BookSwim
April 18, 2008 – 8:59 pm
The first post on the andStartup blog should be about.. well.. my startup. BookSwim.com is America’s first full-service (hardcover and paperback) book rental service. There’s lots of other startups out there that have rental models similar to Netflix, so the concept of books just seemed obvious. I started this back in March of 2006 with my friend George and things have been going well ever since. I don’t want to toot my own horn to much, so I’ll just cut to the basics.
What’s the concept?
Online book rental.
Why should you care?
If you like to read, this could be hard to pass up. Books aren’t cheap and avid readers will find themselves saving a lot of money (not to mention time) in getting books delivered straight to their door.
Will this company last 5 years?
Most definitely. It’s a very strong business model with an incredibly awesome management team!
2 Responses to “BookSwim”
Interesting.
Two concerns I would’ve had about this business model are:
Unlike netflix merchandize, books are bulky, so,
1) shipping costs
2) warehouse space
How do you intend to overcome those? Won’t they eat up the profits?
By akm76 on Apr 26, 2008
Books are actually not as bulky as one would initially expect. BookSwim has being going strong for over a year now and things are looking better every day. Whatever extra shipping costs there are are combatted by the fact that it takes longer to read a book than to watch a movie.
Regarding warehouse space. You’re right. That IS a cost and is entirely necessary, but it’s just a normal cost of doing business..
By Shamoon on Apr 26, 2008