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Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

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Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#1

Post by kvgr »

Hi I just got an idea that might be interesting. A lot of us are freelance developers and working from home is not very effective, but renting office just for one person is not money efficient. Yes there are some covorking spaces, but not everywhere. So here is my idea: OfficeBuddy - you can search for place in office of other people from your field(or whatever field) and you can add your office with free seats. what do you think, would you use it?

Re: Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#3

Post by greenpaint »

You might want to take a look too at coworking.info, which runs a directory[1] and allows people to add spaces or register their interest for one.

I've never used it so I can't testify to how easy it is to use, or whether it could be improved in any way.

[1] http://wiki.coworking.info/w/page/29303049/Directory

Re: Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#4

Post by robfitz »

I did customer development around a similar idea in London and discarded it. End users (desk seekers) want it, but it's a marketplace and the value proposition for desk sellers is more troubling.

You get useful postings in 1 of 2 ways:

  * You keep the data fresh yourself
  * Office managers keep their own data fresh
In the former case, you need to be making money to continue spending the time beyond its novelty period. In the latter, the office managers need to be getting good value-for-time or some related benefit which is enabled via their site activity.

Of the potential problem office managers care about, you've got:

  1. Dealflow & advertising
  2. Showings & deal closing
  3. Dealing with current tenants
#1 is adequately handled by craigslist/gumtree. I thought it would be a pain point, but the office managers disagree.

#2 is a huge pain, but you can't resolve it without manpower that would require a much more profitable business model than exists here.

#3 is the most promising, and is a legitimate pain point, which is where I decided the most plausible business lay. If you can handle the billing for office managers, then they'll put their desk spaces on your site to be saved the problem of hustling tenants for payments. There are liability issues here, but it's probably a similar model to AirBnb.

Re: Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#7

Post by likewise »

robfitz wrote: post #4

I did customer development around a similar idea in London and discarded it. End users (desk seekers) want it, but it's a marketplace and the value proposition for desk sellers is more troubling. You get useful postings in 1 of 2 ways: * You keep the data fresh yourself * Office managers keep their own data fresh In the former case, you need to be making money to continue spending the time beyond its novelty period.…

Thanks for a great reply. You seem very systematic in your evaluation of the idea. Any tips of books i can read that teach me about this kind of process.

Re: Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#9

Post by kvgr »

I looked at all the mentioned and they look like they provide coworking center system for offices(daily free seats, reservations and to on). My idea was more simple - something like directory with "I am rails developer and looking for place to work next 3 months in Prague" or "we have 2 seats in office, for $XY a month". Thanks for ideas, I will have to think about it more.
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