Now, of course, reading that sentence as a coworking operator, you might be saying to yourself “Oh, poor freelancers, no worries, I can just attract different people to my space.”

While that may seem like a feasible idea, the truth is whether we’re talking about freelancers, remote workers, small business owners, or high-paid contractors — very few of these workers are willing to pay for access to a coworking space.

Over the years, I’ve seen many small (up to 300 m2) coworking spaces open their doors, struggle to attract clientele and then close down after only a couple of years.

In these instances, I seem to always find they have followed the same simple playbook:

1. Rent a space
2. Create a community
3. Profit

The problem is, this playbook doesn’t work in most cases.

In reality, it’s extremely hard to make money from a small coworking space unless you have different motivations (you own the property, you want to rent unused space in your own office, or you are trying to attract prospects for your consulting business, etc.).

And perhaps the most desperate thing I see all the time? Paid Facebook Ads that attempt to educate the market: “Don’t work from home, come to work from our coworking space”.

The margins in this business are just too small to acquire customers in such an expensive way.

Where is the money in the coworking business then? Serviced offices for startups, agencies and corporations — that’s where all the big players like WeWork or Knotel are focused.

Can you compete here?

One of the reasons why small coworking operators struggle is the rise of what I call “free coworking”. Consumers have never had more options to find a productive workspace than they do today.

More coffee places embrace laptop workers

Only a few years ago, it was a challenge to find many coffee places where you were welcomed to regularly come and work without interruptions for a few hours. Often times, Starbucks was the only option.

Now I see smart café operators creating special areas with large desk spaces dedicated specifically towards catering to people that want to come and work on their laptops. These spaces are usually the least popular area in the cafe, with people instead choosing to sit next to each other, and as a result, space is very efficiently used for those looking to adopt the cafe as their coworking space.

These remote workers create a nice vibe for the café, many times becoming ambassadors (free marketing) through social media and word-of-mouth and often staying much longer than regular guests, on average spending significantly more money on food and coffee.

Lobbies of upscale hotels are perfect for working

Hotel lobbies are usually my first choice for working while travelling. And the best part — you don’t have to be a customer at that hotel.

Peter Fabor on Twitter

The best coworking spot I've visited in Barcelona is a hotel lobby of @MotelOne: 👌 WeWork style design, super comfy chairs/desks, good internet, sockets everywhere 💰 It's free (you can work from there without being a hotel guest) Coworking isn't a product, it's a feature.

Lobbies of 4 or 5* hotels are usually empty during the day and often have many of the features of a high-end coworking space: comfortable desks/chairs, good wifi, plugs and a quiet environment (with not very loud ambience music).

Peter Fabor on Twitter

Hotels have begun to turn their lobbies and common areas into WeWork-like gathering places, attracting both guests and locals. Even @nytimes spotted this trend ☝️ https://t.co/GhfXNsAsPs

I asked a few times at the reception if it’s OK to work from there if I’m not a hotel guest and their reaction was always positive. It makes a lot of sense — a few people with laptops can bring some energy to an otherwise empty lobby and perhaps even add some additional revenue for the hotel café.

Sponsored coworking spaces

When your business has an unused space, you can convert it into a PR tool.

The first time I saw a free sponsored coworking space was in 2016. The Bank of Ireland decided to offer an area of one of their branches in Dublin as a free coworking and they organised there tech events there in the evenings.

Peter Fabor on Twitter

This is a public coworking space in Dublin provided by Bank of Ireland. Anyone can use it for free (including coffee). Great marketing! 👏

A similar space has existed for a while in Bratislava and it’s sponsored by the mobile operator Orange.

Peter Fabor on Twitter

Coworking as a PR tool." This coworking café in Bratislava 🇸🇰 has a better setup than most of the hot desk areas of paid coworking spaces I've visited. 👨‍💻 Solid chairs/desks 🎶 Low volume ambient music ☕️ Good coffee 💸 Free It's sponsored by mobile operator @orange.

I noticed that most regulars working there are freelancers and there are always a few people like me who come from time to time just to change their home-office environment.

Coworking libraries

Many public libraries have evolved to the modern age and installed super-fast internet — the last piece to become a perfect place for any freelancer to get things done.

