5 ms·

Fight bike theft with the open source bike registry

20 points by sethherr 13y ago

ipince 13y ago
Did I miss it or does it not say how it works?
- sethherr 13y ago
  It's a ruby on rails. You (or a bike shop) enters the serial number, and a few other pieces of information and your email and we send you the information. If you ever log in, all the bikes sent to the email you sign up with are connected to your address (and you can upload photos and information about the components) You can check out the way it works at https://www.bikeindex.org https://www.bikeindex.org
phinze 13y ago
I contributed. It's obviously a worthwhile cause, and their overall strategy seems sound. I also appreciate their efforts to bake the open source mentality into the project. I hope they reach the goal and this gets big, because that's how it will be effective. edit: following them on twitter turned up a couple of worthwhile articles: one on the economics of bike theft [1] and another review of locks performed by interviewing bike thieves [2] [1] http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-t... [2] http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-bike-lock/ http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-bike-lock/
- sethherr 13y ago
  Thank you!
yoblin 13y ago
$6.99 to register your bike? What a joke.
- bichiliad 13y ago
  Gotta keep the lights on somehow, and plus it looks like you can theoretically just go to a bike shop and register there.
- sethherr 13y ago
  It will always be free to register through a bike shop or an advocacy organization. It shouldn't be tough to get registered for free ever - but by charging a fee we give bike shops a value they can give to their customers.
- revelation 13y ago
  It's a barebones CRUD app that rails could probably scaffold for you, theres no engraving or anything going on, and they ask for 7$ and $50k through kickstarter? Come on. Local bike shops and cycling organizations here (Germany) offer what they call "Codierung", where they permanently engrave a number on the frame and register it with police along with your contact information for a few bucks.
  - sethherr 13y ago
    The app itself isn't expensive - it's the time and resources to connect with local governments (so police search the database too) and the expense to reach more shops and integrate with various point-of-sale systems in bike shops. The idea of the police engraving anything into my bike is horrifying. And impossible for carbon bikes. And once again, it won't be difficult to get registration for free. The reason that there is a fee is to encourage people to register their bike when they are in a bike shop rather than putting it off because they can just do it at home - plus, by adding a fee we will make it easier to track thieves who register bikes they've stolen.
    - revelation 13y ago
      The reason they engrave (or use multiple stickers, for carbon and others) is that the frame number is not as unique as you might think it is, certainly not unique among different producers, and always requires some central database. You simply haven't solved the major problem here, which is one of discoverability and easy, decentralized lookup.
douglasfshearer 13y ago
> "Use the bike index to show off your bike" It doesn't describe or show how data will be available or searchable, but there is a risk that thieves could use this data to target specific bikes. I certainly take lots of care to not advertise what I have, where I store it etc, I can't see me rushing to pay to make this information available on the web.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  My understanding is that bike theft is so prevalent not because it is uniquely profitable, but rather because it is uniquely safe and undercharged. (it is rarely investigated/prosecuted, and even when you do get caught you aren't going to get nailed with much.) Targeting particular bikes isn't going to work well then. To get particular bikes, not just bikes you happen to find on the sidewalk, you are going to need to do some breaking and entering too; a significantly riskier crime (and while you are at it, you might as well take the television too... if this is your sort of gig, chances are you are doing this with or without a bike registry).
- sethherr 13y ago
  We make bikes public - but not ownership information, including removing location data from photos. You can check out the way it works at https://www.bikeindex.org https://www.bikeindex.org You can also check out the code at https://github.com/bikeindex/webapp https://github.com/bikeindex/webapp
Luc 13y ago
This is done for free by the police in Belgium (and the Netherlands if I'm not mistaken). They use a hand-held engraver on the frame, and when they find an engraved bicycle they contact the owner. I think the fact that the police and not just the general public use the system is helpful...
- sethherr 13y ago
  We're working on integrating with the police, it's the next step and a big part of the reason for the Kickstarter. But more important than the police doing it is bike shops doing it for free when you buy a new bike, before it leaves the shop. Also I do not want the police using a hand-held engraver on my frame - it already has a serial number.
  - Luc 13y ago
    I guess you're talking about expensive bikes then, if they have serial numbers.
    - sethherr 13y ago
      Almost all bikes have serial numbers. Including the ones sold at walmart. You can read about them here: https://bikeindex.org/serials https://bikeindex.org/serials Ironically, it's expensive hand made bikes that don't
      - a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
        The numbers need to all be on the top tube and highly legible. A serial number on the bottom bracket is almost useless because it will be covered in muck. A number hidden on the rear drop out is obviously useless. A number under the seat is also too hard to read. It'd be nice if the frame manufacturers fixed this.
        ethomson 13y ago
        Your mountain bike exploits must be much more epic than mine if you can't get the muck off your bottom bracket.
