I had a motorcycle which I had bought for 126K INR. I was not using it much except to commute from home to office. I was going to sell the bike, then suddenly this idea clicked. It took few hours to make and host indiarider.com(people can take the bike on rent). Its been two months now, I have made 15K till now, 7K last week.
I just rented an Enfield 500 off another company to ride from Delhi for two weeks. While they were polite and friendly, the level of professionalism on their site and systems left a lot to be desired. I emailed to check everything was set for a few months from now and the reply was: "you're picking it up in Goa tomorrow right?"
I'm assured things are organized now but its still a little nerve wracking. I know lots of people that would love to be able to reliably rent bikes in India and have often thought about doing what you have done. Your interface looks very professional and gives confidence to the user.
I live in Mumbai, do you have thoughts on expansion?
Most of the time I take decision by talking to customer. There is no contract/form to sign. I am working on it. As of now I ask to submit original Identity card and deposit of 10K. There has been an instance when I gave the bike to a customer without taking any security.
What are your typical users and use cases like? I'm from Bombay originally, and can't think of why people would want to rent a bike. Is it people who don't have vehicles and need one temporarily for long journeys? Or is it for one-off joyrides simply for the excitement?
I'm also ignorant of how the legal and insurance system works in India, but that seems like far too large of a liability if someone is injured while using your equipment.
I was thinking this too, only about jet skis and other RVs (I was hoping that is what I would find when I clicked on the link) - I would think there is a lot of opportunity for something like Airbnb for four wheelers, jet skis, camping trailers.
I am based in India. There is not much infrastructure to check the speed. You will find traffic police with such equipment only in cities. That too if you are lucky.
Currently I live at rented room on roof top of a residential building. Temperature of my city(Bangalore) is around 22 degree centigrade(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore#Climate), mostly cloudy. I have setup a table with four chair outside on the roof. I find it pleasant to work outside mostly during morning and evening. In day time if its cloudy and little wind, I feel better working outside.
I use macbook and sublime to do my work, light reflection sometimes blurs the text, but it is mostly tricky, I try different position and get it working. It's little difficult to work outside during sunny days.
I work in an open space in London. Even if I could setup hypothetically get access to a rooftop like you, I'd be pretty much drenching my laptop and catching a cold.
