A few years ago I sold all my stuff to explore the world, creating 12 startups in 12 months and building $1M+/y companies as an indie maker such as Nomad List and Remote OK. I'm also a big pusher of remote work and async and analyze the effects it has on society. Follow me on Twitter or see my list of posts. My first book MAKE is out now. Contact me
Subscribing you...
Subscribed! Check your inbox to confirm your email.

Blog  |  Mastodon  |  Twitter


levels.io

Most coworking spaces don't make money; here's how they can adapt to survive the future

Coworking spaces, Entrepreneurship, Future, Remote working
Feb 10, 2017

The Coworking Unconference 2017 in Chiang Mai invited me to speak.

Since it’s a coworking space conference and I’ve been to many coworking spaces traveling the last few years. I wanted to analyze their business and see what was up. So I did somewhat of a case study as I used to do in my business school classes. Most of these conferences are endless circlejerks on “building ecosystems” and more vagueities, but what does it matter if you don’t make money? Not much. Here’s a transcript of my presentation. It ties a bit into a post where I analyzed remote work retreats, which I also analyzed from an economics perspective (maybe this is a nice idea for a series?).

Mind you: it’s from the perspective of a future remote worker / digital nomad like me. Not a freelancer from Boston who works in a coworking on Boston. I believe remote workers dispersing around the world are the future though, not people from Boston, living in Boston, working in a coworking in Boston. But okay. Let’s continue.

Screenshot 2017-02-09 18.47.57

Here’s my travel profile on Nomad List. In the last few years I’ve been all over the world and have worked from tens of coworking spaces from South America to East Asia.

2Hubud3

A-SPACE-_Pieter-Levels-4

I’m like your customer zero.

You

Now let’s talk about what you do! You’re the owners of coworking spaces.

hatelove

I have a love and hate relationship with coworking spaces.

20150415145824-friends-un-male-meal-group-drink-talking-summer-restaurant-laughing-happy-men-guys

The first few days you arrive, you actually get stuff done. Then you inevitably meet people (which is good), but then it just becomes a social cafeteria. It’s all jibber jabber and chitty chat and you can’t actually get stuff done anymore.

IMG_4333

Then you get the bullshit startup events, startup coaches, incubators that never deliver, people talking about synergies and networking events. And you REALLY stop getting ANYTHING done.

IMG_4335

But then they’re also great. They’re the place where you feel community. Where you make friends (and sometimes lovers!).

Everest-Base-Camp61

For nomads, coworking spaces are like a Mount Everest Basecamp in a foreign world. They make you feel safe and sound when you arrive. They do have a function.

But is coworking a good business? Nobody wants to tell me…

I’m interested in business models and economics. I studied it. So when I meet owners of businesses I ask them about revenue, margins, customers, problems with a business. I’ve asked coworking space owners. And everywhere you go they’re consistently vague. “Yeah it’s going great, we’re creating an ecosystem, and a community”. Okay, but what does that mean? How much money are you making? What’s the margin?

Is. It. A. Good. Business? Yes, or no?

Since nobody likes to tell me. I googled it.

IMG_4344

60% of coworking spaces actually lose money.

Margins

And what are the margins?

We can make a napkin calculation:

An average space has 100 members. Let’s say they pay a range of $50 to $150 per month. An average of $100/month. So now we’re making $10,000. How about rent? Well that’s a few thousand. Let’s say $3,000. Then staff? 3 people * $1500, that’s $4500. Now we’re at $7500 already. Ok so we have $2500 left. Now take $1500 tax off that. We make maybe $1000 pure profit. That’s 10%.

What if you have 250 members? That’s $25,000/month revenue. Much better. But now we need a bigger building with higher rent. Let’s say $7,500. We have $17,500 left. Now we need 2.5x staff, 8 people * $1500, that’s $12,000. We have $4,500 left. Take tax off and we’re left with maybe $2,500 profit. Better but again a meager 10%.

These numbers are guesstimates and probably off. But most data shows the same. Coworking space margins are very tight.

IMG_4338

There’s different types of businesses.

High margin, low volume

Gucci-handbag-boutique-Neiman-Marcus-Scottsdale

There’s high margin, low volume businesses. It costs maybe $30 to make a Gucci bag. But you sell it for $3000. So they make $2970 in profit. So that’s a giant margin of profit. They’re low volume though. Only a few people can afford to buy them. But that’s fine because when they sell one bag, it’s a lot of money. If you sell 100 bags per day, you make $300,000/day profit.

