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Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

12 points by kvgr ↗ HN
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?

11 comments

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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

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.

likewise
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.
robfitz
4 Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank did the trick for me, but a lot of people find it too detailed/boring.

There's an ebook at custdev.com that's meant to cover the same content in a more accessible way, but I don't think it's a good starting place since it assumes you have some knowledge about the concepts. Just googling around and digging into "customer development" is probably a safe starting point, and then grab Steve's book if it resonates w/ the way you think.

lawlit
I think using it or not depends on people. If I am to become a freelancer, no, I won't use it, not when I'm just starting up. Maybe later, when am an experienced freelancer, It would make me feel like if I had a startup or something.
jcn
Though I've never used it, Loosecubes (http://loosecubes.com) is doing just this. Offices list their spare space (on a daily or monthly basis, for a fee or for free) and the types of people they're looking to work with, and people seeking office space can apply for those spots.
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.
mbesto
http://sunshineny.com/

Copy+paste business model. My impression is that it's an extremely volatile model and market.

> A lot of us are freelance developers and working from home is not very effective,

Is it? How many people have you spoken to about this? Is enough of a problem that people are really willing to pay for it? Is it a big enough problem that freelancers are wanting to throw money at you to provide them this service? Isn't one competitive advantage of being a freelancer that your overhead is low (and thus a lower fee than agencies)?