The brentabl Story
The idea behind brentabl was formed way back in 2012, when Myles had to rent a jack hammer as a part of an effort to build a deck on the back of his townhouse. While the rental itself was fine and the jack hammer got the job done, the experience as a whole left a lot to be desired (head over to our blog for the full story). Over the subsequent years our team has rented various tools for various reasons, but always found the experience to be lacking. We also found that actually knowing which tools to rent is half the battle. We liken it to hailing a taxi before Uber. Sure it works, but does it really have to be such a hassle?
Fast forward to 2021 and the market for tool rental has changed little since 2012. The only difference is now, through a fortuitous series of events, we’re ready to launch brentabl. While renting tools is (for the time being) our primary business, our passion for tools and rental isn’t why we started the company. We set out to create a great company that people want to work for and want to do business with. Having worked at many different companies ourselves (some awesome, some not), we understand the value of great culture and a great customer experience. More than just renting the tools you need our vision is quite simply “a less stressful world.” You’ll find everything we do and the way we do it centered around this vision.
A Less Stressful World
Let’s face it, we live in a stressful world. Home improvements and maintenance can certainly add to the day to day stresses of life - leaky showers, busted drywall, that wonky outlet in the kitchen. But the work itself can actually be tremendously rewarding and far more cost effective than hiring a professional. In addition, we’re pretty fervent believers that Americans own far too much “stuff” and that this “stuff” creates additional stress. When was the last time you yelled up the stairs: “honey, have you see the…”. That’s what we’re talking about. Stuff = Stress.
So while we can’t remove every stress from your life, we can certainly avoid adding to it. We want you to have a completely frictionless experience with a great company that’s going to make life just a bit easier. And if we aren’t upholding our vision, feel free to let us know - our social media links are right at the bottom of the page. We’d love to hear from you - the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Providing everything you need to get the job done right.
Our mission is to provide our customers with both the tools and knowledge to tackle any project they set their minds to. We think renting the tools you need makes a lot more sense than having a bunch of dust collectors sitting around the garage. Unless you have a very big garage, you almost never have the exact right tool for the job. This forces you to make do with what you have or drive out to the big box store to spend a couple hundred bucks on a tool you hope you never have to use again. Our goal is to make renting easier than owning by using our expertise to get you the exact right tools for the job at hand.
Core Values
One of the key differentiators between the best companies we’ve worked for and the not-so-awesome ones were their core values. Not the existence of core values - they all had a list of core values somewhere - but what those values actually said about the company and whether or not they actually lived them out. At brentabl, we want our core values to be front and center right from the get-go. While these are likely to go through various iterations as we grow, we want to put a line in the sand now that helps our customers and employees understand what we’re all about. Some of these are our own thoughts, some are found in scripture, and still others we’ve borrowed from other companies. No matter their origins, we think they all make a great set of principles to guide our decisions as a company.
1. Faith
Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is a constant reminder that the world is bigger than ourselves and that often times we have to trust in things unseen.
4. Openness
Everyone should feel comfortable voicing their ideas, opinions, concerns, and feedback. We embrace the idea of transparency and openness and trust our people to use their best judgement to make decisions and to give and receive feedback in a constructive manner.
7. Make New Mistakes
We all make mistakes. What separates success from failure is what we do with those mistakes. If we aren't learning a few things the hard way as we forge ahead, then we aren't pushing boundaries as a company or as individuals. We're going to try new things and stretch our abilities and learn from the mistakes we make along the way.
2. Work to Live
We work to live, we don’t live to work. You should enjoy your job and be proud of what you do. At the end of the day, however, work cannot and should not be your identity no matter how much you love it. Be a great employee - but first be a great husband, wife, parent, sibling, or friend.
5. Customer Obsession
Simply put, without customers there is no business. We are obsessed with delivering value to our customers and we work backwards from their needs to drive our priorities.
8. Have Fun!
There are plenty of serious things about business, but we aren’t going to take ourselves too seriously. We believe some of our best thinking happens when we step out of the day-to-day and get to know our colleagues, customers, and business partners on a different level.
3. Make it Happen (MIH)
If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Feel empowered to make decisions to drive the business forward. Some decisions need extensive consideration - the overwhelming majority do not. Move forward, learn, and don’t make the same mistake twice. MIH isn’t a license to throw caution to the wind or advance a personal agenda, but it is a license to move quickly and take calculated risks.
6. Disagree and Commit
Valuing openness means that at times we’re going to see things differently and have different ideas about how to move forward. Once a decision is made, however, we put those differences behind us and commit to forging ahead - together!
The brentabl Name
In the interest of full disclosure, brentabl actually started out as “rentabl”. However, there were 2 key issues that kept rentabl from happening - a domain squatter that wanted $5,000 for the rentabl.com domain coupled with a bit of difficulty getting a trademark for rentabl on account of a company with a similar name that is in a similar space. So with that door closed, we began to explore alternatives and the more we thought about it we really started to like brentabl.
brentabl is named after Myles' dad Brent, who during his life exuded each of the core values listed above in aplomb (especially #8!). But beyond being a great father, grandfather, and co-worker, Brent could fix literally anything. He worked as an auto mechanic, then as an electrician for the power company before spending the next 20 years as a technician at Xerox. Fixing things was in his blood. He made it look easy!
So, in addition to being the embodiment of our core values, we love that idea of brentabl being a reflection of Brent in that we want to enable our customers to fix anything and to make it as easy as possible. Not everyone has a Brent to call upon to help get the job done, but now they have brentabl!