Raman Shalupau on Twitter

If you are a 👨‍💻 solo maker. Don't overpay for hipster coworking spaces 👇 Remember Libraries 📚 They are - 💰 FREE - 🔕 Quiet - 🌍 Available worldwide Perfect for getting things ✅ done

The silent environment has one downside though — it’s almost impossible to make calls. However, on the other hand, you would have a hard time finding a more beautiful workspace than this public library in Lisbon:

Peter Fabor on Twitter

The most beautiful workspaces in Lisbon: old public libraries 📚 https://t.co/WxJNBkWxye A bonus point: free to use.

Well, unless you visit this public library in Prague that is:

Coworking days

I have a couple of Facebook community groups for digital nomads in Europe. These groups help nomads and expats to relocate to new locations like Lisbon or Gran Canaria.

When new coworking spaces are launching in these cities, their operators always share the news in the groups.

I tried an experiment in Gran Canaria in 2017 and asked one of these new coworking spaces if they would organise a free coworking day for the digital nomad community, offering an opportunity for people to discover the space and generate good marketing for the operators.

They agreed and we created a Facebook event.

Around 10 people showed up at the coworking space that day and hundreds saw that there is a new space available in town. I started to get messages from different coworking operators saying that they would like to organise a similar event for themselves.

As it started to become a time-consuming task, I proposed the operators work independently to choose a date, create a FB event and share it in the group.

Then I replicated this experiment in my Lisbon Digital Nomads Facebook group, but with a little difference — I began encouraging new members of the group to organise and coordinate the events for themselves.

As the nomad/expat community in Lisbon is much bigger than in Gran Canaria, coworking days became very popular and one unexpected thing began to happen — people started to organise coworking days around specific topics and themes — for example, coworking sessions for marketers.

Peter Fabor on Twitter

Few digital nomads in Lisbon took a mobile router and organised an open-air pop-up coworking in the park yesterday. 💨 Fresh air 🌳 Shade from the trees 👀 Views on the river Tejo Mobile internet in Portugal is fast and cheap. Join the next event: https://t.co/x87QwJxDcz

People have been incredibly creative and have quickly reinforced my belief that the most important essence of these coworking days are the people you can meet whether you’re coming together in unused cafés, gardens or any number of other unique spaces.

It’s been so exciting seeing how these events have taken off and in December 2018 there were even 3 free coworking days organised by 3 different people at 3 different venues in one single week.

Buffer ran a survey State of Remote asking remote workers about the location from which they primarily like to work. It’s not a surprise that most people prefer to work from home and coworking spaces have to fight for a very small niche of remote workers.

If you run a coworking desk focused on remote workers, there is a sad truth — only 8% of these people are your potential customers and you have to fight for their interest amongst other coworking operators.

So, what are the solutions?

As a coworking operator, I believe you have 2 options:

1. Become bigger and focus on private offices
2. Focus on some niches

Focusing on some specific niches/tribes can help you to automatically create a community around specific topics and attract some people who might not have visited your space before.

Mason on Twitter

@andreasklinger Personally, I think domain-specific coworking seems like it will be widely popular whether by profession (crypto, artists, healthcare) or specific personal interests (snowboarding, surfing, etc). Coworking spaces need to incentivize more interaction. People will pay for networks.

Here are some examples:

• Coworking for outdoor enthusiasts
• Parents
• Content creators
• Post-Revenue SaaS Startups
• Digital nomads
• Writers
• Real estate technology startups
• Artists
• Women

This is an approach I also follow and am happy to report I have seen great success.

My company Surf Office organises team off-sites and company retreats in Europe and the US. In some of our 12 locations we operate our own coworking space, in others, we cooperate with local operators. We are only focused on hosting retreats, workshops, hackathons, trainings, meetups and corporate events.

We are always looking for new coworking partners — you can find more details here.

Originally published on my blog where I share my experiments of building projects that combine hospitality, real estate, and tech.

It’s one of the biggest headaches for property owners; getting bookings in mid and low seasons. I’ve been partly involved in the property business for a few years now, and these are just some of the tricks that I’ve learned along the way to boost bookings.

