It’s a beautiful thing when your hobby turns into your livelihood. Jasper and Marcus were passionate about cinematography but stuck in civil service jobs. So they started renting out drones on the side and could scale to run a camera rental business full-time. Booqable was a critical tool that helped them facilitate this growth and pursue their dreams.
Everyone has a hobby or something they’re passionate about, but they’re not always fortunate enough to do it for a living. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t take that expertise and use it to make money elsewhere. For example, if you’re passionate about something and collect items related to your hobby, you could turn it into a rental business and do it full-time.
JustRentLah
In 2017, Jasper and Marcus, best friends and drone enthusiasts decided to rent out their drones. They live in Singapore, and the laws surrounding drones were pretty lax at the time. This made them easy to rent out, and the demand was enormous. So, they decided to rent them as a side hustle while both working civil service jobs.
For the first year, they ran the business from their homes, and they saw their business grow pretty quickly. They went from having just a DJI Phantom 3 Pro and DJI Phantom 4 to having a fleet of 13 drones. However, the following year, in 2018, the laws surrounding drones quickly changed, making it unfeasible to rent them out any longer.
Jasper and Marcus were quick to pivot their business and sold their drones to invest in a small set of Canon EOS 5D Mark III cameras and lenses. This proved to be a successful move, and by the end of the year, they were both able to leave their civil service jobs and run the business full-time. They invested in an office space not long after, and the rest is history.
From patchwork to streamlined
From the early days of the JustRentLah, Jasper and Marcus would manage their bookings through a patchwork of Google Sheets and Microsoft Word. It was perfect when they rented out a few drones from their homes, but as the business grew, they became a nightmare to manage. This meant that scaling the company was an issue.
When looking for a solution, they knew that they would need software that allowed them to manage bookings internally and let customers book by themselves online. Fortunately, they were able to find these requirements within Booqable. It has allowed them to create an internal workflow that enables them to provide the best service for their customers. In addition, it has freed up time usually spent taking requests from customers.
Jasper and Marcus could spend this extra time improving the services they offered. This includes expanding their inventory with more options to cater to more specialized use cases. As well as operating their own studio space for customers to rent out and experience a professional shooting environment at an affordable price.
Customer value
Jasper and Marcus started JustRentLah with the foundation of providing an affordable, transparent service with a superior customer experience. Jaspers noted that “in the local rental industry, customers value two things, speed, and price.” It was something easy to achieve when they were small but became more difficult as they grew.
Now, they have instant access to customer bookings and insights into their inventory. This has translated to faster pickups and returns and has allowed them to keep their costs down by not hiring additional staff to spread the workload. They have seen a tremendous increase in bookings, and customers love to book via self-service.
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