FireBeyond 13y ago
DUPE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6467431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6467431 I feel my comments still stand: Ugh. So many problems: 1. It's a violation of "Kickstarter cannot be used to fund e-commerce, business, and social networking websites or apps." 2. This is a website, right? Then why: "Travel to the eleven biggest bike cities in the United States to meet with shop owners and give them the ability to register bikes for free (the cities: NYC, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Madison, Tucson, Austin, Denver, D.C., and Minneapolis)." (Awesome, let's use Kickstarter to pay for me/us to take a trip through the US "to meet with bike shop owners and give them a chance to use the website"...) 3. "Offer region specific recommendations for reporting bike theft to the police." - so an extended goal of this site is to "recommend how to report to the police, customized for regions"?!? 4. Some stickers. 5. Oh, and you have to pay to register with the Index. And they seriously want $50K for this? Sorry for the cynicism... but this is a website, some stickers, and a tour of the US for the founders. (I mean, the 'stretch goal' is effectively, 'we get to go on an even bigger tour to, huh, tell bike shops about our website')...
- mjolk 13y ago
  How is this worse than other Kickstarter projects? (serious question, this seems as legit as any to me)
- FireBeyond 13y ago
  Actually, on reading the updated Kickstarter project, I feel I need to amend point 3, the "region specific recommendations" of the stretch goal are "send us to even more places around the US to talk there".
- colmvp 13y ago
  1. It's a violation of "Kickstarter cannot be used to fund e-commerce, business, and social networking websites or apps." Diaspora was a social network.
  - FireBeyond 13y ago
    So Kickstarter is bad, and by all means getting worse, at enforcing their own TOS, as advertised. Does this make the point any less true? I understand that it's hard to derail a popular project that may violate your TOS when it's also generating you a commission on every dollar of backing.
RK 13y ago
How is this different/better than already established bike registries? My bikes are registered here (for free): http://www.bikeshepherd.org/ http://www.bikeshepherd.org/
- sethherr 13y ago
  Bike Shepherd doesn't solve the central problem of bike registration - how to register people who don't know about bike registration. It also doesn't offer a way of verifying used bike sales. That is what makes the Bike Index different - we work with shops to register people's bikes for them, and we offer a way to verify bikes that you sell.
acgourley 13y ago
To the people running this Kickstarter I want to say: don't give up. It does seem like it won't fund at this point but the concept could be re-formulated. Certainly the interest is present!
cgman 13y ago
Why the heck would you engrave anything in your bike? Just making it impossible for thieves to sell a stolen bike should be good enough... any seller should simply ask to see the registration information and make sure it matches with seller's ID. No need to engrave anything. As for the person who lost the bike, you're out of luck! Any smart thief would be able to disassemble your bike and sell it part by part if any single part were engraved to begin with.
ethomson 13y ago
So, I like the idea of reducing bike theft (by virtue of making it not profitable), but I don't see the whole picture yet. I have more than one bike (yes, I'm one of those dorks) and I would be fairly upset if one of them were stolen. But I also have their serial numbers logged at home, in a safe place, so that I could report that to the police if one were stolen and I'm certain that after doing so... nothing would happen. I'm guessing that if you see your bike get stolen and can somehow stop the thief that having this proof is useful to the police (who can hand it over to you). But 5 minutes later, once that bike is going... I'm guessing the police can do nothing. So this helps by targeting the buyers? How many stolen bikes are really stolen to bike shops? I would think that a junkie wandering in trying to sell a carbon wunderbike is going to have much luck. And if it's targeting the end consumer... well, I would probably check this registry, but I'm pretty certain that a dozen other people won't.
- sethherr 13y ago
  Sites like stolenbikeregistry.com and chicago.stolenbike.org have been amazingly successful at recovering bikes - their biggest problem is that people don't have good records of their bikes after they are stolen, and that people take too long to list their bikes after they are stolen - which are both problems that we address. And why we're working on providing a universal search so that all sites can access data together.
stormbrew 13y ago
I'd give to a kickstarter that was promising some innovative design of a bike alarm that's difficult to disable, personally. Solving bike theft post-theft seems improbable to me, aside from making it much much more expensive (by drastically increasing police effort and fine levels for it). I feel like a registry will never be much more than a half solution.
- sethherr 13y ago
  We believe a registry is an important part of the solution. There will always be more tools and tricks that can be added on. There was a bike alarm on Kickstarter, our friends the Bike Spike - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1054587410/the-bikespike http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1054587410/the-bikespike And they want to incorporate registration into their project.
dfrey 13y ago
These crowd funding things leave a really sour taste in my mouth. If you want investors, offer equity. If you want customers, offer product.
Theodores 13y ago
