Gecko’s marketplace helps you rent out hard-to-get items, whenever you need them.
Meet Ben Kennedy, founder and CEO of Gecko, who’s driven by his desire to improve both online and offline experiences for customers and rental businesses alike.
We caught up with Ben for a quick chat to learn more about his journey as a young founder and what it took to overcome his biggest challenge.
What led to the inception of Gecko? And what problem are you solving?
Gecko is a marketplace to hire event items like speakers, chairs, and lights as easily and securely as possible (think Amazon Marketplace for rentals)
My co-founders and I noticed how frustrating it was to hire event items — you'd have to ring them up or fill out a form and it was a coin toss on whether they'd get back to you or not and if they did it'd take days for them to send a quote, then you'd accept the quote and you'd make a payment. Then you'd go to the store and have to fill out all the details you'd already put in. It made you never want to rent again and we knew there had to be a better way!
Can you tell us a little more about how you built and launched the product?
To get started, I knew that I knew absolutely nothing about starting a business so I would watch youtube videos, ask anyone in my network to have a meeting with me, get any advice I could to learn as much as I could. I spent a lot of time validating, getting sign-ups and trying to find either a co-founder or someone who would be able to build this. I opted to build it with an agency after a year or so, entered into a pre-accelerator called Turbo Traction Lab in Rockhampton, and then a couple of months later Lal and Alan decided to join as co-founders.
What’s been your biggest challenge till date, and how have you approached that?
Biggest challenge was rebuilding our product again from scratch – I seriously don’t recommend doing this. We made every single mistake in the middle of it and this was with startup knowledge. A few key learnings I got from this was empower other people to make their own decision through credible resources instead of telling them what to do. Also if you are going to do rebuild your site do not change any designs. Get them up first and then you can make new ones after (sounds counter-intuitive but it’ll be so much quicker to reiterate on a loop).
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received? And what’s something you’d like to tell others?
My Dad wrote me a letter in high school that ended with "It's not about waiting for the storm to pass it's about learning to dance in the rain." Particularly good advice during COVID Lockdowns.
Okay, now on to some rapid fire questions — hope you’re ready!
Being a young founder means: Your life is in your own hands
My startup is called Gecko because: It’s my spirit animal 😂
For the remainder of this year, I really want to: Partner with 50 rental businesses (we have 22 already)
Check out Gecko here.
