Student Business Earns Recognition at Global Entrepreneurship Competition

Take a look at your garage or basement shelves. How many tools are sitting around and collecting dust, waiting to get pulled off the shelf for that one specific time of the year when they will get used? Now, consider a request from a neighbor for one of those dusty tools and earn a service fee for providing it. That is the idea driving Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH) seniors Charlie Greenberg, Alex Topping, and Andrew Blum's business—RENTR—the latest success story born in Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL). 

Greenberg states, “We hope to grab a piece of the $14 billion tool rental market while solving for the underutilization of expensive tools and creating passive income for tool owners.”

While still a very newly conceived business venture, launched just this spring in the venture accelerator program, the team has been hustling hard both in school and on weekends to refine their idea. In June, the trio of seniors took their idea all the way to Silicon Valley, CA, and won the teamwork award at TYE Globals, the annual flagship event for the Youth Entrepreneurship Division of TiE. This event is curated to bring together 27 chapters across the globe for a Pitch Fest. At the competition, the threesome competed against much larger teams, many of whom had been working on their business ideas for several years. Alex Topping shared, “We gave a flawless presentation which truly demonstrated teamwork, given that two of us were in person and one of the team joined from another country. We are so grateful for all the support from our mentor Suchit Bachalli and Mr. Glassman [executive director of SCH’s CEL].”  

RENTR’s business model offers the DIY community a neighborhood marketplace to browse rentable tools. Need a high-pressure power washer for your spring clean-up or a stump grinder for the tree that just fell down in your front lawn? RENTR is for you. With both a website and an app (in the works), RENTR connects local DIYers to rent out tools. 

RENTR recently went to market with their website—RENTR—and is starting with Chestnut Hill’s zip code: 19118, adding more as the business grows. The “About” tab on their site, encourages users to “Join us in building a more connected and resourceful community by sharing what you have and borrowing what you need.” The app, slated to come this fall, will make finding a table saw or backpack blower as easy as requesting an Uber!

Topping and Greenberg were the youngest students at the school to grab hold of the entrepreneurial spirit when it was first introduced to them in 1st grade. Since then they have partnered on a number of projects, and now this final one as they enter their last year of high school. “We want to take this as far as it will go!” says Blum.

“Our work on this business has already taught us so much,” says Topping, “In addition to what we’ve learned building out our business model, we’ve learned countless soft skills—the ability to present effectively, network, write emails. I think we can all say that the lessons we’ve taken away from our CEL classes have really shaped who we are today.”