I have spent a few years working on and off in the cycle trade in the UK, as mechanic, in sales and at the distributor/importer level. I have had just the one bicycle stolen however I have helped plenty of customers that have lost their steed(s). The cycle trade is seasonal - May to September. There used to be a Christmas season but nowadays big box retailers have that business. During the season it is hard work making the sales. Even though customers are highly available, converting them to sales and then getting the upsells (helmets), bike for the wife, big D-lock etc. is hard work. There is no time to hang about and a lot to get right (the bike has to be road safe with lights and other accessories, adjusted to them with not a scratch on the paintwork or even a greasy thumbprint). Typically customers haggle for discounts so it is not a simple checkout operation. By the time that the customer hands over the credit/debit card all concerned have had enough. They want to go home and the shop wants to move onto the customer behind them that has been waiting patiently for service. At this stage the bike has typically been registered on the EPOS system complete with frame number. This frame number can be looked up for the purposes of an insurance claim, such an insurance claim guarantees repeat business for the shop so there is incentive for it to be recorded. I don't see how realistic it is at this busy Saturday stage of a bike sale for sales staff to present your service to customers. It may be in some bike shops but it is not realistic for the pressured sales environments I have known, particularly if sales targets are being made from £300 bikes (where profit is not a lot when you have to pay a mechanic to assemble it and staff to provide personal sales service including things like a test ride). You need to catch the customer when they get home. With the bike there is invariably a manual, one that is probably quite dated and poorly printed. In this there will be a manufacturer guarantee form to complete and send off. I have seen what happens to these - they end up in a box at the distributor with some vague plans for the details to be entered into some system some day for marketing purposes. 'What if they get their bike stolen?' is not even thought about. Similarly, with the Police, if they find a bike (which always has a serial number) then they do not think to call the distributor to 'just check who this belongs to'. Hence, for your scheme to work, you need to ignore the shops and the importer/distributors. You need to have a quality bit of documentation in that manual that comes with the bike. When the customer gets home and does what they do with their new toy, that is the time to get them to register it, not in the shop. There is significant lead time on bikes being designed, prototyped, tweaked, accepted, sent to manufacturing, sent back in a big container box, put in a warehouse by the docks, put in the retailers warehouse and finally making it to the customer via the shop. Bike designers are working on the 2016 range as we speak - that is the lead time. You can try to convince 1000's of shops that your scheme is something they want to go with to find that in reality it isn't that simple. Or you can convince the small handful of bike designers to amend their manuals to include details of your scheme. Right now there is no clear information from the top of the bike food chain about who the customers are and whether they are that happy with the product. I am sure that some brands are onto this but the one I know are a bit behind the times. They certainly don't contact the customers via email as far as I know. All of them would do well to look after the customers they have got rather than be forever looking for new ones - simple marketing sense. With your scheme and some enhanced manuals you could do this for them and help them build up a useful customer database. Every bike workshop has a cardboard box in it full of manuals that should have been attached to bikes but somehow got lost behind. If those manuals had some customer friendly, no work for the shop needed wording to cover the theft angle then it would make it more likely that those manuals would go out the shop door with their respective steeds. Manufacturers want the manuals to go with the bikes, not end up in a box in some workshop. So you could help solve this problem for them. Finally, the URL. It is not very good, is it? 'mybikehasbeenstolen.com' took me as long to think up as to write and I am sure that with a few more thought iterations I could come up with something that conveys they same sentiment more concisely. You need to put some more work into the URL, because at the moment it describes your code and not the predicament the customer gets into when the bike is stolen. You also need to do a lot of work on the UI. Look at how second hand car sites work and how you can search by make and model with a few easy and intuitive steps. I don't think an omni search box is the way to go. From the off it is wrong - you need three calls to action, 'my bike has been stolen', 'I want to register my bike in case it does get stolen' and 'I want to check if this bike is stolen'. You haven't got that clear, it is far too 'Don't make me think!'. If one of my bikes was stolen right now then I would not know the serial number, but I do know my email address. So I definitely see the value of what you are trying to do. In the bike industry everyone knows everyone and it is a small world. There are trade associations, events, trade magazines and much else that you need to tap into. If you can get the trade body (I am from the UK so I don't know what it is in the USA) to back your scheme then you will be onto a winner. You wouldn't even need to go to Kickstarter for some miserly funds - with the right scheme they will give you more than chicken feed (but a lot less than what Lance Armstrong was paid to essentially sell bikes). Theft puts customers off buying big ticket bikes and everyone in the industry knows that is a problem that needs to be sorted out. If you get this right and approach the right people and get the right introductions at the trade body level you will push at an open door. They all just need to have a mention of the scheme in their respective manuals, the manuals that go out with all bikes.

