Now is the time to become a ‘sharepreneur’

Way back in the 1960s, my father carpooled to work. So did a truckload of his coworkers at an oil refinery in Marcus Hook in neighboring Delaware County

Little did they know that they were pioneers in the sharing economy, one of the hottest areas of economic growth more than 50 years later.

According to Knowledge, a publication of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, carpooling was one of the earliest, though decidedly low-tech, forms of the current trend.

One person drove. Others paid a few dollars for the ride.

Carpooling was a win-win deal.

The driver made a few extra bucks for gasoline and upkeep of his car. The passengers saved the expense of wear and tear on their vehicles.

Thanks to technology, the sharing economy has reached a level of sophistication and size

unknown in my father’s day.

“Call it the sharing economy, call it peer-to-to peer commerce, call it collaborative consumption,” notes a 36-page article on the topic at www.sidehustlernation.com. “No matter what you call it, it’s having a massive impact on how we do business and is disrupting established industries at a breakneck pace.”

Valued at about $20 billon in 2016, this new way of buying and selling is expected to grow to $335 billion in 2025, according to a study by PwC, a marketing research company.

So what exactly does this phenomenon encompass?

Lending your tools. Renting your car. Caring for pets. Chauffeuring kids. Sharing designer clothing. Dropping off packages. Typing sales proposals. Designing logos.

You name it. A sharepreneur somewhere seems to be doing it.

Take Airbnb the bestknown platform for renting a portion or all of your home. It contains 30,000 listings throughout the world.

When I checked www. airbnb.com a few days ago, I discovered that hundreds of of Chester County home

and condo owners already are advertising their properties.

If you know someone who wants to spend a night in the eastern part of the county, for example, you might direct the individual to an “equestrian gentleman’s farm” for $500 per night.

Think your personal or business contact would be more interested in staying in downtown West Chester? Then you could suggest encampment in a “five-bedroom historic home” for $225 per night.

If a farther north location seems perfect for your out-of-towner, tell the person about a house in a “serene coumtry setting” in Chester Springs for $1,500 per night.

“In the promising parlance of the sharing economy, where sites and apps connect people selling and buying services, people become microentrepreneurs,” writes Natasha Singer in Huffington Post. “That’s an independent contractor who earns money by providing something to people who are willing to pay for it.”

At this point, most sellers seem to use the social economy as a financial supplement rather than as a means of support.

AARP Bulletin, a monthly publication aimed at older readers, says many American seniors have enthusiastically joined the trend. For this

group, earnings from the social economy often add to Social Security and pension income.

PwC, the marketing research company, supports AARP’s assertion. Its recent report noted that one in four sellers is over age 50.

If Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Japanese company Rakuten, has anything to say about it, Japanese business people may soon be entering the ranks of sharepreneurs.

In an impassioned article in a recent issue of The Economist magazine, Mikitani says his country’s culture and economy would benefit greatly by becoming more involved in the sharing economy.

“An open, Internetsavvy and revitalized Japan means overcoming our historical resistance to change and to outsiders,” Mikitani writes.

So what if you want to cash in on the social economy by signing up as a driver on Lyft, selling your knitted hats on Etsy or renting your parking space on Parquex? Where to start? • Research the possibilities. The first order of business is to figure out what to sell. The article at www.sidehustlenation.com, which contains more than 200 different ideas, may give you a jumpstart. Personally, I want to use my writing talents to pen the autobiographies of famous

people. That said, I blew at least one chance by procrastinating so long getting this sideline off the ground that my most interesting prospective subject died. Can you say Elizabeth Taylor? Oh, how I wish I had tried to convince the 1960’s bombshell to let me sit in her Beverly Hills mansion and capture her memories in my MacBook.

• Talk to out-of-town sharepreneurs. Having mentored many small business wannabees over the years, I have long noticed that newbies often are extremely reluctant to contact local success stories to get advice. They often fear that established individuals will see them as a threat – which might be true. So find out on the Internet who has a social economy idea similar to yours that is already up and running in Florida, Texas, California or Illinois. Then get in touch.

• Consider legalities. If you have paid attention to the brief history of Uber, the largest ridesharing service in the nation, you may already realize that the powers-that-be rarely embrace new concepts with open arms. So they file lawsuits ad nauseum to foil you at every turn. “If you are thinking about taking the leap into some part of the sharing economy, keep tabs on local and state government to avoid run ins with

the law,” writes Lisa Gerstner in Kiplinger’s magazine. Before advertising your apartment on Airbnb, for instance, I strongly suggest that you read your lease closely to see if it permits subletting.

• Register with a company. Sure, you could set up your own app to market your kids’ never-worn Babies R Us clothing or your barely-used Betsey Johnson handbags. At the outset, however, you probably will benefit from getting experience with centralized computer operations that will do the nitty gritty technical work for you.

• Pay attention to basics. The more things change, the more they stay the same. That aphorism rings 100 percent true with sellers in the social economy. The secret to success, as in businesses of all kinds, is service, service, service. If you repeatedly make late deliveries of tuxedoes you rent to men for formal occasions, word of mouth will quickly spread. Soon, you will have no repeat and few new customers.

• Set realistic expectations. Starting any new job or business comes with a steep learning curve. Jumping aboard the social economy is no different. In the early days, you will lose cellphone service. You will meet disagreeable customers. You will work inhumanely long hours.

Stick it out until things get better – or not. Although you eventually may decide the sharing economy is too much work for too little money, avoid making the classic entrepreneurial mistake of giving up before the miracle happens.

• Build a support network. Tasks such as running errands and organizing homes can be lonely, especially if you have no regular job providing you the chance to kvetch with co-workers. So make an effort to communicate with other social economy participants. Over time, you may develop enough trust to exchange valuable tips and leads with each other. A case on point: Now that Elizabeth Taylor has joined her many husbands and lovers in the afterlife, I would appreciate your help launching my celebrity ghost-writing service as a sharing economy venture. Simply put, do you know of an app to connect me with Madonna, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt or Cher?