Low margin, high volume

air_asia

Then there’s low margin, high volume businesses. It costs $30 to fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. And Air Asia sells you that flight for $31. So they make $1 dollar. That’s a tiny margin of profit. But if you fly 1,000 flights per day with 300 people. That’s 300,000 * $1 = $300,000/day profit.

So, Gucci has 100 customers per day, Air Asia has 300,000 customers per day, but they make the same profit! This is the power of margins vs. volume. Not one is better than the other. It’s just economics.

You are low margin, low volume

Now let’s talk about you. You’re a coworking space. You’re in the worst kind of business. You are low margin, and low volume. You don’t get a lot of customers, maybe 250 per month. And your price is quite low, maybe $200 per month. You can scale up to higher volume, but you’re competing with lots of others.

It doesn’t stop here.

Low barriers to entry

What else? In terms of economics, coworking spaces have a low barrier of entry. That means it’s relatively easy to rent a space, put some furniture in it, call it a coworking space and get people in the door. That means it’s relatively easy for people to compete with you. To compare, an industry with a high barrier of entry would be chemical engineering. You need a chemical plant (expensive), top talent staff (hard to get and expensive) etc. Coworking spaces are the opposite.

Low differentiation

Coworking spaces are also low in differentiation. That means most look, feel and are the same. It’s hard to distinguish yourself, or at least nobody is really differentiating right now at all. Low differentiation means people can easily copy what you’re doing.

Economies of scale

operations-economies-scale-diagram

Then there’s a thing called economies of scale. That means if you produce a lot of a product or service, it gets cheaper because you can multiply things and do the same thing every time and make it cheap. That’s the idea Ford’s introduced when he made the T-Ford car factories in the early 20th century. It’s all modular. So it becomes cheap. Every car is the same. It’s not custom. Because custom is expensive.

A graphic designer does not have economies of scale. If they have 1 client, it takes 1 hour. If they have 10 clients, it takes 10 hours.

Air Asia has economies of scale. If they have 1 person flying, it’s expensive. If they have 300,000 people flying, suddenly it becomes cheap because they can duplicate the product experience and make it modular.

Even Gucci has economies of scale. Their bags are the same every time. So the more they make, their production will get cheaper.

Now let’s talk about you. Coworking spaces don’t really have economies of scale. Unless you automate your staff, you’ll have to hire double your staff count for double the customers. You’ll need to pay almost double the rent probably for double the customers. If you open 100 other coworking spaces with the same formula, sure, you’ll have some economies of scale in using the same processes. But how are you going to open 100 spaces with these low margins? You’re not.

What does this all mean for you?

Economic theory states that you can:

6af

Coworking is a bad business to be in and it will not make you rich. Worse it will probably cost more than it will make you.

But….you’re a coworking space owner, and it’s been an amazing journey of doing a space. You’ve met so many cool people. You’ve built a community in your space. And you feel like you’re helping people in your city.

And you are. Your work is essential. I love coworking spaces. They’re very necessary.

3025038-poster-p-3-do-remote-workers-actually-work

Because if we didn’t have coworking spaces, we’d be working like this! Or we’d be stuck at home. Coworking spaces have a function for public good.

So how we can fix the economics of coworking spaces?

If we don’t fix the economics, spaces simply become stagnant or go bankrupt once more spaces open in the same city and the market saturates. And we don’t want that. So let’s see if we can fix it.

From economics, there’s a few options here:

  • Get VC funding, and revenue isn’t important anymore (but growth is)
  • Become non-profit, and profit isn’t important anymore (but subsidies are)
  • Increase your margins, and make more money
  • Vertically integrate, and make more money

Option 1: Get VC funding

IMG_4340

The first option is to fly to San Francisco. And talk to this old rich white guy.

IMG_4339

You shake his hands. And he’ll give you $750 million dollars to build a network of coworking spaces around the world.

Your spaces will look terrific and better than most:

IMG_4341

The question is how long you can go for, because you’re not making any money (after taxes). You’re now burning other people’s money:

IMG_4342

And that rich old white guy will be breathing in your neck to grow bigger, faster and open more spaces every week.

