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gearo - the airbnb for cameras & lenses
Creating a new way how people rent and produce audio visual media.
Company overview
My role
The internet-marketplace gearo.de was an innovative multisided-marketplace and the first of its kind in europe. It allowed users to share their film and photo-equipment fully insured and rent from other users up until the exit in early 2024.
As the co-founder and CEO of Gearo GmbH, I co-planned, led, and executed every detail with my founding partner and a small team. My background in design allowed me to focus on creating user-centric products while managing all business aspects. Navigating many unknowns, I quickly learned to identify and solve diverse problems.
gearo stats
Leading in europe
First & largest P2P sharing economy marketplace in europe.
25k+ users
registered on the platform
30k+ products
Nationwide supply in major cities and regions
€40 mio.
in equipment on the platform
#1 on google
Top positions for local and national keywords
1 mio+ pageviews
Top positions for local and national keywords
Successful exit in 2024
migrated gearo to gearbooker.com
Short summary
Overview I'm the co-founder of gearo.de, a multi-sided marketplace where individuals, professionals, and organizations rent and lend imaging equipment. gearo.de helps users produce amazing content at low rental prices while generating income with their own equipment.
Achievements and impact The idea for gearo.de and its business model was created using an applied design thinking (LEAN) process in mid-2015. After securing initial investment in 2016, we launched the first version of the product publicly in early 2017. gearo.de quickly became Germany's largest sharing economy marketplace for film and photo equipment, serving over 23,000 verified users and hosting over 30,000 equipment ads valued at around €40 million. We generated over one million page views per year and millions in revenue for our vendors.
Successful Exit Leading a team of five, I navigated market challenges and set a new standard for equipment rental in Germany and Austria. We successfully managed a strategic exit. We are super proud and happy for the story to continue at gearbooker.com.
| key features
Onboarding experience - boosting conversion by 29%
An easy to use flow for new members of the gearo community to enter their personal data, complete their profile and verify their identity.
As a result we were able to increase the conversion rate of new users to paying customers by 29%. Check out the case study:
Name, location and radius search with optional category filtering and list sorting. Additional map view with location indicators and product tile window. All products were ranked via a self-developed algorithm.
Multi vendor basket & checkout
Multi vendor basket with edit and delete options. Checkout with credit card and Klarna payment integrations. Basket, checkout and booking confirmation page are integrated in a single modal flow.
Booking management system & E-wallet integration
Inbox to access active rentals. Rental detail pages to chat with renters, start handing over and return protocol flows, and generate PDF invoices.
Automated country specific invoicing system
Automated and country/case-specific PDF invoices. Once the invoices are issued via 1 click, the total amount is split up into lessor revenue, insurance-fee and gearo-fee.
| Secret sauce
5- trusted community
Building a strong community and brand through mutual incentivized ratings. 99.5% were 5-star ratings.
This was among others achieved through our unique HDI insurance cooperation that made every rental safe, our KYC-methods and our self-developed fraud-protection system.
Number 1 on google
From the start, our URL structure for every new product on our platform was designed based on common search patterns for equipment:
"gearo.de/" + [city] + [model] + "mieten"
A user would for example create an ad in Berlin and the URL would be "gearo.de/Berlin-Sony-Alpha-7-mieten", which is more or less the search phrase in google.
Rich snippets with ratings, prices etc. helped us to create optimized search results and around 100k+ organic monthly visits.
| voices
What our users had to say about us
... and their reactions when we announced the exit
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