Supriya Booth and her husband Garnett Booth, co-founded Go Halfsy early this year. Garnett is primarily from the finance and management consulting domain and Supriya’s expertise is in education and tech business development. They both combined their different skill sets to bring out the product.
Supriya says, “The best way to describe it , is that Garnett is the “thinker” and I am the “do-er.” We never planned on starting a company together, but we’ve been incredibly complementary to each other and it’s been a ton of fun working together”.
So, What is Go Halfsy all about?
Go Halfsy is a community marketplace where people can list and discover items to co-own with someone else. If you think about it, there’s a lot of stuff that people own that is not used on a daily or even a weekly basis.
For example if you’d like to own a set of Golf clubs but you don’t use them regularly and it’s just lying there, why not own it with a friend who uses it regularly than you do. So you bear only half the cost and you get to use it when you need it. You could even buy an expensive set of Golf Clubs for half the cost. This could apply to any product, electronic , a vacation home or even a yacht. “We’re really excited about this idea. Fundamentally, we want to make it easy for people to own the things they love, affordable and efficient. I think the most interesting market for co-ownership is actually real estate. The economics of co-ownership of vacation homes is extremely compelling.” , she says.
The idea was Garnett Booth’s, when they moved to California, they didn’t want to buy skiing and surfing equipment, so they rented it our for a bit and soon realized that it was a rip off paying too much for all the stuff every time. So, when they finally bought an expensive ski equipment they wished that, if only there was someone who could share the cost it would’ve been easy for them.
Garnett and Supriya both had day-jobs, and after taking a couple of months to brainstorm the idea and to come up with a clear-cut methodology on how to go about this, they started Go Halfsy.
Their biggest challenge was that neither of them had a technical background. So they had to outsource it to materialize the idea. Supriya agrees that they would have had a better product if they had a technical co-founder. ” But also I’m incredibly grateful to have had this experience, as it’s given me an understanding and appreciation for what goes into building a product – and I hope that will make me a better leader in the future”. She explains.
What Makes Go Halfsy Different?
Supriya says that the product is unique as it is very community-centric. People would be willing to co-own things with people they already know and Go Halfsy will identify which of their friends/people in network are interested in buying the same things as them. “But in the long-term, I do think that people will be more open to co-owning with people they have not yet met. And we want our product to help them to find like-minded, trustworthy people.” Supriya assures.
Their primary competition to this business is the rental and second-hand markets. For items you use infrequently, renting is a great option. Their idea is to help create the co-ownership market and make it top of mind for consumers who, right now, may not think of it as way to engage in a purchase.
“This could really be applicable anywhere in the world, but I suspect in the short-term it’ll be most relevant in the U.S. The concept of the sharing economy has really taken hold in the U.S. and we’re getting a lot of positive feedback on the idea.” she says.
They need to create a market that doesn’t quite exist today, and monetization isn’t on their priority at the moment. But they hope to in the future, through premium subscriptions for access to premium functionality, advertising, transaction fees, services for managing co-owned items, etc.”
We wish Garnett and Supriya Booth, the best and success in their new venture.
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Photo Credit: Tamara Knight