1. Allow for shorter stays 🏁

There are no two ways about it; you have to be more flexible in these seasons. You need to offer lower rates and allow for shorter stays than you would in the high season. Most travelers are savvy enough now to be on the lookout for cheaper and more flexible deals during these seasons, so if you offer a good one you’ll find they get booked up quickly.

2. Create special wellness packages 🌱

Offering packages alongside a booking is a great way to entice potential bookers. A great trick I learned is to research local wellness centres, and offer yoga or spa retreat packages alongside your accommodation.

The new, modern-day focus on wellness makes these popular, and you can work with local businesses who have a social media presence to help you promote these packages.

3. Optimize for countries with low fare rates ✈️

Deals are changing all the time, and it’s worth spending some time researching them. Use Skyscanner to search for flights anywhere from your location for the upcoming months. It will give you a quick look into where the cheapest flights are, and then you can optimize your bookings around this.

For example, if you are based in Lisbon and see that there are cheap flights from Paris to Lisbon all summer, then it would be useful to have a French version of all your vacation rental site listings.

4. Company retreats 🖥️

I started my company Surf Office four years ago with the aim of helping people be more productive in beautiful places. We shifted our focus to help companies with company retreats, and now cooperate with accommodation partners and landlords around Europe.

Our highest demand is in autumn and spring, and so we can now offer these accommodation partners and landlords a perfect proposition where we can help to fill their spaces and rooms in the low and mid seasons.

5. Organize local events 🎪

If your property has a large open space, like a garden or a patio, you can try organizing local events. There is a huge range of events you can think about, like wine tastings, movie nights, or meetups, and you can find local event organizers on places like Meetup.com.

You aren’t always likely to earn money with these local events, but it’s a great way to build up your reputation and create a fantastic relation with the locals. Word-of-mouth counts for a lot in the property business, and they will recommend your properties to friends or relatives visiting them. This is more of a long-term strategy, but it works.

6. Invite bloggers & Instagrammers 📷

This is another strategy which will bring you bookings in the long-term. Bloggers and Instagrammers will create fresh content around your property, which they will share with their peers. Don’t expect direct bookings immediately, especially if you aren’t inviting celebrities with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Try to attract bloggers who aren’t so famous, otherwise, they will charge you for the visit and ask you to cover all of their costs. Smaller bloggers are simply happy with a free stay. You will get some backlinks to your website and probably a few cool pictures to update your listings, and any additional bookings are a bonus.

7. Long-term discounts with weekly/monthly stays 💸

Many sites like Airbnb allow you to set up discounts for a longer stay with weekly and monthly discounts. Avoid them in the high season, when you can fill out your properties easily.

But in mid-low season you can attract people who are searching for longer stays, usually business travelers, digital nomads, students, or teachers. Be aware that these people are very careful with the amenities that regular travelers care about less: equipped kitchen, desk, solid internet, or washing machine.

8. Bundle and unbundle rooms 📦

American entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen says that there are “only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is unbundle.” You can apply this to vacation rentals too.

Try to be creative with your properties — imagine you have a property with 4 rooms, try to unbundle it into a 4 single room listing. If you manage 10 studios, you can try to bundle them into two, three, four, five studios, and this way attract groups of different sizes.

It may take some playing around to get this right, but it will allow you to appeal to a wider range of people.

9. Contact organizers of local conferences or events 🎤

Research larger events in your area and contact them with an offer to become an accommodation partner. If it’s not a large conference, they don’t usually even ask for commission. This strategy needs a bit of luck to find good partners, but you would be surprised at how many leads to one relatively small event can drive to your business.

And again, it helps with that much-needed word-of-mouth.

—

Peter Fabor is the founder of Surf Office — an organizer of productive company retreats in Europe. You can reach him on Twitter as @faborio

9 tricks for vacation rentals to get more bookings in mid and low season was originally published in Hostfully on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I ordered a pack of Estimote Beacons to test this technology and see how it can help us solve everyday problems.

At Surf Office, which is a combination of a coworking and coliving space, we often organize activities for our guests, such as going out for dinner together.

We always try to show our guests local things, people and food. We hate mass tourism. The problem is, that especially in Spain, locals outside the touristy places usually don’t speak English.