20 points by sethherr 13y ago

ipince 13y ago

Did I miss it or does it not say how it works?

sethherr 13y ago
It's a ruby on rails. You (or a bike shop) enters the serial number, and a few other pieces of information and your email and we send you the information. If you ever log in, all the bikes sent to the email you sign up with are connected to your address (and you can upload photos and information about the components) You can check out the way it works at https://www.bikeindex.org https://www.bikeindex.org

phinze 13y ago

I contributed. It's obviously a worthwhile cause, and their overall strategy seems sound. I also appreciate their efforts to bake the open source mentality into the project. I hope they reach the goal and this gets big, because that's how it will be effective. edit: following them on twitter turned up a couple of worthwhile articles: one on the economics of bike theft [1] and another review of locks performed by interviewing bike thieves [2] [1] http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-t... [2] http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-bike-lock/ http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-bike-lock/

sethherr 13y ago
Thank you!

yoblin 13y ago

$6.99 to register your bike? What a joke.

bichiliad 13y ago
Gotta keep the lights on somehow, and plus it looks like you can theoretically just go to a bike shop and register there.
sethherr 13y ago
It will always be free to register through a bike shop or an advocacy organization. It shouldn't be tough to get registered for free ever - but by charging a fee we give bike shops a value they can give to their customers.
revelation 13y ago
It's a barebones CRUD app that rails could probably scaffold for you, theres no engraving or anything going on, and they ask for 7$ and $50k through kickstarter? Come on. Local bike shops and cycling organizations here (Germany) offer what they call "Codierung", where they permanently engrave a number on the frame and register it with police along with your contact information for a few bucks.
- sethherr 13y ago
  The app itself isn't expensive - it's the time and resources to connect with local governments (so police search the database too) and the expense to reach more shops and integrate with various point-of-sale systems in bike shops. The idea of the police engraving anything into my bike is horrifying. And impossible for carbon bikes. And once again, it won't be difficult to get registration for free. The reason that there is a fee is to encourage people to register their bike when they are in a bike shop rather than putting it off because they can just do it at home - plus, by adding a fee we will make it easier to track thieves who register bikes they've stolen.
  - revelation 13y ago
    The reason they engrave (or use multiple stickers, for carbon and others) is that the frame number is not as unique as you might think it is, certainly not unique among different producers, and always requires some central database. You simply haven't solved the major problem here, which is one of discoverability and easy, decentralized lookup.

