I believe they are on to something but I'd suggest looking at an existing model that has been around for decades, specifically the Moose, Lions, Masons, Rotary, American Legion and many others.<p>These clubs put you into a community. When my father-in-law comes to visit he usually goes to the American Legion down the street, that's his Breather spot. My dad would visit other Lions clubs when he was travelling out of town.<p>I'd suggest looking into how clubs operate. When I travel I would really like to have something between AirBNB and the Moose Lodge. Something that is...<p>1) Members only. It's a casual membership that includes a yearly fee to weed out people that are likely to trash the place.<p>2) Open to multiple members. This might be contradictory to where they are going but as a traveller I don't mind a few other travellers around me. I just don't want to be in a coffee house. I could stand 3 or 4 other people if there was enough room. Instead of saying "You are blocking off this room for X hours" make it an option. If you want exclusive privacy then you must rent the room for a minimum of 4 hours @ $25 an hour. Otherwise it's first-come-first-serve with a limit of X people depending on size. The more members the lower the hourly rate (spread it between them).<p>Neat idea.
Not sure how they make a lot of money on this. At $15/hr, and and average of 10 hours of booking, that's $150/day. 20 days a year (you can only book on weekdays), that's a total of $3k a month per space. In NYC, I've got to figure at least $1500 a month, probably higher. Furniture and app development is a relatively fixed cost (maintenance), cleaning after every appointment can add up if you've got a lot discontinuous, small appointments. Doesn't seem like there is a lot of margin - or margin for error if you don't fill the rooms. You've got a large fixed cost that's paid up-front on one side and no guarantee of selling that space - so the business has a lot of risk. Interesting but challenging.
Great idea.<p>At first, by reading the title, I thought it was about making flights more comfortable. I really would like to see planes where instead of selling 200 seats at $500 each, they sell 100 seats at $1000 with double leg room and bigger seats. Or even 50 mega seats at $2000 each.<p>First class seats go for 10k a pop which makes them really expensive only affordable by big corporations. So something in the middle may be a good thing to explore.<p>Can a group of entrepreneurs buy a plane an make a direct flight JFK-LAX with just 50 seats and still make a profit?
I imagine there could be an opportunity for AirBNB/Über style service here. Maybe not for individuals, but for companies that are anyways offering office space for rent and who already have reception facilities (for giving access) etc. Or maybe even hotels? Re-decorate few rooms to serve specifically this purpose (remove beds etc).<p>The main challenge I can think of is related to getting access to the space. With this kind of service I would not be interested in making appointments with somebody to get access to the place. Too much trouble if I only plan to spend couple of hours there.<p>Would be also easy to tie additional services to the experience. If there's some catering services available at the location, those could be made available via the app. Book a room and request a light lunch delivered there.<p>And of course these could also expand to airports. With some good design one could probably fit in a decent room in pretty small place. Knowing that I have my personal space booked at the airport, I could actually go there a little bit earlier instead of trying to kill the time at the city.
I once attended a conference in NYC early in my career where I stayed with friends in NJ to save on costs (I was just starting a fledgling business). The conference would end in the afternoon around 3-4PM or earlier and then have social events a few hours later around 8PM. For 3 days I faced the dilemma of making the commute back to Jersey to get maybe 1 hour of solid rest (minus the commute time) or hanging around a cafe in the city and networking later with an exhausted mind and body. I tried both and neither was optimal. I would have loved to have a service like this around at the time and would have gladly paid $25 for a solid hour to decompress and rest.