One Man's Quest to Make Business Travel a Lot Less Awful | Hacker News Reader

One Man's Quest to Make Business Travel a Lot Less Awful

theatlanticcities.com

86 pointsjlhamilton46 comments

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.

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.

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...

1) Members only. It's a casual membership that includes a yearly fee to weed out people that are likely to trash the place.

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).

Neat idea.

Thanks for the tips columbo. I'm the guy from the article - I'll look up this stuff you're talking about. Cheers.

I'd be very surprised if less than half the bookings were for sex, amateur or professional.

To be honest this is a good idea and it's a pain point I've had before. Meet a potential one night stand when you're travelling but can't use wherever you are staing. Nice room you can book really quickly as a place to spend the night would be great. Locate them near downtown cores and it's like Love Hotels except better (and hopefully less sketchy).

If these are in commercial buildings I am wondering if this couldn't be solved by installing security cameras?

But why it even has to be solved?

I was intern at research facility that had this story as part of the local folklore: male researcher and female researcher stayed the night to supervise long-lasting experiment, fire inspector was doing rounds and walked upon them having sex. He reported this to the director of the facility. Director said "I don't see how fire safety was affected" and dismissed the complaint.

The only reason is because your other clients might object - they might not want to be put in the position of having to ignore what is going on next door in the middle of a meeting.

It doesn't seem optimal for sex because there's no bed or bathroom in the room. Especially regarding the bathroom - who wants to get dressed and walk through a commercial space right after having sex just to use the restroom?

Meanwhile, in NYC there are plenty of options for "hourly" hotels that get you a room for 2-3 hours for 50-60 dollars, which is about the rate of Breather.

"To discourage hanky-panky, there are no curtains, and no overnight stays; cleaners refresh the rooms at the end of every booking"

Though, uh, as Ian Malcom put it in Jurassic Park: "Life finds a way"

Regus already does this, without the mobile app front-end. You can book offices on an hourly basis starting around $30/hr in Manhattan.

If it's anything like Regus in the UK it looks like a very different experience. The offices are part of a larger group office. You need to check in at the front desk. The environment is much more "corporate" - office desks and chairs, plus no en-suite toilet, etc.

Very much not "your" space.

I'd love something like this in London. I live about 2.5 hours out of London, and when I come in for client meetings or on-sites having somewhere to decompress for a couple of hours, grab a shower and a nap, and get some work done in the quiet, would be fantastic.

There are such places already in London, though you might not like the prices. The more business-focused private members' clubs typically have offices, meeting rooms and bedrooms available (for rent) as well as the kind of bar, restaurant, reading room facilities you might expect.

Yeah ;-) There are solutions. Members clubs. Plain old hotel rooms. But mostly the price-point is way to high for an hour or two. The overhead and friction in booking and checking in is also substantial.

I've got a Regus gold card. The number of times I've actually used it in the last 18months - zero. Because the friction in actually making a booking and getting something sane out the other end is so high. I find especially memorable the time where I was running on EST in London and wanted to work at night, was told verbally that Regus has 24 hour office space at X address, only to show up to find a confused security guard and no access ;-)

So it seems like a gap in the market to me !

Hi adrianhoward. I'm glad you appreciate the difference (I'm the founder of this company), and I wanted a seamless experience, which is why we made it that way.

Breather is designed to allow you to pop in and out of private space while around a city, and it works really well. I hate talking to people when I check into things (hotels, airports, etc.) so we designed this as self-serve.

Come try it out sometime. Here's a coupon for you: HACKERNEWS.

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.

FWIW, it's $25 an hour in New York. Still challenging I but also perhaps not limited to 10 hours a day.

Ah, yes, it was showing me Montreal - so $25 x 10 hrs x 20 days = $2500/month - better. In fact, my suggestion was going to be to double their rates! If I was them, I would be encouraging/exploring more hours per guest - so charge $30 for one hour and then drop it in blocks of 2 or 4 hours.

I still don't like taking on the inventory risk.