douglasfshearer 13y ago

> "Use the bike index to show off your bike" It doesn't describe or show how data will be available or searchable, but there is a risk that thieves could use this data to target specific bikes. I certainly take lots of care to not advertise what I have, where I store it etc, I can't see me rushing to pay to make this information available on the web.

jlgreco 13y ago
My understanding is that bike theft is so prevalent not because it is uniquely profitable, but rather because it is uniquely safe and undercharged. (it is rarely investigated/prosecuted, and even when you do get caught you aren't going to get nailed with much.) Targeting particular bikes isn't going to work well then. To get particular bikes, not just bikes you happen to find on the sidewalk, you are going to need to do some breaking and entering too; a significantly riskier crime (and while you are at it, you might as well take the television too... if this is your sort of gig, chances are you are doing this with or without a bike registry).
sethherr 13y ago
We make bikes public - but not ownership information, including removing location data from photos. You can check out the way it works at https://www.bikeindex.org https://www.bikeindex.org You can also check out the code at https://github.com/bikeindex/webapp https://github.com/bikeindex/webapp

Luc 13y ago

This is done for free by the police in Belgium (and the Netherlands if I'm not mistaken). They use a hand-held engraver on the frame, and when they find an engraved bicycle they contact the owner. I think the fact that the police and not just the general public use the system is helpful...

sethherr 13y ago
We're working on integrating with the police, it's the next step and a big part of the reason for the Kickstarter. But more important than the police doing it is bike shops doing it for free when you buy a new bike, before it leaves the shop. Also I do not want the police using a hand-held engraver on my frame - it already has a serial number.
- Luc 13y ago
  I guess you're talking about expensive bikes then, if they have serial numbers.
  - sethherr 13y ago
    Almost all bikes have serial numbers. Including the ones sold at walmart. You can read about them here: https://bikeindex.org/serials https://bikeindex.org/serials Ironically, it's expensive hand made bikes that don't
    - a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
      The numbers need to all be on the top tube and highly legible. A serial number on the bottom bracket is almost useless because it will be covered in muck. A number hidden on the rear drop out is obviously useless. A number under the seat is also too hard to read. It'd be nice if the frame manufacturers fixed this.
      - ethomson 13y ago
        Your mountain bike exploits must be much more epic than mine if you can't get the muck off your bottom bracket.

FireBeyond 13y ago

DUPE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6467431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6467431 I feel my comments still stand: Ugh. So many problems: 1. It's a violation of "Kickstarter cannot be used to fund e-commerce, business, and social networking websites or apps." 2. This is a website, right? Then why: "Travel to the eleven biggest bike cities in the United States to meet with shop owners and give them the ability to register bikes for free (the cities: NYC, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Madison, Tucson, Austin, Denver, D.C., and Minneapolis)." (Awesome, let's use Kickstarter to pay for me/us to take a trip through the US "to meet with bike shop owners and give them a chance to use the website"...) 3. "Offer region specific recommendations for reporting bike theft to the police." - so an extended goal of this site is to "recommend how to report to the police, customized for regions"?!? 4. Some stickers. 5. Oh, and you have to pay to register with the Index. And they seriously want $50K for this? Sorry for the cynicism... but this is a website, some stickers, and a tour of the US for the founders. (I mean, the 'stretch goal' is effectively, 'we get to go on an even bigger tour to, huh, tell bike shops about our website')...

mjolk 13y ago
How is this worse than other Kickstarter projects? (serious question, this seems as legit as any to me)
FireBeyond 13y ago
Actually, on reading the updated Kickstarter project, I feel I need to amend point 3, the "region specific recommendations" of the stretch goal are "send us to even more places around the US to talk there".
colmvp 13y ago
1. It's a violation of "Kickstarter cannot be used to fund e-commerce, business, and social networking websites or apps." Diaspora was a social network.
- FireBeyond 13y ago
  So Kickstarter is bad, and by all means getting worse, at enforcing their own TOS, as advertised. Does this make the point any less true? I understand that it's hard to derail a popular project that may violate your TOS when it's also generating you a commission on every dollar of backing.