IMG_4343

You can do this for a few years. Until money runs out, you burn out and growth stops. It’s not a business that’s scalable enough for venture capital. It’s a business with a low barrier of entry, low margins, low differentiation and high competition. Unless VC-funded coworking spaces can figure out how to change that. They’re fucked, and will disappear as fast as they came.

Option 2: Become non-profit

San Francisco City Hall from east end of Civic Center Plaza

The second option is non-profit. Coworking spaces can be argued to be a function for the public good. Like libraries, streets and street lighting and public transport.

I’m from a small town in Europe. It has the typical issues that a small town in 2017 has. Its center is empty and desolate as most traditional shops have gone bankrupt in favor of online shopping. What remains is giant international clothing brands like Zara and H&M. And some vintage hipster coffee shops.

Those empty spots could be bought up by the city government and cheaply changed into very basic coworking spaces for its citizens. Kinda like libraries are now.

This has giant economic benefits. Imagine someone from a small town could work for a big company in Amsterdam, remotely. Or London. Or San Francisco. They wouldn’t have to live there. But they could work for them and get paid well by them. Then after their work day ends, they leave the city coworking space in their small town. Walk to the ATM. Take out their salary and spend it locally in the restaurant, coffee place and cinema.

This means small rural towns can blossom economically again, while the big towns can keep pushing the development of big companies. This way, money does trickle down.

Therefore the economic benefits are way bigger than the cost it would be for cities to build coworking spaces in their cities.

Option 3: Increase your margins

IMG_4345

The third option is to simply make coworking spaces a high margin business. There’s two ways to do that.

Upsell with complementary services

download

You can upsell your low-margin product (coworking) with high-margin complementary services. You’re probably already doing that.

IMG_4347

You probably have a coffee bar in your space.

IMG_4346

Maybe people can have lunch too.

IMG_4350

You might offer members a service to receive postal mail and packages.

Some spaces offer their members visa services. For example, extending their tourist visa or arranging a business visa and work permit.

IMG_4352

Some more professional spaces even offer in-house lawyers.

IMG_4354

What I don’t see yet but what many members ask for is local personal assistants. Think all the stuff people can have help with. Especially locally if you’re a foreigner. Help with your business, or help with finding an apartment. Etcetera.

Attract higher-spending customers

The problem with most freelancers (and digital nomads) is that they’re quite cheap. For good reason. They don’t like to spend a lot of money, because, well, the don’t usually make a lot of money! Most nomads make less than $12,000/year. Getting them to spend lots of money on your (complementary) products and services will only make them leave.

But what if you can get higher spending customers?

There’s a few groups that coworking spaces are hardly tailoring to.

Remote startups

IMG_4357

This is the company that makes WordPress. It’s called Automattic and with 500 employees, it’s the largest 100% remote company in the world right now.

wordpress-bg-medblue

But like any remote company, sometimes it’s good to still meet in real life. That’s why Automattic organizes regular team retreats. Product teams come together and once a year the whole company meets up somewhere in the world. This is a company with a giant budget for this kind of stuff. And all they need is someone (you) to come up to them, tell them you can accommodate their product teams. Rent them an entire room in your coworking space for a month. Get them sleeping accomodation. Organize tours and activities when they’re not working. Charge a good price for all of this. This is a big company that’s happy to pay if you solve a problem for them.

There will only be more remote companies in the future. And they’ll love for you to help them make it easier to have their teams meet up IRL somewhere in the world easier. Call it retreats, whatever you call it, it solves their issues.

Remote companies like this will spend $100,000’s on salaries, and a part of that can go to out off work retreats like this.

Tech companies

Screenshot 2017-02-12 22.33.17

Now, 500 people is big. But Facebook has 15,000 employees. Google has 75,000 employees. Apple has 115,000 employees. That’s giant. These companies are also composed of product teams. And again, you can do the same thing. They’re going to embrace remote work increasingly too. Let them set up (permanent) satellite offices in or near your coworking space. Again, you can accomodate that. You know the area. Google will want a Bali remote campus in 5 years. Help them set it up. Remote work (and working from tropical locations) is and will increasingly be a work perk that big tech companies will use to hire the top talent. Play into that by offering them services to set that up. You’re the expert at it and you can sell that to them.

