Bunz, Canadian Facebook swap group, draws fans, investors

A once-private Canadian Facebookgroup where members trade items ranging from old furniture to an "unfortunately used" diamond engagement ringhas grown to more than 40,000 members, developed its ownappand recently gota cash infusion from an angel investor.

But Bunz, officially known as the Bunz Trading Zone, now faces the tricky proposition of dealing with its astounding growth.

It also must find a way to monetize abusiness model that began with a small, community-basedgroup of mostly millennials whofound a way to getvalue out of things they no longer needed instead of throwing themaway.

"It's tough," said Bunz founder Emily Bitze."We really believe in this project, and we really want to make it work.But we need the money to continue the project."

Ironic, considering money is banned onBunz.

Funding from the angel investment is paying for a downtown Toronto office, three app developers and seven employees, butthere is no business model as yet.

Humble beginnings

Bitze, 32, a musician who also worked in a clothing store in Toronto's hip Queen West neighbourhood, started the group about threeyears ago, essentially because she was broke and hungry.

"I wasn't able to make ends meet, which meant that I couldn't always buy food," saidBitze.

"So, I figured that my friends nearby would have something I needed if I could provide what they needed."

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Bitze started a private Facebook group where she and a few friends would trade, say, books or records for food or perhaps booze.

Those few friends told a few other friends, and they told a few other friends, and the numbers exploded.

Within about 18 months, there were more than 12,000 members.

The original name, Bumz(think "bum a smoke") morphed into Bunz after some members objected to the negative connotations of the former, andthe items being traded became more and morevaried.

Just about anything goes

"Bunz who are into bums" readone recent post from a memberlooking to trade two sex toys."Got these two glass sceptres from two different girlfriends (what are the chances?)," wrote the user.

"Well, I can guarantee these have never been used," he added."Not that there's anything wrong with people who are into that sort of thing."

The userwas ISO (in search of) "an office chair/computer chair or random weird things like militaria."

Another memberwas offering a $50 gift card for Mountain Equipment Co-op ("bought this for my ex, but turns out he sucks").

Someone elsewas looking to trade one "unfortunately used" white gold,1.0 carat, brilliant-cut diamond engagement ring for a motorcycle."Toss in a few beers (or a helmet)," he wrote,"I'll throw in the whole story."

It gets (very) personal

Betweenits app, which is available for both iOSand Android, and on the Bunz.comwebsite, Bunz is now seeing anaverage of 250 trades per day.

There are now Bunzgroups in Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver,London, Ont.,San Francisco and Los Angeles, although the largestis still in Toronto.

Anyone can join by entering the code777777 into the app or on the home page of Bunz.com and signing into Facebook.

While there's no money allowed, many Bunz members ask for transit tokens or tall boys of beer, which have become sort of unofficial currencies for Bunz members.Some traders are ISO "420," a euphemism for marijuana.

Many of the trades are simply a way to get rid of old junk, but other posts are much more personal and heartfelt

"ISO a real adult (30+)," reada recent post, "to listen to my problems and tell me its (sic) gonna be OK[because] my real parents are emotionally unavailable, and I'm broke and failing all my classes.Will trade a painting."

The comments on this post were, nearly to a person, encouraging and supportive.Many offered advice. One even provideda link to a resource that offers free psychotherapy.

Will trade booze for body art

Sara Spears, whoworks at a Toronto advertising firm,heard about Bunz a few months ago from a colleague who was running out on her lunch hour to make a trade.

"I think I've done about six or seven [trades]," Spears said.

"It's kind of addicting.And also, I'm moving soon, so I find myself looking through everything and thinking, 'Oh, I don't need this' and 'I wonder what I could trade for this.'"

In her very first trade, she swapped a bottle of gin and half a kilo of coffee for a tattoo.

Yes, a real, permanent tattoo.

"I really liked the idea of it,"said Spears, who sports the palm-sized tattoo of a bouquet of lavender on her forearm.

"And I've actually become good friends with the artist."

Community first or cash?

It's that human connection, Bitze says, that is the key to Bunz's popularity.

Becauseyou take money out of the equation, there's more room for goodwill.- EmilyBitze, Bunzfounder

"That's why it's so special. Becauseyou take money out of the equation, there's more room for goodwill," she said.

"You might do a trade with someone and sit down and have a coffee with them.And that's really cool.I think a lot of people really lack that sense of belonging in a community."

But how does Bunz, which is no longer a private, invite-only group,maintain that sense of community now that there are tens of thousands of members and more joining every day?

And how do you monetize that?

"We're not bringing in any money at the moment (other than theangel investor funding).That's something we need to figure out," saidBitze.

Bitze's dilemma is a familiar one,says Tim Jackson, a venture capitalist and executive vice-presidentwith MaRS, a Toronto organization that provides support for startups and entrepreneurs.

Charging a processing fee for everytransaction might be one way for Bunz to monetize, says Jackson.But that seems to go against theoriginal idea of Bunz.There is also inherent value in the access Bunz has to its tens of thousands of members, many of whom are millennials, an attractive and notoriously fickle demographic for marketers.

However they do it, Jackson says, Bunz might be on to something.

"Think about when Pierre Omidyar founded AuctionWeb.He started off a website where people could sell things that they no longer wanted ... there were no economics that were transacted," Jackson said.

"Fast forward to today.That company is eBay."