UTS startup Kindershare, a peer-to-peer network facilitating the rental of baby equipment, was recently featured on an episode of A Current Affair focusing on the sharing economy. Founder Vanouhi Nazarian, shares her learnings on preparing her website for the deluge of traffic that followed Kindershare's first TV appearance.

Photo by Unsplash
I can't think of the last time I watched free to air TV live. I'm not a sports fan, and use Netflix and Catchup TV to watch the few shows that I am interested in. Many of my younger friends don't own a TV so I think advertising or promoting through TV makes no sense at all.
Add to that the timing of A Current Affair - right in the middle of parent's bed/bath routine and logically, the answer should have been no.
But, my ego couldn't resist, and so I said yes.
What did I do to prepare?
I'm a huge fan of the Minimum Viable Product - our website's base architecture is best described as 'developing' - we have had a functional product from day one, but I hadn't bothered ensuring our website was scaleable or optimised as there were always other things that were more important to concentrate on.
A quick look through the Oztam Ratings data showed around 850,000 people watched A Current Affair across Australia each night - panic set in! Was our website going to even cope with this?
A quick test using Load Impact gave us ten x 404s in a three minute test with 50 concurrent users - clearly our website was going to crash if even 1/1000th of the audience typed us into their phone while watching TV.
We're in the middle of an upgrade, so we wouldn't be able to change scripts on our home page and push it out without crashing the rest of our site. Our hands were tied with less than five days between when we were first notified and the potential air date.
How to prioritise what to do
After reading about 50 blog articles on how to prepare for surge traffic, we landed at the following action plan with the help of our Chief Technology Officer and offshore development team:
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Install a Content Delivery Network (CDN) - the speed improvements on our site were immense through this one step alone!
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Turn off all non-priority scripts running through GTM
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Upsize web servers and remote desktop servers - we relied heavily on the support we got from Amazon Web Services and had some budget to play with given we were still using the credits through the Springboard SBE program.
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Set up a 404 redirect - having a customised 404 page always looks better.
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Set up a new landing page, which new visitors would reach through a GTM-enabled pop-up.
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Have your emails to new users amended and ready to go.

00:00
back now money for Jam how you can make
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hundreds even thousands of dollars a
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month renting out stuff you'd probably
00:06
never thought about we live in great
00:11
times to make a buck in the last
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opportunities exist now that word around
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just a few years ago only a little bit
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of extra money at the same time which is
00:23
great they call it the shared economy
00:25
over a year it's a bit over three and a
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half grand online transactions that
00:30
connect buyers and sellers
00:31
we've all heard or used uber or Airbnb
00:35
but now there's so many more business
00:38
ideas coming out nearly every week that
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all of us could jump onto this lucrative
00:44
money spinner and supplement our income
00:47
tonight we follow four different groups
00:50
renting their wares or services and see
00:53
how much they make and perhaps what you
00:55
could make in a month
00:57
oh and save the world what a great way
01:01
not to throw more dump into this world
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what a great way to recycle things that
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we do have and give it to someone else
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and give it new life and make money out
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of it hazel had so much baby gear from
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her first born and it was going to be a
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while until number two she decided to
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rent it in between buds Wow see you're
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making a profit
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I am yeah definitely collecting dust in
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the garage the cot cost one hundred
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dollars but she's renting it for twenty
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dollars a week so it's a paid for itself
01:39
it has paid for itself and now I'm
01:42
earning a profit likewise the pram
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it's a rocker so it's really good for
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newborn babies and she's collecting
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fifty dollars a month on the snazzy
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rocker which has also paid itself off
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for a small Commission the online
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company kinder share covers her
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insurance marketing and bookings
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and it's found Avenue EDA's Arion says
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it works for both the owner and renter
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oh it really helps them with space but
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also helps with money as well I mean you
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don't want to drop five hundred dollars
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on something that you're only going to
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use for two weeks
02:16
speaking of space Ellen had a garage he
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wasn't using then he heard about spacer
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took a few photos of it set my rates at
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the location and then literally within a
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week had someone moving in here spacer
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puts owners and renters of garages car
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ports or spare rooms in contact with
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each other for a small cut as they fully
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cover me with insurance if there's any
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issues on the rents are not paying me on
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time they step in will tell you how much
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he makes in a moment but I'm using it
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myself to help to find for a few trips
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with the missus Paul and Cynthia loved
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dogs so babysitting them and getting
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paid for it was a double bonus even the
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locals know we've Tama got a new dog
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that's another one today
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that's no one this week kennels can cost
03:06
up to $100 a night for owners but these
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to get around $30 a night from the