RK 13y ago

How is this different/better than already established bike registries? My bikes are registered here (for free): http://www.bikeshepherd.org/ http://www.bikeshepherd.org/

sethherr 13y ago
Bike Shepherd doesn't solve the central problem of bike registration - how to register people who don't know about bike registration. It also doesn't offer a way of verifying used bike sales. That is what makes the Bike Index different - we work with shops to register people's bikes for them, and we offer a way to verify bikes that you sell.

acgourley 13y ago

To the people running this Kickstarter I want to say: don't give up. It does seem like it won't fund at this point but the concept could be re-formulated. Certainly the interest is present!

cgman 13y ago

Why the heck would you engrave anything in your bike? Just making it impossible for thieves to sell a stolen bike should be good enough... any seller should simply ask to see the registration information and make sure it matches with seller's ID. No need to engrave anything. As for the person who lost the bike, you're out of luck! Any smart thief would be able to disassemble your bike and sell it part by part if any single part were engraved to begin with.

ethomson 13y ago

So, I like the idea of reducing bike theft (by virtue of making it not profitable), but I don't see the whole picture yet. I have more than one bike (yes, I'm one of those dorks) and I would be fairly upset if one of them were stolen. But I also have their serial numbers logged at home, in a safe place, so that I could report that to the police if one were stolen and I'm certain that after doing so... nothing would happen. I'm guessing that if you see your bike get stolen and can somehow stop the thief that having this proof is useful to the police (who can hand it over to you). But 5 minutes later, once that bike is going... I'm guessing the police can do nothing. So this helps by targeting the buyers? How many stolen bikes are really stolen to bike shops? I would think that a junkie wandering in trying to sell a carbon wunderbike is going to have much luck. And if it's targeting the end consumer... well, I would probably check this registry, but I'm pretty certain that a dozen other people won't.

sethherr 13y ago
Sites like stolenbikeregistry.com and chicago.stolenbike.org have been amazingly successful at recovering bikes - their biggest problem is that people don't have good records of their bikes after they are stolen, and that people take too long to list their bikes after they are stolen - which are both problems that we address. And why we're working on providing a universal search so that all sites can access data together.

stormbrew 13y ago

I'd give to a kickstarter that was promising some innovative design of a bike alarm that's difficult to disable, personally. Solving bike theft post-theft seems improbable to me, aside from making it much much more expensive (by drastically increasing police effort and fine levels for it). I feel like a registry will never be much more than a half solution.

sethherr 13y ago
We believe a registry is an important part of the solution. There will always be more tools and tricks that can be added on. There was a bike alarm on Kickstarter, our friends the Bike Spike - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1054587410/the-bikespike http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1054587410/the-bikespike And they want to incorporate registration into their project.

dfrey 13y ago

These crowd funding things leave a really sour taste in my mouth. If you want investors, offer equity. If you want customers, offer product.

