There is A LOT to do in the coliving industry. And the majority isn’t built yet.
In this article, I will share my favorite coliving ideas that don’t exist yet. Hopefully, some of you will adopt them and bring them to life.
A few months back, a drew out a series of initiatives that I would love to see happen in the upcoming years.
Since then, I’ve tackled a few myself — including writing articles on coliving, creating in-depth interviews, launching a weekly coliving new digest, hosting in real life coliving meetups, and establishing a coliving resource directory.
A few ideas I had have since then been launched — among others, a coliving job directory and events listing(by coliving.com), a coliving documentary (by OurColife), and a coliving online course (by Kndrd).
While I wish to create a lot more, I’m unfortunately constrained by human’s time and energy shortage. This is why I want to publish my top 10 coliving ideas below.
Whoever tackles them, you’re not alone — I created a dedicated Google Form to put potential co-founders in touch (see at the end of the article). Now let’s dig into them.
#1 Coliving Accelerator Program
My favorite idea: creating an accelerator program dedicated to coliving projects. The program could include funding, office space, mentorship, and even lists of operating spaces (housing). Moreover, it’d be amazing to have participants of one batch living together during the time at the accelerator. In short, creating a coliving space within a coliving accelerator.
Note: The Collective has an accelerator program for companies that foster community, but offers no housing and it’s not necessarily directly related to coliving.
#2 Remote Year for Community Managers
This idea has been receiving a lot of positive feedback, but unfortunately no action yet. In short, all spaces struggle with great community managers. The solution would be to create a one-year training program, in which community managers would stay in different spaces and get trained. In exchange, they could sign up to working for a year minimum at one of the spaces.
#3 Crowdsourced Coliving Instagram
In the very “Humans of New York” style, one could imagine a “Humans of Coliving” type of Instagram or Facebook story-telling. The account could also be run by several spaces, or have spaces send in their stories to a master account. This initiative would create more attention and awareness from the demand side.
Note: I once tried to launch the idea with my friend Meir, but we didn’t continue it. The site is still live.
#4 Open Coliving Challenge
Challenges such as XPrize allow businesses to innovate and eventually receive funding and/or support for their ideas. While we had some contests around the future of living, I’m yet to see a real estate developer, bank or even municipality create a coliving challenge of its own.
#5 Coliving Tour Package
Similar to the “remote year for community managers”, this would be a 6 or 12-month long journey for coliving residents. The idea is to pay for a yearlong experience that would guide colivers across several spaces and give them a feeling for what coliving is. This would simply require for a few spaces to come together, create an offering, and promote it.
#6 One-Stop-Shop to Build Coliving Spaces
Need to create your concept? Find a house? Hire a community manager? Create a contract? Everything possible with one click by adding the item to the store basket. The “coliving one-stop-shop” is what exists currently as developers and real estate project managers, but made simple and easily accessible for people who just need certain outsourced services.
Note: While the process is complex, the idea is to have an agency designed to take care of everything A-Z, so that anyone can build their own space.
#7 Mastermind Slack Channel
Where should coliving operators go to exchange on coliving ideas and problems? Unfortunately, no platform has truly taken off yet. Coliving Facebook Groups such as Coliving Space Founders or Coliving Hub are active, but the Facebook platform isn’t great for multiple channels and larger input. Meanwhile, Co-Liv launched their MightyApp yet has low engagement at this time.
We need someone to create a platform for coliving operators and be there to animate it, meaning to connect the right people to the right questions and make the right introductions between founders.
#8 Coliving Founders Matchmaking
Kind of a Tinder for coliving founders. I’ve been seeing many people wanting to start similar organizations and it could save a lot of time connecting them. An MVP way to solve this would be to have a forum with threads of initiatives and people commenting if they’re currently building one. And the pre-MVP version is simply — reach out to super-connectors that can help you (including myself).
#9 Quora for Coliving (F.A.Q.)
How do you select residents? What types of real estate contract do you choose? Where do you market your space? While I’ll be personally interviewing 100+ founders during my coliving world tour, we’d need a forum-type of FAQ dedicated for coliving questions only. This could solve a lot of questions & answers, especially since it’s a new industry.
#10 Global Coliving Pass
And the last one: a membership that allows you to stay in several locations around the world. Similar to Copass for coworking or HostelPass for hostels, the idea is to create an offering in joint partnership with multiple spaces. Pass members will then be able to travel around the world and access coliving spaces without having to worry about the financial part.
Are you interested in any of those initiatives?
If you want to start one of those initiatives or want to be updated when they arise, here is how we can help: fill out the Google Form below and choose the initiatives you’re interested in.
In case you want to start one, I’ll personally get in touch and help you connect to the right people.
And if you’re just interested about updates, you’ll get notified when they launch.
Excited to see the movement growing. Keep rocking!
This story was originally published on Coliving Diaries.
PS: What ideas do you have? Write in the comments right here 👇
