Startup that charged $1.20 a day for coworking space in nightclubs folds In the pre-COVID rush to cash in on enthusiasm for co-working spaces, Indian outfit Friyey Space came up with an interesting take on the concept: instead of spending billions on real estate, why not install Wi-Fi and desks in locations that aren't busy during business hours? The startup settled on restaurants and nightclubs as …
This sounds like taking open office (which is already Hell) and making it the 9th circle.
There are few things skeezier than a nightclub during the day. They're dirty, the furniture is NOT comfortable (it's not trying to be), it is absolutely not designed for desk work (ditto), and every single sound is audible from everywhere. You're going to be hearing those douchebags on the phone all day long. They didn't provide any extra furniture or expected tech like external keyboards or monitors. And they didn't even have snacks or drinks, you had to use the company's own skeezy app to order some to be delivered whenever. Yeah, this is upper management's wet dream (they'll have real offices), everyone else's worst nightmare. Of course I can't help but fear this is the glorious future for the terrible corporate Elmo bosses of the world and and this was just ahead of its time - but then instead of nightclubs they'll probably just use public pavements (sidewalks).
Then you should absolutely LOVE San Francisco. They are projected to spend upwards of $100,000 per homeless person per year.
"If you build it, they will come" truly describes the SF/Oakland/Berkeley homeless situation ... The more money they throw at the problem, the bigger it gets. Go figure.
On the other hand, maybe it failed because they didn't invest enough and tried to get rich quick from minimal investment? In principle, the idea sounds good. There's plenty of half decent city centre bars and restaurants that could turn over half or more of their space for mornings and afternoons for some extra income and I'd expect most of the users are not going to be wanting that space day in and day out 5 days a week. Just somewhere to park their bums for a few hours or even a whole day. But the space rental middle man would need to provide screens/keyboards in some form of easily moved form robust enough to be stacked away twice per day. In these days where city centres are quieter though, the kit might even be able to be left out all day at one end of the premises and only put away when things perk up in the evening. Much of the hospitality industry is complaining of hard times just now, especially city centre locations which are quieter due to WFH.
> There are few things skeezier than a nightclub during the day.
There's also The Smell: a pungent mix of stale alcohol, bodily fluids and hints of whatever overpowering eau de toilette was available from the poor guy stuck in the toilets.
Not a major issue in the evening, when there's enough people (and enough new liquids being splashed around) to take the edge off it, but during the day, it can reek to absolute high heaven.
Ironically, the smoking ban actually made this worse, since the permanent fug hovering around the place took the edge off the above. Quite a few local sports bars and nightclubs stank like sewers after the ban, until the owners finally cottoned onto the fact that they'd have to actually start making an effort to clean the place...
> Yeah, this is upper management's wet dream (they'll have real offices), everyone else's worst nightmare.
Dunno - you get what you pay for, and someone working in a non-office environment is likely to be significantly less productive than someone working in a dedicated space; any competitor which values it's employees enough to do the latter is going to be able to do things more efficiently and quickly.
Friyey could have used JobCenters. The are actually wired for Internet, have desktop computers and comfy chairs. It's not as if any actual work is carried on there during office hours. The staff print stuff off and mail it off to Belfast, where someone else types it back in again.
... I worked with several Silly Con Valley startups who initially had no brick and mortar office space.
Mostly they worked out of their homes, but when they needed to hold meetings, they used local restaurants and bars. One company started in Fred's, the dive bar on Middlefield Road on the Palo Alto / Mountain View border. The daily "breakfast meeting" included pitchers of beer. This phase only lasted three weeks or so; they rented a small house in Mountain View after a potential investor took one look at Fred's and walked away, never to return. They are still in business ... unfortunately, I sold my Founder's stock just before the dot bomb.
Several others used the back rooms at Denny's and Stickney's, and a couple rented space at El Camino Bowl and Palo Alto Bowl on weekday mornings. If they managed to secure a first round of funding, they'd rent a couple of suites at Rickey's in Palo Alto for a couple months ... and of course everybody knows about The Oasis (Palo Alto/Menlo Park border) and Rossatti's in Portola Valley (sometimes erroneously called "The Alpine Inn" by newbies ...). These last two were typically used for setting up the initial corporate hierarchy (both places were ok with this kind of thing, and are quite close to the many Venture Cap groups up on Sand Hill Road).
A lot of very good companies started like this, in and around Palo Alto. Fun times.
It was similar in the UK.
I worked in and visited many companies run out of back rooms, so meetings tended to be in a local pub or restaurant [Aside: we forget the modern coffee shop only came into existence in circa 1997.].
Several companies I was involved with, the first office was a sublet of office space attached to a warehouse or above a shop.
When I "progressed" to working for much larger and established businesses, especially central London-based ones, I continued the practise of holding meetings in cafes and restuarants. Additionally, I tended to run projects out of the more "basic" offices - one project in the early 90's was in the offices attached to the furniture storage - the team had the best chairs and desks, another in the late 90s from a central London office block being cleared for sale, so the team chose the floor that gave the best views across the Thames...
