Startup land just got hella meta with this title: MakeSpace, The Dropbox For Physical Storage, Packs Up $8 Million Led By Upfront Ventures. While you might be tempted to think that this is an Onion article, it’s actually a recent post by Jordan Crook in TechCrunch.
Let’s analyze “The Dropbox For Physical Storage” for a minute, shall we? Dropbox has rocked the digital storage field these past few years by allowing users to utilize the cloud to store everything that won’t fit on their hard drives. Just like physical storage spaces, Dropbox is all about keeping track of our excessive amounts of shit.
Dropbox has been the digital equivalent of physical storage for years now, so Crook’s assertion that they’re the “Dropbox of physical storage” makes my head spin. Somehow, in the space of a couple of years, we’ve gone from physical storage to digital storage to digital storage of physical things.
And now let’s talk about that $8 million.
I’ve lived in major cities around the world, so I totally get the “I don’t have enough space for my shit” problem. While I’d love to write a screed about consumerism and how Americans have too many material goods, I simply can’t because the reason I’ve never had to rent a storage space is because my parents live in a giant house and let me store extra things there.
So, yeah, I’m totally as guilty as the rest of us.
However, I am going to say that MakeSpace is one of those companies that doesn’t solve a problem so much as make us all much, much lazier – and, of course, they just raised millions of dollars.
Here’s how it works:
Crook points out in his post that, with traditional self storage companies, “In most cases you’re responsible for taking your stuff to and from the facility, and if you’re not compulsively organized, finding something in your storage unit can be a nightmare.”
Oh, the horror! Organizing and transporting and keeping track of your own excessive shit!
MakeSpace “fixes” this non-existent problem by renting you four bins for $25 a month. Using their app, you can schedule pickup and drop-off, as well as keep track of which items are in which bin because, you know, Sharpies just don’t do it in this digital age. When you want one of your things, just send them a message and they’ll deliver you one box or all of them.
Maybe I’m just getting a bit burned out on the culture of convenience that is San Francisco and Silicon Valley because I do actually see why this is a decent idea but I don’t see why it merits over $10 million in total funding so far. It’s a storage unit. With an app. Come on, guys, really? It’s probably wishful thinking but I’m going to sit here at my computer and hope for a day when our “disruption” turns to solving real problems, not bullshit like this.