Tech companies pay $150,000 to $400,000 now for their top talent per year. Again, part of that budget can go to you. That’s crazy amounts of money.

Big corporations

map

There’s relatively few tech companies. But there’s a great amount of traditional big corporations who are trying to retain talent.

IMG_4358

They know their companies are boring AF.

IMG_4359

And they want to look more like this:

IMG_4330

You have the power to help them get there. Contact these comapnies and suggest them to work from your space for 2 weeks or a month. Charge them good money for it. They’ll love it. And you’ll be raking in money.

See my point?

You just went from $12,000/year digital nomads that don’t spend money to $400,000/year tech company employees. Go to where the money is.

Option 4: Vertically integrate

IMG_4361

The fourth option to survive as a coworking space is to vertically integrate.

Right now you offer your customer one service: coworking. Vertical integration means you see what other products or services your customer buys that are somewhat related to you.

What does your customer do in a day? Let’s see.

  • Sleep
  • Have breakfast
  • Work somewhere
  • Buy coffee/tea
  • Have lunch
  • Work some more
  • Have dinner
  • Do social stuff
  • Do leisure and sports

If you’re a coworking space, you’re probably only making money on one or two parts of this day. Working and maybe coffee and lunch (if you have a coffee or lunch bar in your space). There’s potential here for more coverage. Because every part of your customer’s day means you can take another 10% to 30% on top.

How does vertical integration look like in real life?

Well…I went to Tokyo

IMG_4375
Earlier this year I went to Tokyo. I stayed in a hotel called the Green Plaza Capsule Hotel:

Screenshot 2017-02-12 23.28.52

It was this 7-story building:

IMG_4374

I came there to sleep. So, the first floor was capsules to sleep in:

But then I explored and there was more. I went up and there was a spa floor:

IMG_4379

I kept going up and exploring this building further. The next floor was full of massage shops:

IMG_4380

After having a massage I went further up. There was a restaurant floor with all the Japanese food you can imagine, from sushi to ramen:

IMG_4373

The last floor was a relax area with a small business center with desks and fax machines. Kinda like a coworking space. And yes it had WiFi:

2025_capsule_hotels_01

This building had everything to survive in. I stayed inside for 3 days.

I had just stepped into a possible prototype of what future living would look like. Multi function living contained in one building or small area. I’m not saying this is necessarily a great future, but it’s inevitable. The reasons why this happens in Tokyo are pretty dark: salarymen work so hard, that they don’t have time to go back to their families, so they stay over in the city and sleep in these kinds of buildings.

But what if we take the positives from this? Stay in these buildings for awhile if you’d like to focus and get stuff done. All your needs are taken care of within tens of meters.

This was the epitome of vertical integration. You cover every need of your customer. You take a % of every transaction. Even if the margins might still be low (10%), you now get way more transactions for one customer. Not just coworking, but sleeping (coliving), breakfast, lunch, dinner, spa, massage, leisure etc. Now you have an actual business that makes good money.

Where a coworking space makes $25,000/m with 250 members paying $100/m. A vertically integrated building like this makes $250,000/m with 250 people paying $1,000/m (probably more) as it captures the majority of their spending. Even if the margins stay at 10%, that means a coworking space makes $2,500/m profit, while a building like this with the same amount of people using it makes $25,000/m profit. And a lot of this building can be automated (as is already standard in Japan).

Conclusion

There’s many ways to make coworking spaces economically viable. The most promising for me are vertical integration, attracting higher-spending corporate customers and adding more complementary services to your space.

We need coworking spaces to exist. But we also need them to evolve with their time and market demand. And if you just remain coworking only, you’ll probably have a bleak future ahead. It won’t be enough. So do some experiments and try new stuff.

I’ve met coworking owners who are considering building cowork/colive villages, even whole islands. It sounds interesting for sure. With an entire new generation going remote, this is a giant market of people. And ordinary cities might not be the best way for them to work anymore. They want to get stuff done. And optimize their time. Cater to them.

Good luck 🙂

P.S. I'm on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my stories. And I wrote a book called MAKE about building startups without funding. See a list of my stories or contact me. To get an alert when I write a new blog post, you can subscribe below:

Subscribing you...
Subscribed! Check your inbox to confirm your email.

