gearo.de: the Airbnb for cameras
gearo GmbH Marketplace Responsive Web App
by Maximilian Heere
Summary
A lens you need for one shoot shouldn’t cost a month’s rent. gearo let YouTubers, Instagrammers and other content creators rent high-end cameras, lenses, microphones and gimbals from people nearby, and let owners earn from gear that would otherwise sit on a shelf.
gearo was Germany’s leading peer-to-peer marketplace for renting photo and video equipment. As co-founder, CEO and CPO, I shaped the product and the company from the first idea to the exit in 2024, when we sold gearo to our competitor gearbooker.com.
The challenge
Creators are judged by the quality of what they publish. But the gear behind a professional look is expensive, and most of it is only needed for a single shoot. At the same time, cameras and lenses worth thousands sat unused in the cupboards of photographers and filmmakers.
Renting from strangers only works if both sides trust each other: that the gear comes back, that people are who they claim to be, and that payments are safe. The risks were real. Some renters didn’t return equipment, others tried to verify themselves with forged documents. Our answer was a marketplace we liked to call “the Airbnb for cameras”.
Approach
We developed the idea in 2015 with a lean, design thinking process, raised a seed round in 2016 and launched in early 2017.
We designed around how creators actually work: searching for gear close by, booking a full kit for one shoot, and arranging pickup and return directly with the owner.
I ran product and design while leading the company: strategy, budget, hiring and investor relations. We built a cross-functional team of up to 9 across engineering, marketing and design.
Trust was at the core of the product, so we treated security as a product feature. I designed login and authentication, including two-factor authentication, and managed the implementation with our engineers.
As a marketplace moving money between people and companies, gearo had to meet strict EU anti-money-laundering rules, enforced in Germany by BaFin. Payments ran on regulated, EU-licensed e-money infrastructure from Mangopay, and every user went through KYC verification before money could move.
For the moment something goes wrong, we designed a custom insurance product together with HDI, so owners didn’t have to carry the risk of lending expensive gear on their own.
Together with our tax advisor, I also developed the invoicing system, which reflects the tax rules for the different types of German companies renting and lending on gearo.
Impact
- 20,000+ users, most of them content creators, and 40,000+ active listings.
- Transaction volume grew 80%+ YoY through A/B testing, conversion optimization and trust features.
- After the KYC launch, fraud from forged identities and unreturned gear was near-eliminated.
Outcome
Behind the numbers were people. One creator used gear from gearo to raise the production quality of his videos and grew his audience significantly. One of Cologne’s leading hip-hop video directors, who shot for some of the biggest names in German rap, rented out his equipment to aspiring creators and built a real side income from it. That was the idea in a nutshell: creators enabling creators.
I sourced potential acquirers, led the M&A process and closed the sale to gearbooker.com in 2024.
None of this would have happened without my co-founder, my sparring partner on every major decision along the way.
What I took with me: done is better than perfect, as long as you keep listening to your users.
Key features
All features were fully developed and productive.
Onboarding
An easy to use flow for new members of the gearo community to enter their personal data, complete their profile and verify their identity.
Search, filtering & map
Name, location and radius search with optional category filtering and list sorting. Additional map view with location indicators and product tile window.
Basket & checkout
Multi vendor basket with edit and delete options. Checkout with credit card and Klarna payment integrations. Basket, checkout and booking confirmation page are integrated in a single modal flow.
Booking management system
Inbox to access active rentals. Rental detail pages to chat with renters, start handing over and return protocol flows, and generate PDF invoices.
