About
About BrikaBroke
BrikaBroke was born from a simple conviction: the things we no longer use deserve a second life, and that second life almost always begins close to home, with a friend, a neighbour, someone we know. We are building the social network for reuse: a place where you sell and browse within your circle of trust.
How it started
About ten years ago I was moving abroad. The flat had to be emptied: fast, and without spending every evening on it.
So I built a small site. A login, a password, photos of my things, an asking price, and two buttons: “Buy” or “Make an offer”. I sent the link to my networks, by email, to former colleagues. Nothing public, nothing indexed.
Everything was gone within a week.
What struck me wasn't the speed. It was that I never once wondered whether it was a scam. The buyers came from my circle, and above all, my friends had passed the link around. I sold to people I didn't know, but whose friends I did. That is not the same as selling to a stranger.
Several of them asked whether they could use it themselves. The answer was no: I had built it for myself alone. Everyone else could only make an offer.
Why I'm coming back to it
Ten years on, I have things to sell again. And I don't sell them.
Partly for lack of time. Mostly because posting an open listing means agreeing to stay on your guard: weighing up every message, being wary of a stranger who wants to come to your home, absorbing haggling designed to wear you down. A friend of mine received a buyer; while he was talking to him on the doorstep, someone else was walking round the house.
I also ran a stall at a car boot sale. I left with the feeling of having spent the day defending my own belongings against people who wanted everything for nothing.
And then there is the opposite, more ordinary problem: those conversations where a friend says “oh, if I'd known, I'd have been interested”, a week too late.
BrikaBroke is that old site, handed to everyone. A photo, a description, a price. The people who know you see the listing, and so do the people they know. You decide how far it travels.
Why BrikaBroke exists
The big marketplaces made resale possible for everyone, but at the cost of trust: fake buyers, fraudulent payment links, throwaway profiles, pressure-cooker haggling. Meanwhile, the most natural way for objects to move, between people who know each other, hand to hand, had no tool worthy of it.
BrikaBroke exists to give that gesture its place back: selling to your friends, to their friends, to your building or your village. Reuse among people you know, with trust as the foundation, not as a marketing claim.
What we believe
No money passes through the platform. You agree, you meet, you settle in person. Removing online payment removes the bulk of the scams, and BrikaBroke takes no commission.
Pseudonym first. Your real name is never shown without your decision, and your exact address is only shared after a deal. You should be able to sell without exposing yourself: privacy is not a box to tick, it is the starting point.
Chosen circles. You decide who sees your items: your friends, their friends, the people you sent your link to, or a closed circle where you approve every member. Nothing lingers on search engines.
Where we're headed
We want every circle to have its BrikaBroke: the family passing on the kids' things, the building running its permanent flea market, the association equipping its members. The service will keep growing in that direction, new tools to bring these circles to life, on the web and on mobile.
One thing will not change: the principles above. They are not a launch phase; they are the reason the product exists.
An independent house
BrikaBroke is designed and published in France by a small, independent team. The service is funded by the Premium subscription, not by advertising, and never by selling your data. That independence guarantees one thing: our choices serve the members, and no one else.
A question, an idea, a story of a beautiful object finding a new home? Write to us at contact@brikabroke.app.