I’m a freelance copywriter, which means I spend an inordinate amount of time working in coffee shops. Usually this isn’t a problem. I pop in my headphones, crank up the tunes, and start dropping words like fat beats (I’ve been waiting to use that phrase all day). With a hefty dose of concentration, I’m able to tune out the distractions.
But sometimes, I can’t.
Like when a lady accidentally slammed her car into the front of the Starbucks. Naturally that caused quite a ruckus, and I wasn’t able to get much work done. I still don’t know what actually happened. Maybe her Pumpkin Spice Latte wasn’t quite up to her specifications.
There are times when I wish I had a space to get some undistracted work done. A place to myself, where I’m not surrounded by soccer moms sporting yoga pants.
But here in Tallahassee, my options are pretty limited. A quick Google search reveals nothing helpful. So it looks like I’m going to be a coffee shop rat…
Unless Breather comes to town.
Breather is doing for office space what Uber has done for transportation and what AirBnB has done for travel accommodations.
If I want to book an office space for the day, I simply pull up the app on my smartphone, find available spaces near me, and book it for however long I need. When I arrive at the location, I check in on my phone and receive an unlock code for the keypad on the door. I’ll also be given the name and password of the wifi network.
The hourly cost varies by the space and city.
Breather also offers spaces for teams who need private, on-demand workspaces.
If I happen to have unused office space myself, I can make some extra cash by listing it with Breather.
“In between your office layer and Starbucks, there should be a layer that kind of feels like Starbucks, but it’s private, and that’s what we are. I love café culture as much as the next guy, but it’s really obvious that privacy is extremely useful.
In our increasingly mobile society, Breather makes sense. It connects the unused surplus of office space with demand from people just like me.”
Investors seem to agree. The company has raised a total of $27.5 million in three rounds of funding.
Breather currently has spaces in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Ottawa, and Montreal.
I’m waiting for you Breather.
Stephen Altrogge is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Florida. He writes about tech, marketing, faith, and lots of other things. He’s married to Jen and has three young girls. Every day he consumes more coffee than the entire population of Colombia. He knows more about Star Wars than any respectable man should, and he runs more than any sane man would. He once attempted to eat a 2 pound hamburger in under an hour. He failed.
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Things like this just make sense. If Uber can make it work with the taxi service, there is no reason that empty office space would not have the same success. Smaller companies that might not have room to have a large meeting can benefit from this and we all know how many new startups there are each year!
Great idea. It is going to be hard to grow a business like this without major cost, but the overall idea is a good one.