Troav co-founders (from left) George Moe, Harshal Singh and Varun Jain, computer science concentrators, want to give users a chance to explore, try new things and test out products they might be thinking about buying. Source: Troav

A student in search of a cricket bat to rent was inspired to create a new business model for the short-term rental of just about anything.

Harshal Singh, a computer science concentrator at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), found a cricket league to join where he was spending the summer for an internship. He tried, unsuccessfully, to rent a cricket bat. His disappointment at being unable to play, however, led him to launch Troav, a start-up to fill the void in the short-term rental market and also to expand people's access to new products.

“With Troav, we wanted to change the temporary ownership model to make it more suitable for the technology we have now and what people are looking for,” Singh said. “We want to let people explore, try new things, and get their hands dirty with products they wouldn’t have thought about trying out before. If you’re not paying for each individual use, you can say, ‘hey, I have a free weekend, maybe I’ll try out this tent, or I’ll check out this speaker I’ve been thinking about buying.’”

Customers get to try products before buying, which ultimately allows them to make more informed purchases. Troav's monthly membership fee gives users access to hundreds of products. The basic membership allows users to check out one item for up to three days. Items are available for self pick-up during business hours from the Troav inventory, located at the Harvard Innovation Labs, as part of the 2019 Summer Venture Incubation Program. Gold users can check out two items at a time for five days and have access to free delivery. Via an app, users can search inventory and share information about products they have used, as well as offer suggestions for items they would like to try.

The inventory is owned by the Troav team. A big hurdle was generating capital to purchase items, but the team solved that problem by introducing a marketing focus to the venture. Troav puts suppliers' products in the hands of new potential customers and suppliers receive valuable user feedback. Through this marketing partnership, Troav obtains most of its inventory for free or at low cost.

“The big vision is to see this grow to a level where people are sharing items all over the country,” Singh said. “People often buy things, use them a few times, and then they just end up sitting around. With appropriate scaling of Troav, we can have a lot less waste, have a lot more efficient use of our resources, and also give manufacturers a novel way to promote their products.”

Singh refined the business model along with co-founders George Moe and Varun Jain, also computer science concentrators at SEAS, and with support from the student entrepreneurs in Startup R&D, a class taught by Paul Bottino, executive director of innovation education. Troav is currently operating as a pilot program for Harvard summer school students. The team plans to continue improving the platform over the next few months.