- Get your paperback, kindle, or PDF edition of Art of Coliving Book.
- Starting or operating coliving space? Level up and Join the Coliving Incubator Program.
- Are you building a coliving business? Get Free Coliving Advisor
🔁📝Last week, we covered scaling profitable coliving and how to navigate financial pitfalls, which ties into today’s post on funding challenges. If you need a refresher, check out EC26: Interview with Murray Clark below:
Selina's Journey: Key Insights and Lessons
We have seen a lot of casualties in the coliving ecosystem, and one can argue and point fingers at what went wrong. Today, let’s take a different approach. Let’s see what we can learn from Selina’s journey so that you don’t make the same mistakes in your coliving journey.
Selina, once a trailblazer in the digital nomad hospitality sector, is now facing insolvency. This development offers valuable lessons for coliving and hybrid hospitality entrepreneurs. Here's a summary of the most important points, enriched by insights from industry stakeholders.
- Pioneering Vision and Impact: Selina normalized coworking spaces in hostels, provided fast internet in remote locations, and introduced the innovative coliving pass, allowing seamless travel between locations with a single monthly pass. These innovations set industry standards that are now widely adopted.
- Founder-Market Fit: Successful ventures require founders who deeply understand and connect with their target market. Selina struggled with this, particularly regarding the needs of digital nomads and remote workers.
- Hybrid Hospitality Model: The future lies in hybrid hospitality—catering to short-stay tourists during high seasons and digital nomads during off-peak times. This model proved successful at several Selina locations.
- Community Building: Building a true community is essential for attracting and retaining
millennials, digital nomads, and remote workers. Selina had mixed success in this area, despite significant efforts. - Sustainable Growth and Execution: Rapid scaling without a strong execution plan led to inconsistent experiences across Selina's locations. Sustainable growth in hospitality requires time and careful planning.
- Financial Management: Selina's rapid expansion, fueled by venture capital, resulted in poor
real estate deals and significant financial losses. The focus on growth over unit economics proved detrimental, similar to WeWork's trajectory. - Team Retention: Constantly training new team members and losing valuable know-how was a major challenge. Long-term success requires fostering a stable and committed team.
- Resilience and Future Prospects: Despite its current troubles, there's optimism about Selina's ability to bounce back. The brand may survive under a new corporate structure with a focus on tighter operations and improved unit economics.
Selina's journey provides critical insights into the challenges and opportunities in the coliving and hybrid hospitality sectors. By understanding the importance of market fit, sustainable growth, community building, and effective financial and team management, entrepreneurs can learn from Selina's experience to build resilient and successful businesses. Use these insights to guide your coliving or hybrid hospitality venture, ensuring a strong foundation and a clear path to sustainable success.
Sources:
Are You Building Your Coliving Business?
In last 10 years, Gui and I have
- Built and scaled our own coliving spaces in India, Barcelona, Bali, etc.
- We worked with more than 100+ coliving companies, VC's, architects, and tech service providers in the coliving sector.
- We wrote and sold Art of Coliving Book to more than 800 people.
- Hosted more than 5000 people in various webinars and conferences, pushing the coliving movement forward.
- Hosted more than 20 workshops for companies, training their teams and helping them build community and business the right way.
- Helped coliving tech brands reach the right audience through various initiatives.
We learned a lot along the way and would love to share it with anyone who is building and operating coliving business. We are giving away a free 45-minute advisory call to the first 10 people who book a call with us. We look forward to helping you build a sustainable coliving venture.
What Are The Different Coliving Communities That Exists?
Coliving.com has started mapping out spaces based on the community type. So far, they have identified around 60 communities worldwide and segregated spaces based on them.
If you are building a coliving concept and want to learn about the niches in the coliving world that already exist, head to the following link and learn more about different communities worldwide.
How Is Kummuni Changing The Coliving Landscape In Berlin?
KUMMUNI’s innovative approach, led by Toomaj Freydouny, sets new standards in Berlin’s coliving sector by emphasizing personalization,
community, and affordability.
- Personalized Living Spaces: The “Choose Your Style” program allows residents to customize their apartments at no extra cost, enhancing tenant satisfaction.
- Award-Winning: KUMMUNI received the “Arbeitgeber der Zukunft 2023” and “German CEO Excellence 2024” awards for its innovative approach.
- Community Focus: Prioritizes community-building with regular events and activities, fostering a sense of belonging among residents.
- Hybrid Hospitality Model: Combines short-stay tourism with long-term stays for digital nomads and remote workers, offering flexible housing solutions.
- Affordable Customization: Offers furniture choices without additional costs, with premium upgrades available for a minimal fee.
- Comprehensive Amenities: Provides amenities like smart TVs, PlayStations, high-speed internet, and laundry facilities to enhance living experiences.
- Transparent Pricing: Ensures fair pricing based on the actual space occupied, offering clarity and affordability.
- Sustainability: Incorporates eco-friendly practices, supporting Berlin’s sustainability efforts.
- Support for Newcomers: Eases the transition for expats and international students with fully furnished, customizable apartments and flexible lease terms.
Everything Else Coliving
- Coliving.com is hiring a host account manager for Latin America. You can find more details here.
- This pioneering tokenization platform is setting the stage for a revolution in real estate investing. With the advent of tokenization, the real estate market, which has traditionally been seen as highly exclusive and illiquid, is being transformed into a more flexible asset class that anyone can get involved in. Read the full article here.
- Enso Coliving raises 8.2 million and enters the US and Mexico with the help of XY Booster. The Spanish company plans to reach 4,000 rooms in both countries by 2026 after having boosted its business in Spain to 1,000 beds this year. The company has just closed its third round of financing. Read more here.
- Why Hong Kong new arrivals should consider serviced apartments or co-living spaces for a hassle-free move. Read to learn more in this special report.
- Billed as a residential revolution, co-living has had a bumpy few years. But as the project pipeline ramps up, has this alternative way of living finally found its feet? Anna Highfield takes a close look at the re-emerging sector, starting with a stay in an Assael co-living scheme. Read here.
- Are you a digital nomad or looking to become one? Learn from fellow freelance nomads, Sonya Collins and Kerry Dooley Young. Both offered tips and insight into how to travel the world while juggling work.
- The Brixton Junction by Node marketing campaign emphasises immersive, interactive content designed to captivate investors’ attention. Read here.
- More people than ever are living in group households. While people have been successfully organising share spaces on their own for as long as there have been houses, there's a new kid on the block: developers building and promoting co-living accommodation.
- State properties reimagined as co-living, pop-up event venues, and social impact hubs. As we continue to find new ways to provide alternative housing options for Singaporeans, we also see many opportunities to cultivate a strong inter-generational community within established neighborhoods.
- Nine-storey ‘co-living’ development planned for Hornsey. The scheme in Clarendon Road would also include “affordable workspace” on the ground floor, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter
- ‘Half our villages are dying’: How digital nomad hubs are reinvigorating rural Europe. Read more.
We hope you enjoyed this edition and wish you a great weekend ahead. Reply us with your thoughts on what more you want to read and if you have any feedback.
If you want us to cover anything, please mail it to us on coliving@artof.co
Gui Perdrix & Mayank Pokharna
The Artof.Co team
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
🆕 Up Next: