The SpareFoot Blog

Woo-hoo! The inaugural class of Capital Factory’s Austin-based business incubator program is graduating after a summer of hard work. On September 9th the five participating companies will present at an event called Demo Day, being held at the University of Texas AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

At the event, each of the five companies will make a presentation to potential investors, press, and other entrepreneurs.  SpareFoot is proud to be part of the amazing group of start-ups – PetsMD, Hourville, Cubit Planning and Famigo – completing this incredible ten week program.

We were looking forward to inviting everyone to the event, but it sold out within two weeks! Don’t worry though, you can still watch the event live from the Capital Factory website. It starts at 8:30am CST with a keynote delivered by Mike Maples Jr. While 8:30 may sound a bit early, I guarantee there is no better way to start your day.

As I do, I was surfing the net for all things self-storage when I discovered something quite fascinating. That is, I discovered an entire community of people (35,000 so they claim) who belong to a social networking site called, Self Storage Bands.

Apparently, as it can be hard to find a place to practice, bands are renting out self-storage units. This can be much cheaper than renting a music studio if a band doesn’t have access to a garage or basement.

Even better though, self storage bands don’t have to deal with noise complaints from angry neighbors. Thor’s old band, Monsters from Mars, used to practice in my parent’s garage and they have definitely had the police come knocking.

Well, later in the afternoon, I was telling some of my office mates (PetsMD, Cubit Planning, and Hourville) about my discovery, and Nick of PetsMD told me his band used to practice at storage facilities as well!

So, I dug a little deeper and found a few interesting articles, including this one, Garage Bands No More, from the Washington Post.

But that was all band practice talk and Kristen of Cubit Planning had a much grander plan that we all form bands and put on a concert at a self-storage facility.

I’m thinking, Mario on bass, Thor on guitar (or anything else because he is so musically talented), Chuck on drums (although he has no rhythm) and Dan and I on vocals (except we’re going to mute my microphone and I’ve never heard Dan sing, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt).

Maybe we could go on tour, visiting storage facilities across the nation, and we could call it, SpareFoot Rocking Self Storage.

Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know… But for now, friend us at SpareFoot on Self Storage Bands.

I’m pleased to announce that in our constant efforts to improve the user experience of the site we’ve completely overhauled our search filter.  You asked to see the results on a map — you’ve got a map.  You asked to be able to specify amenities, such as climate control or electricity — you’ve got amenities filters.  You asked to sort the results by distance — that’s heavily factored into the best match algorithm.  We’re still working on rolling out more.  We’re working on more sorting options, more information, a better map browsing experience, etc., etc., etc.

Thank you for your input so far.  If you would like to suggest any other features, don’t hesitate to do so.  Just click on the “Feedback” button on the right side of any page on our site.

You were supposed to be there five minutes ago. You’re late and you’re still circling the block, scanning for a place to park your car. There has to be a spot somewhere, anywhere out of harm’s way, where the meter maid is not going to get you.

Maybe you’re just not visualizing hard enough.  Or, maybe your parking fairy is busy helping another poor soul who is circling the same block trying to beat you to the same parking spot.

Finding parking is a pretty universal pain in the butt.  And, given my Icelandic pagan roots, the idea of wishing on a parking fairy doesn’t strike me as altogether odd. Icelanders believe in all kinds of weird things, including elves and fairies.  Totally normal.

But, fairies and elves are powerful beings and they may grow tired of all the demands. Take this from the Icelanders who will go to great lengths to avoid pissing off the elves, such as even diverting a road around a rock suspected to be home to a colony of hidden people.

That’s why I much prefer the idea of human parking fairies, like the Miami meter parking fairy.  Granted, this is a rarity.

Still, we don’t all have to roller skate around in pink tutus to become benevolent parking fairies. If you live in the city and you have a parking spot that you don’t use or don’t use during the day, you can become a parking fairy by renting it out to a happy soul who is no longer driving in circles.

Note: Caution! Although you may be frustrated – Don’t spit on the meter maids. Especially, if you’re in London.

This week, the Austin Business Journal interviewed Chuck Gordon about SpareFoot’s role in the tough economy.

Hard times call for prudent spending (from both consumers and businesses). Self storage companies are also putting on their “cheap marketer” hats, comparing all of their marketing efforts and realizing many of them are not sustainable in market conditions any less than a ‘boom’. This is not necessarily causing across-the-board budget cuts but rather smarter decision making about which channels are going to produce fruitful and lasting ROI. As companies increase marketing spend efficiencies they are not only laying the ground work for sustained success in a competitive market but also enabling themselves to pass additional savings on to their customers.

They haven’t!

I thought I’d clarify a few things because I can imagine it might be frustrating and even misleading if you’re searching the marketplace for individual listings only to find a bunch of traditional storage listings.

This doesn’t mean we no longer have any individual listings and we’re continuing to encourage people to list their extra space on the site.  There are plenty of people who want this type of peer storage and there are also plenty of people who want the more traditional storage options. That’s why we’re working on implementing filters to make it possible to search for only individual listings or facility listings.

So, why are you only turning up traditional storage units in your search results? There are two possibilities:

A) There are no individual listings in your area. For example, if you were searching for storage in Chicago, you’re not going to find your neighbor’s garage because there are no individual listings there. But, you can list your space and help spread the word in your area!

B) The traditional storage options are cheaper than your neighbor’s garage space. In general, your neighbor’s garage will be less expensive than a unit at your local storage facility. But not always!

Now that being said, if you’re encountering an error message when trying to list or rent space, something is not right. Don’t hesitate to send us an email: Support@SpareFoot.com

As we continue to build out the site, definitely keep the feedback coming!

P.S. – The best place to ask a question, report a problem or make a suggestion is from the “Feedback” tab located on the right side of any page or from the “Help” link on the top navigation.

Anybody can list their space on Sparefoot – both self-storage facilities and individuals.

The new art for the front page has come in.  It was done by fantastic artist, Vince Waring (vince w at gmail), who has done all the previous illustrations on our site as well.  (Take a look around and check those out.)

As you may have noticed, the site is changing every day.  We’re extremely busy rolling out and integrating many of the new features we’ve been building.  Expect a few bumps and snags along the way.  If you run into any problems, be sure to click on “Help” on the main site’s top navigation to let us know about it.

We just launched the new and expanded marketplace. In the next few days, you might notice some funny kinks on the site, but we are working hard to get those ironed out.

When many of you signed up, SpareFoot was strictly a peer-to-peer marketplace. We’re not ditching this idea. We’re simply growing the marketplace with the same goal of making it easier to find affordable storage.

Now, there are more than 100,000 storage listings of all shapes and sizes, ranging from your neighbor’s garage or spare bedroom to the units at your local storage facility.

Instead of searching from web site to web site to find the most affordable and convenient option, SpareFoot, much like Priceline, enables its users to search and find storage according to location, size, cost and amenities.

Additionally, it will be possible to fill out a storage request to receive competing bids directly from storage companies that desperately want to fill their vacant units.

Stay tuned!