In recent years, I got one of my local coffee franchises to use lockdown to redesign their echo chamber seating area into something more amenable to holding meetings in; their car park is now regularly full - they now have a 2 hour limit and have removed the (underutilised) EV charging bays...
"Aside: we forget the modern coffee shop only came into existence in circa 1997."
Peet's Coffee, Tea & Spices, Berkeley, 1966. He initially only sold whole beans, but eventually morphed into selling coffee and tea by the cup. Us students at Berkeley appreciated the caffeine, and the location just a couple blocks off campus.
In the time period of my above post, Peet's second store at the corner of Santa Cruz and University in Menlo Park had more than it's fair share of us early Silly Con Valley folks as customers ... we would often meet up in the small park ("Fremont"?) across the street for informal face-to-face meetings. More than once I was part of a group who closed down The Oasis (RIP) at 2AM and then met up at Peet's first thing in the morning ... I suspect several of the guys slept in their cars (portent of things to come?). Conveniently, both places were an easy walk from my house in Palo Alto's Johnson Park.
Funny fact about The Oasis' former building ... it is now home to a Venture Capitol group. Go figure.
Maybe he is referring to the influx of "one on every high street, two in the shopping arcade" franchise chain coffee shops we have now?
In the UK, I'd visit Cawardines regularly during the 1980s, when I was lucky enough to be close to one (IIRC they started off just doing beans, roasted and ground to your pleasure, then added some seating and tables). They have (had?) a few branches but never enough to be a "chain" let alone a franchise. Similar used to exist in other regions.
So long as you kept buying cuppas and the odd Full English, taking care of business in a greasy spoon is a long held tradition, of course. Meet dahn Pellicci’s Café, Bethnal, ok.
But if one is only interested in the sort of coffee shops that are amenable to you sitting there all day whilst doing business, we can only go back to places such as Jonathan’s Coffee House and the origins of the London Stock Exchange, 1698. Of course, all sorts of business, low and high, was done in coffeehouses in the decades prior, but that is the one that gets mentioned in school.
I personally prefer premodern coffee shops... when you can still find them.
I especially have fond memories of a coffee shop in Denver in the late 70's.
Originally named "The Bare Tit" but due to "feedback" from local women the name was eventually changed to "Free Weavers" .
Obviously no computers or phones back then but... it was a great place to hang out, study, etc..
Usually nice & quiet except for a few special events, e.g. local musicians, performances.
"Aside: we forget the modern coffee shop only came into existence in circa 1997."
People were regularly meeting to do business in London coffee shops from the second half of the 17th century - by 1688 there were 80 coffee shops in London, each one being associated with particular business activities. One group that used to gather in Edward LLoyd's coffee shop to exchange shipping intelligence and arrange marine insurance contracts is still in business today.
If you want to go more modern, Robert Harris (NZ) has been in the coffee business, including cafes, since 1952.
I remember staying at Rickey's once. Once was enough, I never really understood it's attraction. It was demolished many years ago. The Oasis has gone too. I haven't been back in that area for a couple of years, I should plan a trip before changes even more.
"I remember staying at Rickey's once. Once was enough, I never really understood it's attraction."
Leftover from the 1950s, it was long past its sell-by-date in the '80s ... but it was the only place of its kind on The Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose. The rise of Silly Con Valley in the '70s managed to breathe a little life back into it, but the owners weren't interested in spending the money for a proper upgrade. We used it anyway as we had no other options.
"I haven't been back in that area for a couple of years, I should plan a trip before changes even more."
Probably not worth it to you. There is no real there there anymore. It's a sad combination of green-and-granola wannabe hippies, 'orribly ignorant far-left plastic people and folks who only live there because the zipcodes are somehow "auspicious" ... although the Stanford Campus is still as irreverent as they can get away with, if you know where to look ... and Fred's hasn't changed appreciably since the 1960s. Thankfully.
Probably very useful for clamping your webcam/gopro to for the Zoom meetings.
Just remember to wipe first or you may find the eyeline slowly descending, until you have to explain why the CFO appears to be looking at a sea of glitter.
I used to do some work for a not-for-profit business development agency. They've always had a range of desk and office space on flexible terms, though the mix and extent have varied with economic cycles. They were very pleased when some co-working VC cash was offered for a surplus part of their estate and immediately invested it in improving the offering in the remainder and just sat it out while the highly-leveraged newcomer struggled pitifully.
It's good to know that some of that VC cash actually supported a sustainable enterprise.
The problem these startups have is that however good the idea might be there's just not the money for the kind of windfall profits that Internet investors need. So the company limps along on seed capital promising all and sundry that the Sun Will Shine Tomorrow but it rarely happens -- gradually the company runs out of money and eventually folds.
The real money is probably going to be in suing anyone who tries out a similar idea, especially if they appear to be able to make it work. (So much for 'fostering innovation".....)
An app for repurposing unused space isn't a bad idea. Maybe spend less as a start up - VC is not simply free money. They may also have just picked the wrong options in the wrong market at the wrong time. Taking down globalisation is sucking cash out of the system and ending global growth, so the going is tougher now. There are opportunities for repurposing apps, but do them on a shoestring and make them more flexible.
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