Imagine you’re in a restaurant, the waiter doesn’t speak English and the menu is in Spanish. Even though Spanish food is almost always great, you want to know at least what you are ordering. Some people have asked me (and I always try to translate or recommend), but I observed that some try to solve this problem by themselves. They often try following:

1. Google image search
It’s quite time consuming, but the Google image search works quite well

2. Foursquare pictures or reviews
Some people search restaurants on Foursquare/Yelp and then choose the best looking dish in the user generated gallery. But what they find is not always sufficient — sometimes there are no reviews or pictures.

3. Translator
This is a traditional, old school way to solve the problem. With the augmented reality that Google Translate offers it can be even fun. But the visual part is missing.

Maybe you already have a clue how we used iBeacon to help our guests and improve their dining experience in Spain. When you enter a restaurant with our app on your phone (we call it “Foodic”), you receive a push notification saying you can have a look at the menu with photos. There is an iBeacon hidden at the restaurant but you don’t know about it (magic!).

All you have to do is just to swipe pictures and you choose what would you like to eat in that specific restaurant.

I designed the app while Leif developed it. The whole process was pretty quick and fun. This was just an exercise to explore possibilities of iBeacons. No commercial use or other ideas with this project so far. Although one restaurant was interested in a paid solution where they would be able to update the menu and customize triggers.

There are many ideas what to do next with this use case, for instance:

• Trigger a push notification after 45 minutes (if you are still in iBeacon’s range) and offer desserts
• Order and pay directly via the app using Apple Pay
• Offer a free drink after 5 visits (loyalty program without a loyalty card)

There is a lot of potential in iBeacon which could improve contextual experiences in restaurants, hotels or public places. I hope to see more real-life and B2B solutions. Feel free to reach out if you have any interesting idea and are looking for a feedback!

Feel free to connect on Twitter: @faborio

The chance you have met a mobile designer who has never tried to redesign a weather app is almost zero. When you visit a website like Dribbble you can find tons of amazing design concepts.

I live in the Canary Islands and the weather app is not very handy here, the weather is same all year around, but I use it during my travels. Native iOS weather app and Yahoo! Weather are installed on my phone.

Both are great and simple, they show the temperature and the icon of the sun/clouds.

But I use weather apps?

There are many reasons to use it, I organise BBQ during the weekend or I want to go hiking with my friends. But mostly because I want to know what to wear.

OK, now imagine I want to know what to wear this morning. I open the app where I can see the icon of clouds and the temperature 25 degrees. Hmmmm. When I know the current place, I start a quick “calculation” in my mind and then I assume what to wear.

But… what if I don’t want to think about it? What if I just want to see what I should wear today or tomorrow? So I tried to design this idea.

You can buy this nice hoodie in Threadless.

(Wueeeey, the first weather app with a business model!)

I know, everyone has a different temperature perception and a different dress style. However, this is an interesting problem to resolve!

And, it might inspire someone to actually build it ;-)

Do you want to apply similar out of box design ideas to your app?
Apply The Tech Beach and 4 designers (including me) will redesign your app in 31 days.

That's nice, but I don't see the “hero company” trying to resolve the problem of confusing user interface of my washing machine.

Twitter / zoli_jr: Hero who takes this advice ...

Hero who takes this advice first. - "Washing Machine for Men" by @faborio https://medium.com/design-ux/b6f927bbb538 ...

I have to do it by myself

I founded the coliving and coworking space in the Canary Islands called Surf Office. People are coming for few weeks, they work, they surf and yes, sometimes they need to use a washing machine. This one:

It's one of the simplest models I've ever seen, but still: 14 options for washing in Spanish could be challenging. But everyone has my phone number and... you know the rest. Believe me or not, I prefer surfing waves to instructing people how to use the washing machine.

I drew the user interface to large piece of paper and then I added my comments (instructions),

then I designed these instructions as stickers,

which I pasted on the washing machine. Here is the result:

Clear instructions in 5 simple steps.

1. step

Obvious?

Twitter / _brandonkroeger: I went to do some laundry and ...

I went to do some laundry and I started the washing machine and 5 minutes later I noticed I didnt even put my clothes in.

