Ask HN: Startup idea – disconnected, physical space charged by hour

What you describe exists somewhat in a form in the US. Most major universities have some type of "friends of library" program. You make an application and donate some money. You're then allowed to use the facilities for studying/reading/working. The donation is usually tax deductible. You're given the same access to the areas as the student population. The libraries all have quiet areas (or floors) and reservable enclosed quiet rooms (sometimes the rooms can be reserved remotely through a web interface). I had a reader membership for Cooper Union when I lived in Manhattan.

Major cities also have private libraries where a similar arrangement exists. Public libraries may be too busy and not as stringent in maintaining sound levels. They usually don't have private rooms either. From my experience, they are also not as clean as private libraries.

I've been confused why more people don't take advantage of these "friend of a library" programs or take part in private library memberships. The programs allow non-students to support libraries (although private ones) and they're significantly cheaper than going to cafes or coffee shops. I'm pretty sure most places will want you to buy something everytime to be considered a patron so that you aren't kicked out or pressured for freeloading.

Examples:

* Cooper Union (https://library.cooper.edu/friends/)

* NYU (https://library.nyu.edu/about/general/fob/)

* Princeton (https://fpul.princeton.edu/)

* NY Society Library (https://www.nysoclib.org/)

Opening one yourself and charge nothing should answer your own question.

Oh yeah, that was hilarious. But I can see some use in it. HN had quite a discussion on how the writing requirements would be enforced - I'm pretty sure a lot of it just comes down to Japanese etiquette and personal honor.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31012685

Gotta be in Tokyo, though.

I've been working on a very similar idea. I called it "Pause Room".

The assumption I started from was that such an experience has a potential of improving participants' overall productivity and self-perception of mental wellbeing and focus during and post-experience. The key was to measure and improve those metrics while refining the experience itself. I have managed to successfully complete a 3-month pilot with clear indication that this is doable and can be beneficial. This was a very strong selling point.

B2C path didn't graduate due to unaffordable expected end-consumer costs. I ended up focusing on 50-500-employee companies with the intention of building these rooms according to spec for monthly membership fee from their HR budgets. COVID hit and there were no offices or HR budget allocations anymore. For B2B, a catchphrase that worked for me and caught everyone's attention was that "happy hours" cost them hours and bring no happiness.

I believe this is a necessity in today's growing pace of things. Good luck!

Only way I can see this being profitable is if it's done on a gym-style subscription basis.

You pay $X/mo for access to the service. Your X buys you Y x 2hr slots which you have to book in advance to manage availability.

You can have different tiers for X and Y, but you would need to make sure you have good availability, otherwise people would cancel their subscription if they can never find a good slot.