2022
18 Sep
This House Does Not Exist
2022
14 Jul
Sam Parr + Shaan Puri asked me about bootstrapping, open startups and lifestyle inflation (My First Million Podcast)
2022
16 May
Thinking and doing for yourself (Life Done Differently Podcast)
2022
10 May
Relocation of remote workers (Building Remotely Podcast)
2022
26 Jan
Money, happiness and productivity as a solo founder (Indiehackers Podcast)
2022
20 Jan
Bootstrapping, moving to Portugal and setting up Rebase (Wannabe Entrepreneur Podcast)
2021
25 Mar
Why I'm unreachable and maybe you should be too
2021
25 Mar
The next frontier after remote work is async
2021
19 Mar
List of all my projects ever
2021
08 Mar
Why coliving economics still don't make sense
2021
14 Feb
Inflation Chart: the stock market adjusted for the US-dollar money supply
2021
10 Jan
I did a live 4+ hour AMA on Twitch w/ @roxkstar74
2020
20 Dec
No one should ever work
2020
10 Dec
Normalization of non-deviance
2020
05 Dec
Copywriting for entrepreneurs: explain your product how you'd explain it to a friend
2020
30 Nov
Entrepreneurs are the heroes, not the villains
2020
12 Nov
The future of remote work: how the greatest human migration in history will happen in the next ten years
2020
05 Nov
Will millions of remote workers become location independent in 2021?
2020
11 Apr
5 years in startups with Abadesi
2020
11 Jan
Twitter giveaways can be hacked to win every time
2019
16 Oct
Lorn - The Slow Blade ✕ Hong Kong
2019
28 Sep
Most decaf coffee is made from paint stripper
2019
12 Sep
The odds of getting a remote job are less than 1% (because everyone wants one)
2019
08 Sep
In the future writing actual code will be like using a pro DSLR camera, and no code will be like using a smartphone camera
2019
29 Aug
Instead of hiring people, do things yourself to stay relevant
2019
28 Aug
Nobody cares about you after you're dead and the universe destroys itself
2019
28 Aug
The only real validation is people paying for your product
2019
05 Aug
Monitoring Bali's undersea internet cable
2019
29 Jul
Nomad List turns 5
2018
29 Jan
I'm Product Hunt's Maker of the Year again!
2018
28 Jan
Why Korean Jimjilbangs and Japanese Onsens are great
2018
24 Jan
Turning side projects into profitable startups
2018
03 Jan
What I learnt from 100 days of shipping
2017
28 Dec
As decentralized as cryptocurrency is: so will be the people working on it
2017
22 Oct
How to 3d scan any object with just your phone's camera
2017
09 Aug
In a world of outrage, mute words
2017
03 Aug
How to pack for world travel with just a carry-on bag
2017
26 Jul
Building a startup in public: from first line of code to frontpage of Reddit
2017
24 Jul
Facebook and Google are building their own cities: the inevitable future of private tech worker towns
2017
21 Jul
The TL;DR MBA
2017
12 Jul
We did it! Namecheap has introduced 2FA
2017
08 Jun
It's about time for a digital work permit for remote workers
2017
23 May
Using Uptime Robot to build unit tests for the web
2017
08 May
Namecheap still doesn't support 2FA in 2017 (update: they do now!)
2017
03 May
Taipei is boring, and maybe that's not such a bad thing
2017
16 Apr
What we can learn from Stormzy about transparency
2017
17 Feb
The ICANN mafia has taken my site hostage for 2 days now
2017
10 Feb
Most coworking spaces don't make money; here's how they can adapt to survive the future
2017
11 Jan
A society of total automation in which the need to work is replaced with a nomadic life of creative play
2017
07 Jan
Nomad List Founder
2016
12 Dec
Make your own Olark feedback form without Olark
2016
29 Oct
How to fix flying
2016
19 Oct
Robots make mistakes too: How to log your server with push notifications straight to your phone
2016
17 Oct
Hong Kong Express - 上海 (Shanghai)
2016
17 Oct
Choosing entrepreneurship over a corporate career
2016
13 Oct