2. step

How much is 1 cup?

This cup you find in the detergent box which is near the washing machine:

3. step

There are 14 washing programs but you basically need only one.

4. step

Push the button and go to surf.

5. step (optional)

I almost always forget about the laundry and after the quick search on Twitter I realized, that I'm not the only one.

Twitter / MorganDobroski: Of course when I finally lay ...

Of course when I finally lay in bed after a long day about to fall asleep... I realize I forgot my laundry in the washing machine.... #great

QR code which creates the appointment in your mobile calendar, NFC chip... There were many ideas for notifications but probably the quickest and simplest option is just advise you to set an alarm manually in your phone (OMG, it works with any platform!).

However, I prefer iOS Reminders, as I can customize the message.

Robin from Norway was the first guest in The Surf Office who used this “new” washing machine. Here is what he texted me after:

Washing machine should have 2 steps

Many questions came to my mind during designing these stickers.

I don’t have to fill printer with the paper and ink before EVERY printing, so why I have to add detergent every single time before the laundry?

In that moment I realized, that my previous concept was too complicated and the washing machine should have only 2 steps:

1. Put your clothes inside
2. Push the button (and start washing)

Imagine that the Push button means last or default washing program, but you still have dozens of other options. Simplicity with complexity in the same UI.

I’m @faborio on Twitter.

I’ve been living in 6 different places for last 2 years. Everywhere I’ve had to use a washing machine and it’s been a pain! I was curious, so I started to ask my friends if they had a similar problem. They did. And I realized that most of my friends used only 1 type of washing program all the time.

But perhaps the problem resided only in me and my friends, so I started to google it. I came across a research from Great Britain, the main result of which was that:

“58 % of British men can’t use a washing machine properly because they find the household appliance confusing.”

We are living in the age of self-driving cars, yet more than half of the men doesn’t know how to use washing machine?

My own research

I decided to visit the nearest store with electronics. They had about 50 different types. I explained to the shop assistant, that I’d always had problems with user interfaces of washing machines and I wanted to buy something really, really simple. She didn’t understand me well. Therefore I had to tell her I was a total idiot, looking for a “washing machine for total idiots”.

She finally understood and showed me this type:

Yes, the simplest type offers 15 special washing programs….

Still, I was sure, that among 50 washing machines I could find something suitable. I was wrong. Most of the washing machines provided, for instance, the option to set the temperature and number of rotations per minute. This means no problem for those who know which values to put in — but it’s definitely a problem for me.

I’m sure these fancy symbols were created during some hard party of KOENIC product designers. Because nobody else can understand them.

On the other hand, Bosh has probably a strong marketing department. I like buzzwords such as “Turbo Eco Perfect” or “Skin care”. The problem is I don’t understand them. And perhaps I don’t even need them.

“Hi mom!”

If I ever had a problem with a washing machine, I usually called my mom. She always asked me the same questions:

1. “Is it very dirty? Do you have any towels there? Or just towels?”
2. “Is there something very soft?”

Then, based on the washing machine type, she explained what temperature I should adjust, etc.

Now imagine, that your washing machine talks with you as your mom does. I tried to simplify classic user interface, which is similar for every single washing machine and this is the result:

Yes, just 3 buttons and the detergent entry. While washing, you can see the blue flashing LED light.

Imagine that the whole user interface is one single sticker = super easy for language localizations.

I always wash my clothes at 40 °C with 600 rotations per minute. White with black, T-shirts, underwear, towels, everything. And I’ve never had a problem. I understand, that in some cases someone needs some special washing program. But I don’t. I think many people neither.

BOSH, Philco, Whirpool, Samsung, AEG, Gorenje, please, create a washing machine for men. Thanks.

Continue in reading: Hack your own washing machine… with stickers

EDIT: This post was already translated to Italian, Russian and French. Thank you guys!

• La lavatrice per uomini
• Стиральная машина для мужчин
• Des machines à laver pour Homme

—

I'm the founder of Surf Office, a one-stop-shop for anyone organizing company retreats. You can also check out my blog where share upcoming trends and my experiments of building products that combine hospitality, real estate, and tech.