For outdoor enthusiasts, it can be difficult to access necessary equipment. Gear can be prohibitively expensive, and people who do own equipment might not use it enough to make the cost worth it.
Tyler Sanford, Sam Tyler, and Cara MacDonald created Rexchanger, a startup to address this issue. MacDonald, a communications student with an emphasis in journalism at the U, described Rexchanger as “a peer-to-peer outdoor recreation marketplace.” The students developed an app and web platform where users can rent non-motorized boats, camping equipment and mountain bikes to other users. Rexchanger allows owners to make extra money and “afford more expensive equipment than they otherwise would” and borrowers to “rent out equipment for 40 percent less cost than other rental services.”
All three students have been involved with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute from the beginning of their business. “Lassonde helped us find both of our developers, both our original developer and current developer,” MacDonald said. Rexchanger received a $1,830 grant in the monthly Get Seeded program. They used the money to develop a new blocking feature on the app and to participate in Questival. At Questival, an event hosted by Cotopaxi, Rexchanger advertised their newly released app and encouraged users to sign up.
Rexchanger launched on the Android app store in early 2019 and started working to release one on Apple. In the future, they hope to offer rentals for a wider range of products, fine-tune their app and website, and expand services to other states. “We want this to be the premier outdoor recreation service in all of the United States,” MacDonald said.
More articles like this in ‘Student Innovation @ the U!’
Find this article and a lot more in the 2020 “Student Innovation @ the U” report. The publication is presented by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute to celebrate student innovators, change-makers, and entrepreneurs.
