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Sometimes the best project ideas come from stepping away from something you loved.
For years, I trained in a local mountaineering club. Early morning sessions, weekend expeditions, the quiet satisfaction of reaching a summit. It was a core part of my identity. But recently, I made a decision that surprised even me: I quit serious mountaineering to focus on trekking instead.
That decision left me with a closet full of high-quality gear I no longer needed. Ice axes, crampons, harnesses, ropes — equipment that cost a small fortune and now sat collecting dust.
As I started thinking about selling, I remembered something from my early days in the club: how hard it was for beginners to get started. Mountaineering gear is expensive. Really expensive. And the conventional wisdom was to buy new, buy quality, buy once.
I made that mistake myself. Dropped serious money on brand-new equipment before I even knew if I'd stick with the sport. Looking back, I wish there had been a simple way to find quality second-hand gear from experienced climbers who were upgrading or, like me, moving on.
So I built RePeaks — a simple marketplace for used mountaineering gear with AI-powered features for inventory and valuation.
The platform serves two distinct audiences. For individual mountaineers like me, it's a way to declutter, sell unused gear, or even rent out equipment between expeditions. For clubs and outdoor stores, it's an inventory management system — tracking rentals, managing bookings, replacing the chaotic spreadsheets and paper notes I saw at every club I visited.
I've watched too many beginners struggle with the cost barrier. Some gave up before they really got started. Others went into debt buying gear they'd use three times. The mountaineering community is generous with knowledge and mentorship, but there's no good infrastructure for circulating equipment.
Every club I've been part of had the same problem: gear rental was managed through Google Sheets, WhatsApp groups, or literal paper notebooks. Someone borrows a helmet, it doesn't get logged, and suddenly nobody knows where half the equipment went.
There's a clear need here. Not a billion-dollar market, maybe, but a real community that could benefit from something purpose-built.
I built the entire MVP in a weekend using what I call "agentic coding" — working with AI as a structured partner rather than just an autocomplete tool. The approach is simple: create a clear plan, break it into discrete tasks, execute step by step, iterate based on what you learn.
What used to take weeks of solo development now compresses into focused bursts. The AI handles the boilerplate, suggests edge cases I might miss, and lets me focus on the decisions that actually matter — what features to prioritize, how the UX should feel, whether the value proposition is clear.
This is the real power of agentic coding: not that it writes code for you, but that it removes the friction between having an idea and testing whether it works.
Right now, I'm in validation mode. The prototype works, but the real question is whether the mountaineering community actually wants this. I'm collecting early feedback, talking to clubs about their rental management pain points, and watching to see which features resonate most.
If traction is there, this could grow into something more — a proper SaaS for outdoor gear communities. If not, it was still a satisfying weekend project and a useful tool for my own gear liquidation.
Either outcome is fine. That's the beauty of building fast: you get to real answers quickly instead of spending months on something nobody wants.
If you're in the mountaineering, climbing, or outdoor community, I'd genuinely like to hear from you:
You can check out the project at repeaks.com or reach out directly if you want to try the rental management features for your club.
Sometimes quitting something opens a door to building something new. I'm curious to see where this one leads.