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On Zaarly, You Can (Usually) Get What You Want

This San Francisco startup is a matchmaker for renters and owners.

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By Jennifer Wang

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2011 Trends
Collaborative Commerce Profile

Zaarly
100,000 users in every major U.S. city

More on Collaborative Commerce

Collaborative commerce is seriously hot stuff in startup circles. For proof, we need merely to turn to Zaarly, a San Francisco startup that went from zero to launch in three months, rallying high-profile investors and scoring bucketloads of press for its rocket-like trajectory.

"The idea is contagious: What you want, when you want it. As soon as people hear it, they get it," says co-founder and CEO Bo Fishback, who left his post as vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation to run the company. Fishback describes Zaarly as an online, buyer-powered marketplace where you can broadcast to your local community what you want, how quickly you want it and how much you're willing to pay for it, and then sit back and see if there are any takers. People looking to earn some extra cash can peruse the want ads with an eye on offering up products or services they're ready to rent out.

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