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online company mad paws visit mad paws
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but it's constant with walkies feeding
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and playing it's fun it's fun
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Susanna has had some fun days with all
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her dresses but her better ones she's
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only wearing once or twice a year so
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he's top cost three hundred and fifty
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dollars and I've got it rented for $65
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for four days I've probably hired her at
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about five times so it's almost paid
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itself off with the online business the
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vault her designer clothes that cost
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between three hundred dollars and twelve
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hundred dollars of working for her
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rather than her working to buy them
04:00
distress he is quite popular for wedding
04:03
1500 Aussies are now using this service
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which also covers her insurance and
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dry-cleaning it's profitable time using
04:12
the vault would be
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spring racing first you the fact because
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it's nicer weather and there's more
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events on and people are having weddings
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so last month
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how much did our savvy for make out of
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the gear or space they weren't using for
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the services they loved giving paisa
04:29
learned $200 for stuff that would have
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been in the garage susana raked in 500
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bucks but she had plenty of walks to the
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post box to send off dresses and to the
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dry cleaners Alan got $300 and he didn't
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have to lift a finger for a month except
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for the first time when he lifted ten of
04:50
them to open the door and Cynthia and
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Paul made over a grand pick up a hell of
04:57
a lot of you know what turn your car
05:00
into a billboard rattly will wrap it and
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give you up to $600 a month the
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advertising has you do your normal days
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driving and when you're not using your
05:10
caravan camper home or trailer camp
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Liffe I will rent it out for you with
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some owners reporting they're earning
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$40,000 a year on something that would
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be sitting in the front yard
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but there are implications yes money
05:26
magazine editor F is our hottest part of
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your new earn money may also belong to
05:32
someone else
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you must declare this as income you've
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got to work out am i enterprise do I
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have to pay GST these are things you
05:43
need to consider and have I put it into
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my tax statements as well because
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believe me even if you have it the 80
05:49
know exactly knows exactly what you are
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earning but that's not all them on the
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good side there's a lot of deductions
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you could possibly be up for as well and
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remember these new online businesses are
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as much for customers as they are for
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owners or service providers why buy an
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expensive tool for those once a year
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jobs
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there's tool mates hire hire from
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someone in your suburb get a group of
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friends and rent from get my boat
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pretend you're rich like the guy who
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owns it and do the same and have a
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five-star treatment not a plane
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that's early and if you thought about
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Airbnb but didn't want the hassles now
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there's a sorted pool manager and
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cleaner there's a whole new world of
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money-making opportunities on the web
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out there so I find the vault a great
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way of any a little bit of extra money
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without doing much work but keep in mind
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even if it's a car space capital gains
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tax may be applicable so it's always a
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balancing thing you're gonna make some
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money but you got to pay some money out
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there's more on that story on our
07:00
homepage
So was it worth it?
Yes - watching Google Analytics during the four time zones was like watching a GIF - consistent spinning of numbers - it was beautiful to watch. Our architecture held too.
We had a month's worth of traffic to the site in an hour, about a month's worth of sign-ups and, most-importantly - over 20% of those converted less than 48 hours later. And best of all, mum finally got to understand what it was I did all day!
Top tips for other MVP startups
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Install your CDN today - sign up to the free level and configure it properly. When you have a surge event you can upgrade to a paid plan, but most of the fiddly stuff is already done for you.
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Test and test again - we managed to break one of our DKIM email settings when moving across to Cloudflare and for two days our customers were unable to click through any transaction emails.
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Install GTM on your site so you can quickly install / uninstall plugins with minimal coding / testing.
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Check your invoices - our retargeting was suspended because my credit card had maxed out - I realised about 30 mins before air time. A quick reset on a backup credit card and we were all okay!
University of Technology Sydney is sparking the next generation of entrepreneurs. Find out more at startups.uts.edu.au.