TULU Provides Renters With Access to Household Products – COOL HUNTING®

Available in New York and Tel Aviv, TULU provides household items to those living in close quarters or without flexible budgets. Everyday products (from vacuums to Playstation consoles, screwdrivers, projectors, and more) are available on-demand, for use on an hourly basis, through a rental agreement established with the company and hosted in a storage room within your building. TULU occupies these spaces within apartment complexes or in neighborhood buildings to make the necessary goods far more accessible.

Comprising a cross-continental team of data analysts, buyers, community managers and designers, TULU, as a company, relies on its users for feedback in order to replicate its successful ventures in more cities. To better understand how the company turns a process so seemingly simple into an in-depth study of urban living, we spoke with TULU’s CMO—MIT University designX Accelerator-alum Yael Shemer—about consumer habits, designing for betterment of individuals and the broader community, and more.

How was TULU conceptualized? Was it founded to solve needs of your own?

Yishai Lehavi (TULU’s CEO) and I met as part of an entrepreneurial program called Our Generation Speaks at the designX Accelerator at MIT, where the seeds were sown for what would become TULU. We came to the program with the same motivation: to leverage the fact that people live in proximity to one another in the city. We soon realized that great potential was found in the basic unit of urban life: residential buildings. Yishai, as an architect, brought the physical angle and I, as an environmental entrepreneur and community organizer, brought social value.

After a trial-and-error process, we were able to refine the idea that was there all the time—instead of every tenant owning a drill, vacuum cleaner or Playstation, we would allow all tenants access to high-quality products in their space. As soon as it became clear to us what TULU was and where we were going to take it, we began to look for the people who knew how to dream with us and make the idea a reality.

In a way, we created TULU together with our team for a cause we believe in, which is reducing consumption and waste and promoting a more sustainable lifestyle for people in cities, but also to look at spaces differently—to ask, “What more can these spaces be used for?”

How do you go about placing a TULU room within a building? Does a tenant request it? Does the building-owner? Is it through your own outreach?

At the beginning, we approached building management, but luckily there’s a good word of mouth and building owners see the benefits of providing TULU as an amenity to tenants. After six months in some buildings in NYC, we can show how our service is being used more than the gym in the building and adding value to their tenants’ lives.

What types of places are most in need of a TULU room? Buildings with families in city-sized apartments? Homeowners with a TULU “shed” where neighbors can pop in and avoid commuting to a distant specialty store?

We see two big shifts in big cities in the last decade and more: apartments are getting smaller and more people are renting their home. There’s a new type of tenant: a dynamic person who wants access but many times does not have the room for it. Young professionals move an average of once a year, so there’s really no incentive in accumulating loads of household stuff. TULU is perfect for large residential buildings with renters, in a dense neighborhood. We also have success in dormitories, where students who live in a small room see these benefits as well.

Our user base is mostly young professionals and couples, and some families, too. We also have a project in the neighborhood in TLV, together with the municipality, and are soon to be launching a flagship TULU room at the Wix headquarters where employees can rent stuff for the night or the weekend after work.

What kind of items are in TULU rooms and how does pricing work?

We provide high-quality, top products that you want to have, but don’t necessarily want to own, or can’t afford. We provide cleaning products (vacuum cleaners, mops, Roombas and even an upholstery cleaner and steamers), cooking products (an air fryer, waffle maker, KitchenAid mixer), hosting products (a projector, folding chairs and tables, board games—Settlers of Catan and Cards Against Humanity are the popular ones), and electric scooters and bikes.

Our members choose a plan and then each time they use a product, it’s deducted from their account—our prices are very affordable and are a few dollars per hour. We also have a daily pass and a weekend pass for longer rentals. Our Away suitcases are being rented for the weekend or for short trips with a fixed price as well.

What have been the most rented items? 

The most rented products are the Dyson vacuum cleaners, electric scooters, printers (you print in the TULU room) and projectors. The drill is a superstar as well. People have been renting VR sets for weeknights, PS4s for the entire weekend. When COVID-19 started, we saw a peak in the drill and tool boxes—assuming people finally got to fixing or doing a DIY project. During these strange days, we’ve also seen some out of the ordinary usage not only in volume, but also in how items are being used. In one building, a neighbor decided to make communal use of the projector and started an open-air cinema for the whole building to enjoy from their windows.

Images courtesy of Yael Shemer / TULU