Introducing Online Sharing at Nabo.ing

Our new friends, Nabo (pronounced NAY-bo), have a solution for that clutter! Join us on Oct. 17 at 6 p.m. at East Cobb Avenue’s Round Trip Brewery and find a new life for your closet of stuff!

Nabo, a Danish word meaning “neighbor”, is a new online marketplace founded by Ryan Leveille. Nabo’s mission is to help Cobb residents live simply, reduce the cost of living, and create a community that flourishes without barriers.

It all started last Christmas when Ryan set out to build his son a working mini kitchen for a gift. He wanted to build instead of buy, but having recently moved to East Cobb, he didn’t have all the tools he needed. Enter his neighbor, a hobby craftsman, who helped Ryan create design drawings and lent him the tools he needed to make his son’s Christmas gift.

Ryan knew the experience for him had been amazing – he made a new friend who taught him new skills and also saved Ryan a lot of time and money by allowing him to borrow tools instead of buy. What if we could all live this way, he thought? How much better the world could be if, instead of having closets and garages full of stuff we may only use once, we could have a collective “library of stuff” for sharing? That our lives could be more about experiences than consumption?

Ryan came up with the idea of Nabo.ing, a community online marketplace where neighbors list what they already own and would be willing to lend or rent within the community. Avondale Estates, a neighborhood in Decatur, volunteered to participate in a beta test of the website. In less than three months, 150 neighbors had created profiles and listed items available on the website. All it took was word of mouth and door hangers to spread the news about the new resource.

By creating a profile on nabo.ing, users can join an existing community or create their own. Listing items with images is easy, and items can be offered for free or at a modest rental cost by day or week. The site offers messaging capability between users and community members.

Some of the most–rented items on Nabo so far are 20-foot ladders, which are expensive to buy and require ample storage space. Beyond home improvement tools, seasonal items are perfect for a platform like Nabo, for example, beach gear that a family uses once or twice a year, halloween costumes, holiday decorations, kitchen appliances, and more.

With some success already built, Nabo is now expanding the site’s functionality to manage booking and payments between members and is talking with businesses and other institutions about expanding its use.

Founder Ryan Leveille believes the southeastern U.S. is a natural fit for community sharing. Southerners are relationship-oriented. With our changing environment, we see the need for reducing waste directed toward our landfills and oceans. “There is a weight lifted from your shoulders when you don’t have so many material items. Having worked and lived in Denmark to help build sustainability practices there, I’ve seen the freeing impact of living with less and what it does for your daily life. I hope that Nabo can bring Cobb County neighbors together to help provide value to each other and our community.”

To create your own profile and join the sharing community, visit nabo.ing.