Many tried to build coliving startups from 2014 and most failed.
— (@levelsio) March 8, 2021
Real estate doesn't scale like software so doesn't work w/ VC funding.
Giant supply of hotels/apts everywhere already. Many reinventing themselves for remote workers.
Book with/near friends = solved coliving. https://t.co/NWyoUnuPpl
Many tried to build coliving startups from 2014 and most failed.
Real estate doesn't scale like software so doesn't work w/ VC funding.
There's a giant supply of hotels/apts everywhere already. Many are reinventing themselves for remote workers.
Booking accommodation like hotels/Airbnbs with or near your friends = coliving, but better and cheaper.
Coliving economics don't add up usually because you're going for people who have max $1000/mo to spend on rent, or $30/day.
But you're competing with hotels/apts/Airbnbs while incurring coliving costs like community management, activities, dinners etc.
Colivings end up being either subsidized heavily by VCs, or charging $100 to $200/night (like hotels) which becomes $3,000 to $6,000/mo
That's why the people you meet there are a combination of 25 year old trust fund kids or 45yr old bizniz travelers.
Who else can afford it?
Coliving economics get worse: most attractive remote worker hubs are naturally more affordable (like Mexico, Spain/Portugal, Bali, Thailand)
This is because cost of hotels/Airbnbs is 2/3/4x of the price of a long term rental
If someone has $2,000/mo to spend and goes remote/nomad and then books hotels/Airbnbs, they'll NEED to move to a place where cost of living is 2/3/4x lower just to afford booking short term accomodation
That means you have $100 to $200/night coliving (if not subsidized by VC) compete with $30/night hotels/hostels/Airbnbs that offer the same
The only thing diff is the community, but from staying in colivings, people just pass through so value of community is questionable
Hostels do offer community and many are pivoting towards remote workers now, which is super smart. That will make the market position of colivings even worse though.
Selina is heavily funded and subsidizes cost of staying there and uses volunteer staff just to make it work
TL;DR coliving economics don't make sense, it's a somewhat solved problem by hotels/hostels/Airbnbs especially if you book with or near friends.
The only way it makes sense if people start offering the entire daily consumption of remote workers in one place e.g. shelter, food, drinks, leisure, even then no regular person will be able to afford it
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