"I can't buy happiness anymore. I've bought everything that I ever wanted. There's not really anything I want anymore."
2016
11 Oct
From web dev to VR: How to get started with VR development
2016
05 Oct
What I would do if I was 18 now
2016
22 Sep
Bootstrapping Side Projects into Profitable Startups
2016
27 Aug
Kids
2016
13 Aug
How I cured my anxiety (mostly)
2016
26 Jul
We have an epidemic of bad posture
2016
17 Jul
Fixing "Inf and NaN cannot be JSON encoded" in PHP the easy way
2016
26 Jun
My third time in a float tank and practicing visualizing the future
2016
15 Jun
How to add shareable pictures to your website with some PhantomJS magic
2016
29 May
My chatbot gets catcalled
2016
19 May
From web dev to 3d: Learning 3d modeling in a month
2016
09 Mar
My second time in a sensory deprivation chamber
2016
04 Mar
Day 30 of Learning 3d 🎮 Cloning objects 👾👾👾
2016
02 Mar
Day 29 of Learning 3d 🎮 Glass, reflectives, HD, coloring and more details
2016
29 Feb
Day 27 of Learning 3d 🎮 Details, details, DETAILS!
2016
25 Feb
Day 23 of Learning 3d 🎮 Filling up the street and adding shadows
2016
24 Feb
Day 22 of Learning 3d 🎮 Added rain, blinking lights, sound, textured menu sign and a VR web app
2016
23 Feb
Day 21 of Learning 3d 🎮 High res textures, physical rendering and ambient occlusion
2016
22 Feb
Day 20 of Learning 3d 🎮 Objects and camera perspectives 🙆
2016
19 Feb
My first time floating in a sensory deprivation tank ☺️
2016
12 Feb
Day 10 of Learning 3d 🎮 Making complex objects by combining shapes 🙆
2016
06 Feb
Day 4 of Learning 3d: @shoinwolfe visits the actual street I'm modeling 🏮😎🏮
2016
03 Feb
Day 1 of Learning 3d 🎮 I learnt how to make shapes, move, rotate and scale them + how to texturize, and add colored lights 💆
2016
02 Feb
I'm Learning 3d 🎮
2016
27 Jan
The things I have to do to read an email sent to me by my government
2016
12 Jan
How to use your iPhone as a better Apple TV alternative (with VPN)
2015
23 Dec
Here's a crazy idea: automatically pause recurring subscription of users when you detect they aren't actually using your app
2015
17 Dec
Stop calling night owls lazy, we're not
2015
16 Dec
We are the heroes of our own stories
2015
25 Oct
There will be 1 billion digital nomads by 2035
2015
21 Oct
Tobias van Schneider interviewed me about everything
2015
18 Oct
Why doesn't Twitter just asks its users to pay?
2015
17 Oct
Punk died the moment we learnt that the world WAS in fact getting better, not worse
2015
15 Oct
Stop being everyone's friend
2015
14 Oct
Vaporwave is the only music that fits the feeling futuristic Asian mega cities give me
2015
09 Sep
We live in a world built by dead people
2015
01 Sep
Why global roaming data solutions don't make any sense
2015
26 Aug
How to export your Slack's entire archive as HTML message logs
2015
24 Aug
How to play GTA V on your MacBook (and any other PC game)
2015
14 May
I uploaded 4 terabyte over Korea's 4G, and paid $48
2015
08 May
How I sped up Nomad List by 31% with SPDY, CloudFront and PageSpeed
2015
04 May
My weird code commenting style based on HTML tags
2015
01 May
Now is probably the time to make HTTPS the default on all your sites and apps
2015
17 Apr
Do the economics of remote work retreats make any sense?
2015
17 Apr
Don't grow up
2015
06 Apr
Calling people "expat" or "nomad" is just as irrelevant as calling internet users "netizens"
2015
02 Apr
How I built Remote | OK and launched it to #1 on Product Hunt
2015
29 Mar
Our society is not in line with our natural reward systems, and alcohol and drug abuse proves it
2015
28 Mar
Makers have become the invisible hand
2015
07 Mar
How technology is shaping our future: billions of self-employed makers and a few mega corporations
2015
22 Jan
We are the orcas at Sea World
2014
31 Dec
Love, Anxiety and Startups: My Year in 50 Tweets
2014
15 Dec
How to backup your Linode or Digital Ocean VPS to Amazon S3
2014
01 Dec
