, they can lend any of their owned assets eg physical goods like car, books, phones and digital services like netflix, or prime subscription.

As we have decided that user can lend any good to their friends, now lets brainstorm how can we do that 

• Market Place for listing from Lenders and Borrowers (Lending market Place) 

  • The Lending market place would have 2 sections

    • “Available for lending” Lenders can list thier products on Lending Market Place page

    • “In Need of” section would have all the listing of the borrowers need

  • Borrowers and lenders can can search their needs and reachout to each other via fb messenger and sort out the losistics 

• Lenders and Borrowers broadcast their needs to all their friends

  • Friends will get back if the they can fulfill the needs 

Based on above two soltuions 

• I would implement first solution

  • Less annoying to people, only people who are looking to lend or borrow would be engaded.

Objective:

I dont think facebook has any revneue/commission/brokerage targets associated with current proposition.

Hence likely objective would be

• Increasing platform engagement and feature engagement to connect people better
• Leveraging platforms active user count to solve new need

Since FB is looking for renting goods using its platform then we need to first categorize them: 

• Goods
  • Movable
    • Vehicle
    • Camera
    • Sports Gears
    • Home Repair Equipments
  • Immovable/Heavy
    • Furniture
    • Heavy Electronics

We need to figure out which customer personas will use this feature

We can categorise user in 4 personas

1. Young Suzi
   • Young and short on money hence inclined to renting
   • on demand attitude with purchases
   • short term usage and frequently move
   • Likely types of Goods rented
     • Vehicles
     • Electronics
     • Sports
     • Furniture
2. Nester Bob
   • Middle Aged and well settled with family
   • No impulse decisions, mostly planned purchases and rental
   • Need to repair/maintain home 
   • Expensive things are generally rented if the usage is limited or one time 
   • Likely Goods that can be rented
     • Home Hardware
3. Patient Chad
   • Injuries due to which short term support system is needed such as Stick/Grip/Wheel Chair etc
4. Tourist Frank
   • Short Term Traveller
   • Go around city to experience things
   • Likely items that can be rented
     • Camer
     • Vehicle

Lets evaluate tradeoff of each persona and decide a persona to focus on for the feature

Who are the people that rent out their stuff

1. Ordinary people like you and me
   • wont pay to list product
2. Dealers/Pawn Shop owners etc. 
   • Can pay to list products
   • Can be charged for listing new item (eg. 5 listing are free and each incremental one is chargable) 
   • Can pay for ads/impressions to market it digitally and to perform remarkting/retargeting

User Journey: 

• Person who Rents goods
  1. Go to landing page
  2. Searh product by setting city and radius
  3. Get list of products available based on
     • Product Specifications
     • Location and Logistics
     • Rent and Deposit
     • Contact Details
     • Renting period
  4. shortlist products and contact perons renting it out
  5. Plan physical visit (Optional and upto users wish)
  6. Decide
  7. Rent
  8. Return
• Person who lists goods to rent out
  1. Go to landing page
  2. Click on add new rental
  3. Enter Details
     • Product Specifications
     • Locations and Logistics
     • Rent/Deposit details
     • Contact Details
     • Rent Period
  4. Get leads info and converse to them once they initiate conversations
  5. Shortlist (based on rating given to leads by FB based on historical rental behavior)
  6. Rent to someone
  7. Get product back after rental period

How to expect good behaviour from both parties

1. Introduce star rating for person who rents the product so that his track records will act like a credit history/score
2. Introduce rating for dealer/person who is listing product based on quaity of goods and overall experience