Try It Love It (or Tryilo for short) is a peer-to-peer community-based sharing and rental platform connecting those with items to share or rent with people looking for them for short-term use. Typical examples would be tools for a specific job, camping equipment, kayaks, bikes, electronics, gadgets and things children have outgrown that are now gathering dust in the attic.
"It is estimated that 43 per cent of high value goods bought are used less than twice in 55 per cent of cases," says Tryilo co-founder, Karthik Suram. "Tryilo creates an affordable on-demand market within communities that solves the problem of overconsumption and promotes the use of products lying idle while contributing to a greener economy."
Tryilo was co-founded in late 2015 by Suram, Karolis Duoba and Kishore Kumar Yekkanti. Suram has a Master’s in international business and a background in client servicing, relationship management and sales. Duoba is a business development manager with experience in digital marketing, sales and technology. Yekkant is an engineer who has worked across a number of sectors including supply chain, e-commerce, the cloud and retail.
Before settling on the Tryilo platform the founders looked at other solutions such as forming a Whatsapp or Facebook group or using a classified network. "None of these looked like a viable solution that could solve the problem unobtrusively without creating issues around trust and safety. Tryilo is a secure platform and all users are verified using official ID," Suram says.
“The platform is aimed at students, young families, hobbyists and socially responsible individuals and the idea came about because we often found ourselves needing something for temporary use and sometimes our friends or family didn’t have it,” he adds. “There are also occasions when you’d like to try something before you buy it and if someone has the item and they are not using it they can put it on the platform and make some money from it. Tryilo is not all about consuming less. It is also about the sharing economy and consuming in a smarter way. What makes our platform special is that it is community based. This makes the whole rental process much easier.”
Users list their items on Tryilo for free and the company makes its money by taking a 20 per cent cut of the value of the transaction – 15 per cent from the renter and 5 per cent from the rentee. The payment system is Mangopay and hirers can set a deposit for valuable items. There is an electronically generated and signed legal agreement for each product hired and insurance and delivery options are coming. The company's first platform is in the Eco Village in Tipperary, the second in Dún Laoghaire and the third in Cork's Ballincollig. The platform was piloted at DIT Hothouse where the founders have been participating in the New Frontiers programme.
The company has split its target market into three: early adopters to the shared economy (Suram says 25-34 year olds are driving the sharing economy), tourists who want to hire items for their stay (such as bikes), young families on tight budgets and the self-employed. The beta platform has been running since June 2016 and the company plans to expand into the UK by the end of this year. Development costs to date have been thousands of man hours and €25,000 in hard cash put in by the founders.
"According to a PwC report on the sharing economy, 68 per cent of adults globally are willing to share/rent goods for money with just over 50 per cent preferring to share than own. This is positive reinforcement that we are on the right track," Suram says. "Over the next six months we are planning to donate 50 per cent of whatever profit we make back to the communities we're operating in."
