Sask. woman develops app to help people lend and borrow personal items
A Prince Albert woman has developed an app that allows people to lend and borrow items from each other.
The "Lend It" app aims to connect individuals interested in sharing belongings.
The app enables users in Canada and the U.S. to rent out their possessions, ranging from fishing equipment to strollers, to others within their geographic area.
Founder and CEO Alex Jordan was struck with the idea to start 'Lend It' when she thought about renting out her ice fishing shack.
"Some people would just want to rent it for the weekend," said Jordan. "So that is kind of where the idea sparked from."
Jordan said she also took inspiration from apps like Airbnb, where people rent out their homes.
"People were lending out their homes. I thought, why couldn't we take that one step further and do it with household items and then just expand from there?" she said.
Alex Jordan first came up with the concept in January 2024 and it was launched five months later in June. (Jasmine Pelletier/CTV News)
She first came up with the concept in January 2024 and it was launched five months later in June.
Jordan, who prior to designing 'Lend It' had no experience in the tech industry, partnered with the U.S.-based App Bros coding team to develop the app.
She now manages 'Lend It' seven days a week out of her home in Prince Albert.
"There's so many pressures out there of consumerism, influencers, everything," said Jordan. "Everywhere you go, you're pushed to buy something, and I wanted to change the narrative behind that."
The app also allows users to post things like venues and offers of manual labour.
Jordan said customer feedback has been positive.
"The feedback is like 'I have a renovation that I really don't wanna go out and buy one tool for, this is amazing'... So I feel like with times coming people will get really comfortable with using it and it will just be a hub where you're totally just lending, renting, instead of having that pressure to buy."
Users' personal information is held by Stripe, a third party outside the app, for security purposes.
An update that will increase security is scheduled to drop in 2025 and will ask users to submit photo IDs.
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