Hi Craigslist & Vine! We hacked you guys!
It was 2 years ago when I was a Resident Assistant in the University of Arizona. Being an RA is an interesting job. It’s the only job that’s normal to see somebody puke in front of your door.
While living in the dorms I found that a lot of residents threw out nice furniture, electronics, etc. which made no sense to me. They could easily donate or sell the items to pocket some cash. At that point I decided something needed to be done. So, I decided to put a Goodwill box beside the trash can to guide residents to donate those items for others. I assumed that this would significantly reduce the amount of trash.
The result? It failed. Interestingly, people did not care about that at all!
A few days after that, I came back to my floor and saw residents creating funny videos and sharing them on social media. Then it hit me that I could tweak my original idea to reduce the trash by integrating funny short videos as a way to sell or donate goods. In that moment Pine was born.
Problem
After my brain child was born I started my research in secondhand marketplaces. Based on my research, there are two major problems that exist in second hand markets..
1. Where’s the fun?
A simple description and picture on Craigslist has always made me suspicious and are lame. From what I found out, that is why people in my generation (Y-generation) move toward Facebook groups to sell items because that is the place that they hang around, trust and have fun within.
2. Cash deals suck
I admit, it might be my personal preference currently, but it’s not the way of the future. Dealing with cash is inconvenient, not safe or secure and can put people at risk. If I can pay for items online with credit or debit, why not person-to-person?
The solution: Pine
I thought that a mobile app that uses short funny videos like Vine to sell items with a solid payment solution can solve both problems. So I invited one of my best friends to join my idea, and we worked relentlessly to develop the app. Since we did not have any programming or design skills beforehand, it was super challenging for us, but we learned the skills necessary on the go. Now, Pine solves both problems with a fun and functional user interface and secure online payment system.
So, Pine solved two problems on the above beautifully.
1. Pine is fun
The guy on the video is actually me. I was trying to sell my sunglasses and took this video. Surprisingly, It was sold in 10 minutes. Even if it was short, the video could provide more room for creativity and fun.
2. Pine is secure
Thanks to Stripe, we could implement secure transaction platform easily. If a buyer buys item, we will hold in our account for 48 hours. If the seller does not respond the order, it will automatically be refunded. Through this way, we could reduce the hassle to deal with unresponsive sellers and refund.
Conclusion
Pine is simply the intersection of Craigslist and Vine with a purpose. It is funny that a goodwill box and some pesky residents made all of this happened. My idea has changed my life. I would have never started learning programming, launching a startup or had big dreams to save mother earth.
Pine is available on the AppStore now for free. If you want to try it out, you are more than welcome. Just click this link(http://bit.ly/Pineapp) or search for Pine on the AppStore. Thanks for reading, more to come!
