Sharing economy services such as Uber and Airbnb may be a relatively new concept, but their application seems to be consistently gaining more ground.

Connor Darrow, a junior business administration major at Oakland University, is the founder and strategist for Herculeze Technologies, Inc.

Created in 2016, the company utilizes the sharing economy model to allow customers to get furniture movers for a competitive price.

“The name came from Hercules, the mythological character, how he’s strong and everything, and then the end of it with the ‘eze’ is for the ease of moving stuff,” Darrow said. “We decided to combine those two to make it a unique name.”

The student run company currently has around six employees from OU, Michigan State University and Bowling Green State University.

“It’s a peer-to-peer on-demand delivery marketplace,” Darrow said. “So people who need stuff moved such as a dresser or other furniture, they can get it moved by posting on the Herculeze website.”

Once posted, the customer will be connected with around 200-300 drivers in the local area. These drivers then have the opportunity to bid on the job, and the customer can choose whichever driver he or she prefers based on ratings and the price the driver is willing to do the job at.

The idea and inspiration behind Herculeze Technologies was born when Darrow’s uncle gave him a bunch of items to sell for college funds, and the student realized he could make a higher profit when offering to deliver the items to the buyer. This is when Darrow realized there was an existing market for the need.

“There’s actually not much competition,” Darrow said. “There’s large movers who do the larger jobs and then there’s also competition for Home Depot trucks where people do it on their own, but really there’s no inbetween for something like delivering a piece of furniture.”

One of the company’s current efforts over the past few months is in recruiting more drivers to the platform. It has succeeded in gaining 200-300 more over that time.

“They’re bidding on jobs [so] not all of them will get jobs, but they’re all active on the site,” Darrow said.

His hope and goal for the future of Herculeze Technologies, Inc. is to one day make it a billion dollar company.

“No one else has this right now, and it’s very much in demand,” Darrow said. “Once we get enough drivers then we’ll be able to expand in our market, which is the Detroit-metro area, then we can go to different markets and hopefully expand across the United States.”

Anyone interested in learning more about the company, becoming a driver or booking a delivery, can do so at herculeze.com.

“I’ve always wanted to start my own company, and it’s been great for the past couple of years to be able to start this and get it going,” Darrow said. “We’re still trying to get more off the ground here, and I think we’ve had great progress in doing so.”