Co-founder’s of the app The Good Neighbour, Joe McDonald and Dave Thiessen, created a platform that allows community members to rent items or tools from their neighbours at fraction of the cost of purchasing them.
“It’s basically centered around shared resources. The fact that there are enough ladders out there, there’s enough drills, there’s enough surfboards that we’d ever want to go and buy (new ones),” said McDonald.
McDonald said tool and household items found on the app include surfboards, canoes and stand up paddleboards.
“We’ve got in Halifax over 5,000 tools listed so chances are you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for," he said.
Both McDonald and Thiessen have spent five years financing, marketing and perfecting the app, all while working 9-to-5 jobs.
McDonald was working in the mid-west when he met Thiessen, who then shared the concept. McDonald said when he heard it he knew it was something he wanted to invest in.
“There’s nothing else like it and when I heard it, I knew it could work,” said McDonald. “Just the idea of the waste of resources of people having garages full of tools that they never used and the high cost of needing a tool for a job you’re only going to once and the inefficiency of that.”
Today, the app has more than 20,000 users in Halifax and the mid-west, said McDonald.
“Our goal is to eventually expand to Toronto, Quebec, and B.C. once we are able to financially,” he said.
He said they hope to grow the app further and are determined to see it to the end.
“Something people who were involved in Airbnb and Uber said so is to not give up, that they all experienced this sort of bumping along the bottom period and then they describe it as sort of a hockey stick moment where you begin to see more using the app and then it begins to generate some profit.”
While they haven’t had their hockey stick moment yet, McDonald said both he and Thiessen are confident in their app.