Theodores 13y ago

I have spent a few years working on and off in the cycle trade in the UK, as mechanic, in sales and at the distributor/importer level. I have had just the one bicycle stolen however I have helped plenty of customers that have lost their steed(s). The cycle trade is seasonal - May to September. There used to be a Christmas season but nowadays big box retailers have that business. During the season it is hard work making the sales. Even though customers are highly available, converting them to sales and then getting the upsells (helmets), bike for the wife, big D-lock etc. is hard work. There is no time to hang about and a lot to get right (the bike has to be road safe with lights and other accessories, adjusted to them with not a scratch on the paintwork or even a greasy thumbprint). Typically customers haggle for discounts so it is not a simple checkout operation. By the time that the customer hands over the credit/debit card all concerned have had enough. They want to go home and the shop wants to move onto the customer behind them that has been waiting patiently for service. At this stage the bike has typically been registered on the EPOS system complete with frame number. This frame number can be looked up for the purposes of an insurance claim, such an insurance claim guarantees repeat business for the shop so there is incentive for it to be recorded. I don't see how realistic it is at this busy Saturday stage of a bike sale for sales staff to present your service to customers. It may be in some bike shops but it is not realistic for the pressured sales environments I have known, particularly if sales targets are being made from £300 bikes (where profit is not a lot when you have to pay a mechanic to assemble it and staff to provide personal sales service including things like a test ride). You need to catch the customer when they get home. With the bike there is invariably a manual, one that is probably quite dated and poorly printed. In this there will be a manufacturer guarantee form to complete and send off. I have seen what happens to these - they end up in a box at the distributor with some vague plans for the details to be entered into some system some day for marketing purposes. 'What if they get their bike stolen?' is not even thought about. Similarly, with the Police, if they find a bike (which always has a serial number) then they do not think to call the distributor to 'just check who this belongs to'. Hence, for your scheme to work, you need to ignore the shops and the importer/distributors. You need to have a quality bit of documentation in that manual that comes with the bike. When the customer gets home and does what they do with their new toy, that is the time to get them to register it, not in the shop. There is significant lead time on bikes being designed, prototyped, tweaked, accepted, sent to manufacturing, sent back in a big container box, put in a warehouse by the docks, put in the retailers warehouse and finally making it to the customer via the shop. Bike designers are working on the 2016 range as we speak - that is the lead time. You can try to convince 1000's of shops that your scheme is something they want to go with to find that in reality it isn't that simple. Or you can convince the small handful of bike designers to amend their manuals to include details of your scheme. Right now there is no clear information from the top of the bike food chain about who the customers are and whether they are that happy with the product. I am sure that some brands are onto this but the one I know are a bit behind the times. They certainly don't contact the customers via email as far as I know. All of them would do well to look after the customers they have got rather than be forever looking for new ones - simple marketing sense. With your scheme and some enhanced manuals you could do this for them and help them build up a useful customer database. Every bike workshop has a cardboard box in it full of manuals that should have been attached to bikes but somehow got lost behind. If those manuals had some customer friendly, no work for the shop needed wording to cover the theft angle then it would make it more likely that those manuals would go out the shop door with their respective steeds. Manufacturers want the manuals to go with the bikes, not end up in a box in some workshop. So you could help solve this problem for them. Finally, the URL. It is not very good, is it? 'mybikehasbeenstolen.com' took me as long to think up as to write and I am sure that with a few more thought iterations I could come up with something that conveys they same sentiment more concisely. You need to put some more work into the URL, because at the moment it describes your code and not the predicament the customer gets into when the bike is stolen. You also need to do a lot of work on the UI. Look at how second hand car sites work and how you can search by make and model with a few easy and intuitive steps. I don't think an omni search box is the way to go. From the off it is wrong - you need three calls to action, 'my bike has been stolen', 'I want to register my bike in case it does get stolen' and 'I want to check if this bike is stolen'. You haven't got that clear, it is far too 'Don't make me think!'. If one of my bikes was stolen right now then I would not know the serial number, but I do know my email address. So I definitely see the value of what you are trying to do. In the bike industry everyone knows everyone and it is a small world. There are trade associations, events, trade magazines and much else that you need to tap into. If you can get the trade body (I am from the UK so I don't know what it is in the USA) to back your scheme then you will be onto a winner. You wouldn't even need to go to Kickstarter for some miserly funds - with the right scheme they will give you more than chicken feed (but a lot less than what Lance Armstrong was paid to essentially sell bikes). Theft puts customers off buying big ticket bikes and everyone in the industry knows that is a problem that needs to be sorted out. If you get this right and approach the right people and get the right introductions at the trade body level you will push at an open door. They all just need to have a mention of the scheme in their respective manuals, the manuals that go out with all bikes.