PlanetReuse Marketplace
PlanetReuse Marketplace is built on a simple but powerful concept: give homeowners instant access to reclaimed and surplus building materials.
Access to resources: Digital Sandbox KC is feeding the same need for PlanetReuse Marketplace, helping them find the resources—funding and mentors—to diversify its revenue model and build a better experience for their customers.
Building on a Solid Foundation
Nathan Benjamin founded PlanetReuse in 2008 to make reusing reclaimed materials easier, so that more people would do it. After spending nearly five years building a reclaimed building materials network to serve the commercial building industry, Benjamin founded a spinoff to serve residential customers: PlanetReuse Marketplace.
PlanetReuse Marketplace is an online platform that helps reuse centers make reclaimed and surplus building materials instantly accessible to homeowners nationwide. Imagine CraigsList, but better looking, easier to use and updated in real time. PlanetReuse Marketplace enables reuse centers to attract new customers while keeping their loyal treasure hunters happy by displaying exactly what is in store at any given time.
“Our aim is to make reuse as easy as buying new, increasing awareness for the reuse industry and decreasing the ever-growing amount of usable building materials in our landfills,” said Benjamin.
Using proprietary InvenQuery technology and mobile app, reuse centers can populate their site and Facebook with their inventories, instantly, and in a single workflow. Items are removed automatically at point-of-sale.
“Everything we do is influenced by our triple bottom line approach to business: we take our people, our profits and the planet into account when making decisions,” added Benjamin. “Our partnership with Digital Sandbox KC will allow us to expand our capabilities and enable us to grow both as an organization and as a champion of the reuse economy. We have ambitious goals, innovative solutions and passionate people. We’re just getting started.”
Playing in the Digital Sandbox
“PlanetReuse Marketplace is one of those terrific businesses that helps solve a real world problem, in this case, the amount of reusable building materials that end up in landfills, by using technology to make items visible and available to the marketplace,” said Jeff Shackelford, director of Digital Sandbox KC. “It’s just not a great business concept but also a helping to recycle usable materials.”
PlanetReuse Marketplace is one of the first six innovative companies to be eligible for funding from Digital Sandbox KC, which provides proof-of-concept resources to support early-stage commercialization processes. Support for each Sandbox participant is customized based on the unique needs of the project as well as the resources required to move the product or service forward.
