A world full of stuff gathering dust, and your people who didn't know they could ask.
The people you care about are buying copies, renting, or worse: deciding not to start at all. The drill they needed stays in your drawer, and they give up instead.
Existing lending programs are great if they're local, but running one takes a building and staff that need paychecks. A handful of people willing to lend to each other shouldn't need any of that.
Free-for-alls on social platforms are risky, even if you kinda know everybody. You have to post your stuff with your name attached, you have to ask if anyone has something every time, and there's not a good way to tell some people no.
And after you make everything is available, it still needs constant maintenance. There need to be ways for communities to show up, pitch in, and get recognized, so it's not dependent on one person, and others can have the chance to help.
ToolPool.Garden was made because we had this problem with our group. Our community was always there, we just needed a way to unlock its full potential.
A pool starts with people who already trust each other and is easy to grow from there. Listings are anonymous by default, each borrow is worked out in a 1-on-1 chat, and an owner's name stays hidden until they decide a borrower has earned it.
And it doesn't just need to be tools, it can be anything that you want to share, like board games, knitting supplies, camping, anything. Pools also have skills, supplies with amount tracking, requests with task management, and maintenance items with calendar reminders and a leaderboard for people to earn points for.
Starting out is free, and we only start charging after a pool's first month, and only once it has more than 20 members or more than 250 things listed. After that, it costs $4.99 a month, and the subscription can be handed to someone else, anytime. Instead of making the app for big customers and trying to charge them more, we're doing the opposite instead. Our mission is to help as many pools as we can.
We're building this because owning everything is expensive, wasteful and lonely. Our goal is for every neighborhood, apartment complex, interest club, and community organization to have access to a library of their entire community's available resources. And besides, our stuff was always just a reason to show up for each other. Third spaces have mostly gone away, and we think ToolPool.Garden is the kind of social infrastructure that can bring them back.