I think they limit it to 10-12 hours per day in their schedule (as they limit the days to during the week). I'm just making an assumption about their occupancy rate - could be higher or lower.

> I still don't like taking on the inventory risk.

In the article they mention that the spaces are often small underused spaces in commercial buildings, and that they try to make revenue-sharing deals with landlords, rather than paying fixed rents.

Thanks for pointing that out - that makes it a lot more interesting. Basically they then become a marketing arm for temp space for the landlords - a much better business imho.

You are off by a factor due to an error in your math

$25/h x 10h/d x 20d/mo = $5000/mo

Oops - you're right - shouldn't do math before coffee!

This.

Great idea.

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.

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.

Can a group of entrepreneurs buy a plane an make a direct flight JFK-LAX with just 50 seats and still make a profit?

The airline industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world and they have tried everything that will make money. As much as you and I would love this I fear that there is no way to make money doing this the way the industry currently is set up.

Having said this I do think the airline industry has managed to get itself stuck in a non-optimal local maximum that could be broken out of with some intelligent regulation.

All business-class planes (and airlines) have been extensively tested as an idea. They tend to only work on the longest routes (1).

I too try to get business class on anything above maybe 6 hours and certainly on overnight flights, but I think you'd have to be pretty rich to not flinch at spending 2x or 4x your normal fare just to sit in a larger seat for a couple of hours on a domestic flight.

(1) http://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/flying-with-us/business-li...

Singapore Airlines' all-business-class flights (Singapore to to Newark or Los Angeles) have been withdrawn at the end of 2013 [1], but probably also due to fuel consumption of the A340-500, not just due to the all-business-class yields not quite working out.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/singapore-air-to-en...

A very low percentage of people in first class actually pay full price for it. Most people seated there are frequent flyers who were upgraded for free or travelers on award tickets.

> 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.

Most airlines have an "Economy Plus" type class nowadays, which is usually economy-style seating with more legroom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_economy

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).

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.

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.

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.

Businesses generally aren't interested in taking on the risk of having random, non-vetted people in their space. Too many potential legal problems. A former boss of mine said it best when he said that companies don't want to be landlords. But they will sublet to another company when forced to (took on too much space as a common issue).

"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."

You mean things like http://www.yotel.com/ ? ;-)

Nope, the Yotel in New York is a hotel. They rent for overnight stays only.

Booo! The one at Heathrow now does by-the-hour bookings. And was doing 4 hour chunks a year or two back.

Yup, this is kind of how we think about it. Thanks for the comment jpalomaki. :)

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.

Reading between the lines it sounds like the company you work(ed) for was public, and like(s/d) saving costs by housing you across flowing water. I am, of course, unsure if you considered putting this to your advantage, but I don't think it's too difficult to envisage! Start by imagining what you would do on vacation. IFF they are going to make you come to the office by 9AM then don't get there then. 11AM would be more appropriate if you now have to commute like that. Don't come out and say it though -- blame it on the trains. Also, smoke a joint and listen to your ipod on the train so you can really enjoy your business trip (which is not a home trip so make it one). Use the whole trip to relax, and remove your problems one at a time.

The company he worked for was his - from what I understood of the post he was freshly self employed:

    (I was just starting a fledgling business)

I need this for daytime naps

I have always wanted to see those capsule boxes that the Japanese salarymen use when they miss the last train home installed in airports and the like. Why can we have a small quiet box to lie down in and rest between flights?

Some North American airports have sleeping pods.

I think I last saw them at YVR (Vancouver).

Does anyone have a list where they all are? Actually this sounds like a great application idea.

I know these ones are available in Munich airport and many other places. http://www.napcabs.com

Yes, I have needed something like this for years. Using your car isn't optimal, and for a lot of people, it isn't even an option. $10-20 per hour is a really great option for this.

I love the idea. The problem is certainly one I share. Will be checking this out (NYC).

Thanks scrumper. I'm the guy in the article, thanks for checking it out. Here's a coupon for you- HACKERNEWS.

Great post!

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