Kodesk Is Like An Airbnb For Office Space | Hacker News Reader

Kodesk Is Like An Airbnb For Office Space

techcrunch.com

40 pointsemmanuelory14 comments

If your company is ever used as the subject of the "X for Y" analogy, that's success. AirBnB used to be the eBay for vacation rental.. Now other companies are the airbnb of things.

Not sure about the implementation, but I like the idea. I'm working at a cafe right now with a good internet connection because my home connection has been down for the past two days -- go Verizon! If there were easily identifiable office space for daily rental, I'd probably have taken advantage.

That would of been a great idea, alas this is not what they are doing now.

They are connecting people who HAVE space with people who.. HAVE space. (just in different locations).

As it stands, I'm not sure this service is useful. I wanted to check out the space available in Boston, but according to their FAQ:

For now, the only way to receive time credit in order to book desks in the Kodesk network is by sharing your own unoccupied office space. If you don't have any office space, or are not in a position to share any desk, you won't be able to use Kodesk for now. That is because, in the first phase of the Kodesk revolution, we want to encourage companies to share their unused desks and feel all the power of having their employees working from anywhere, and even more important, the power of welcoming new ideas, talents and opportunities into their walls.

If you need to offer space in order to use space, I don't understand who will use the site or power the "Kodesk revolution." If I were an employer with an office, I wouldn't care about "all the power of having their employees working from anywhere."

I think they're missing the point of AirBnB: you need to connect people who _need_ space with those who _have_ space. By limiting themselves to only one half of that equation, I don't know how they will expand.

"It’s very simple: for every hour of desk space shared by a company, they get one hour of time credit for any of their employees to use in any other Kodesk space."

Basically, you'd need to have office/desk space first, and the employers and other employees have to be comfortable with the idea of new people popping into their office space.

If I had a company, I'd just pay money for my employee to get desk space somewhere or work at the hotel or at the clients. It seems like a distraction to work at another company's office.

This seems a lot like http://loosecubes.com/ that was posted earlier this year.

What this needs is a clearer social/collaboration angle. This is blind speculation, but I feel like the *book and the internet have killed much of the reason for a traditional "desk" (paper, phone, and paraphernalia).

I don't need another transient place to put my laptop, and I imagine any serious business person/company has their workspace long figured out. What I could use, though, is a nice infrastructure for fluidly moving around and meeting people in an environment conducive to work.

The don't sign up part is cheeky. Demanding visitors that they tell why they wont sign up is a bit too heavy handed, no?

I like it. It actually got me thinking, staring at their page, "Why don't I sign up, we have free office space in our office." But they need an option "I don't feel like thinking about this right now."

Exactly, maybe they should let people who complete the "Why I don't want to sign up form" look at the site without signing up?

This is a really great idea! I could definitely see myself using this when traveling as hotels are not always the best place to work from. Great for startups too that only need office space occasionally.

I'm lost; is there a way to see available spaces?! It seems that the only signup is to offer desk spaces..?

How big is the market size? Entrepreneurs need to evaluate this before jumping into the water.

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