The total chaos that the dawn of the 21st century has become
2014
23 Nov
How I hacked Slack into a community platform with Typeform
2014
05 Nov
How to successfully build a community around your startup
2014
27 Oct
The ideal place to start a startup is not necessarily in Silicon Valley
2014
23 Oct
"If I had this, I would be happy"
2014
14 Oct
This is what happens when FlightFox copies your entire site without attribution
2014
02 Oct
GIFbook, the first animated GIF flipbook
2014
01 Oct
On Thailand's immigration police targeting digital nomads
2014
13 Sep
Why traveling makes you feel lost
2014
02 Sep
How I build my minimum viable products
2014
31 Aug
How I built Nomad Jobs, a remote job board for 100% distributed startups
2014
27 Aug
Danism & Rae - Sirens
2014
16 Aug
How I got my startup to #1 on both Product Hunt and Hacker News by accident
2014
15 Aug
Why does Generation Y feel so lost? And what's the cure?
2014
23 Jul
Bali is the magical voodoo spirit island of Asia
2014
05 Jul
Ideals, fears and the script of life
2014
22 Jun
How to access anyone's Telegram messages without unlocking their phone
2014
14 Jun
The achiever in crisis
2014
12 Jun
How I did not sell my startup today
2014
07 Jun
The free fall that is coming home after traveling the world
2014
02 Jun
Never dismiss your ideals as post-adolescent fantasy
2014
31 May
My 3rd startup: Tubelytics, the real-time dashboard for YouTube publishers
2014
29 May
How Go Fucking Do It raised $30,000+ in pledges in less than a month
2014
24 May
We have an ideologically broken and personally unfulfilling society
2014
24 May
On self-funding startups
2014
22 May
Run through ideas quickly
2014
11 May
If you can't express yourself by email, you're not worthy of anyone's time
2014
19 Apr
My 2nd startup: Go Fucking Do It, set a goal + deadline and if you fail, you pay
2014
18 Apr
Over 2,000 people played their inbox with Play My Inbox
2014
13 Apr
Celebrating my birthday North Korean style
2014
02 Apr
How Automation Left Us Feeling Empty
2014
09 Mar
Play My Inbox, collect music from your inbox and playlist them
2014
01 Mar
I'm Launching 12 Startups in 12 Months
2014
14 Feb
How to protect your backups from solar flares with a faraday cage
2014
06 Feb
Linkoban - Oh Oh
2014
05 Feb
Nationality is an accident of birth
2014
18 Jan
How I Went From 100 To 0 Things (Or How I Was Robbed of All My Stuff)
2014
04 Jan
All Watched Over by Machines of Living Grace
2013
31 Dec
Celebrating NYE 2014 in Hong Kong
2013
30 Dec
How I ended up in Hong Kong (or my adventures in the New York of the East)
2013
28 Nov
It's practically impossible for regular people to buy Bitcoin
2013
27 Nov
2014 is the year techstep drum and bass makes its comeback
2013
25 Nov
Rinse FM, here's your podcast feed we've always wanted
2013
23 Nov
How I travel the world with just a carry-on bag
2013
23 Nov
How I spent the night with Singapore's migrant workers
2013
22 Nov
Why I want to live in Singapore
2013
21 Nov
How I predict Bitcoin's price by tracking Twitter mentions
2013
04 Nov
James Blake & Chance The Rapper - Life Round Here
2013
03 Nov
Sasha Keable - Careless Over You
2013
30 Oct
My not so great time in Vietnam
2013
27 Oct
Wiley - And Again
2013
27 Oct
The myth of a globalized world
2013
19 Oct
Remote working is the future
2013
19 Oct
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day
2013
14 Oct
Steve Summers - New Surroundings
2013
12 Oct
What I learnt from bootstrapping my startup from Thailand in six months
2013
11 Oct
Palms Trax - Equation
2013
11 Oct
Cash means controlling your own destiny
2013
24 Sep
You're just a piece of a heartless shitty machine that makes money
2013
16 Sep
Automation Will Free Us From the Endless Consumption/Production Cycle We're In
2013
16 Sep
National Borders Have Become Irrelevant
2013
04 Sep
A Culture of Distraction is Not The Problem
2013
20 Aug
