Aarthi Ramamurthy is standing outside of her building talking to her first paying customer, and she’s about to make a product decision.

She’s shipped him a camera across country overnight on a rental program, and he’s so in love with it that he wants to buy one from her. He’s wondering if he can apply his rental fee towards the purchase of the camera.

After quickly running the numbers in her head she replies “Yes!” The customer is happy and she makes Lumoid’s first camera sale.

Lumoid, a Y Combinator-backed startup, is a service that lets you rent camera equipment of all sorts and, if you like it, you can purchase it. There are some comparisons to be drawn between rental companies, such as lensrentals.com and others, and the “try before you buy” services, such Rocksbox. 

But the model doesn’t stop there.