Governments are always ready to grab the greatest degree of power that the people will give them
2013
17 Aug
You constantly need to be painting or it looks like total crap
2013
09 Aug
Oversight: Thank You For Volunteering, Citizen
2013
07 Aug
Stripe launches beta in the Netherlands
2013
22 Jul
Google+ spamming people every 2 weeks to put up a profile photo
2013
20 Jul
The 100 Thing Challenge – From 200 to 20 things in 3 months
2013
17 Jul
Living in a Hotel
2013
16 Jul
The Story of my Visa Run to Tachileik in Myanmar
2013
16 Jul
This is what "acting professionally" results in
2013
08 Jul
Lockah - Sly Winking Usury
2013
30 Jun
Stand-up comedians on creativity
2013
24 Jun
With jobs gone, will robot owners pay people's income?
2013
24 Jun
Money as an enslavement method
2013
19 Jun
Make money where prices are high, spend it where prices are low. Does income arbitrage work?
2013
16 Jun
Finding an apartment in Chiang Mai
2013
13 Jun
Add HTTPS to NGINX for free and help make the world more secure
2013
11 Jun
Co-Working Spaces in Chiang Mai: PunSpace
2013
10 Jun
Moving to Chiang Mai
2013
04 Jun
My Bad Day At The Co-Working Space
2013
03 Jun
If it's in the news, don't worry about it
2013
29 May
The 24-Hour Coffee Place in Bangkok: Too Fast To Sleep
2013
28 May
Nosaj Thing x Chance the Rapper - Paranoia
2013
23 May
"There simply are no other fields in which I can spend $100 tomorrow and set up a new business..."
2013
21 May
"Speaking as a graduate of one, top schools teach you credentialing and ladder climbing..."
2013
17 May
Visiting Koh Samui, the island of paradise
2013
05 May
From dive bar to roof-top bar to roof-top pool in Bangkok
2013
02 May
"To awaken quite alone in a strange town..."
2013
01 May
Co-working spaces in Bangkok: Launchpad
2013
24 Apr
The 100 Thing Challenge
2013
24 Apr
"Do whatever you're drawn to"
2013
23 Apr
Co-working spaces in Bangkok: Hubba
2013
22 Apr
Reset your life
2013
09 Mar
OSX Terminal Tricks
2013
09 Mar
OSX for Windows users
2013
09 Mar
How I switched from PC to Mac in less than 7 days
2013
21 Feb
Black Mirror is the best TV series I have seen in years
2013
20 Feb
Why overnight success is a myth
2013
20 Feb
Constraints make people more creative
2013
13 Feb
Kitty Pryde & Riff Raff - Orion's Belt
2013
13 Feb
Dedicating our lives to what is essentially an organization to make money
2013
11 Feb
Watch The Pirate Bay: Away From the Keyboard
2013
16 Jan
My new music video for rap duo RASA
2013
14 Jan
What if money was no object in your life?
2013
03 Jan
Why attention to detail matters, even if no one notices the details
2013
03 Jan
In the 21st century, Maria Montessori shows to be more relevant than ever
2012
30 Dec
Unless the job itself is your dream, stay the fuck away from salaried jobs
2012
30 Nov
Success is One Big Hoax
2012
18 Oct
The death of the corporate drone
2012
13 Oct
The West's unemployment problem is permanent
2012
04 Oct
New Panda Mix Show branding and website
2012
29 Aug
Headhunterz - Power of Music
2012
21 Aug
Essendle interview on my music and my YouTube show
2012
07 Aug
The XX - Angels
2012
02 Aug
Spenzo - Ova
2012
02 Aug
Anna Lunoe & Diamond Lights - Stronger (Willy Joy Remix)
2012
10 Jul
Herve feat. Ronika - How Can I Live Without You (Make it Right) (Death Rose Cult Remix)
2012
09 Jul
Pheo - Nyquil
2012
05 Jul
I love minimalist living
2012
05 Jul
Why buying YouTube views is bad
2012
05 Jul
Citizen - Deep End
2012
03 Jul
D!RTY AUD!O intro
2012
01 Jul
Anybody can monetize their passion (now)
2012
28 Jun
Diplo - No Problem
2012
27 Jun
Skream - Thoughts of You
2012
21 Jun
TEED - Blood Pressure
2012
19 Jun
Today is the first day of the rest of your life
2012
17 Jun
Happiness maximization vs. profit maximization
2012
16 Jun
Music genres are dead
2012
15 Jun
Make a great product
2012
15 Jan
Rasa - Noem 't Wat Je Wilt
2011
23 Dec
Rasa - Hard & Soul
2011
15 Nov
Earth