Digital Nomads: A Workspace Phenomenon

“Startup people are the new rockstars […]” – Damon Brown, Entrepreneur –

But what if those rockstars do not want to work in a conventional office environment? All start-ups dream of a hipsteresque, adventurous and avant-garde jet-set live while founding the next Facebook.

Startup Travels (Source: Unsplash by Kyle Szegedi)

This sounds to cool to be true, but there are aspiring entrepreneurs out there who do exactly that. Enjoying the sun on Java, while coding the next big thing. There are even entrepreneurs leaving Silicon Valley in order to pursue this nomad lifestyle, which you can read here!

Those entrepreneurs connect via the social medium meetup where you just have to search for “nomad”, in case you are packing your laptop and some summer clothes while reading this blog. Besides Jay Meistrich’s truly inspiring story, which went viral this year, one startup jumped on the bandwagon of nomad lifestyle. The Copenhagen based startup Startuptravels , which is still in beta-phase, helps entrepreneurs and investors to connect with like-minded people while they travel. There they can support each other with introductions to their home-networks, offer workspace or even a couch to sleep on. Is this a sustainable concept that will challenge the way we do business or found companies? Is our traditional static workspace concept antiquated?

Startup Travels – Living the Beach Life (Source: Unsplash by Joseph Barrientos)

I do not think so, even though the digital nomad movement is gaining momentum. I would rather postulate that aspiring digital entrepreneurs will rather live this lifestyle for a couple of months or even years after they graduate from school or university to see and experience the world while nurturing their creativity. These experiences, creative inputs and newly made connections with like-minded people will foster great business ideas. As soon as one entrepreneur has found the idea, s/he wants to pursue, s/he might conduct a smoke-test, do market research and gather proof that their business concept is viable while travelling before settling down at last. The reasons for this are the following:

  • If you want to understand a market you have to be there
  • If you want to attract investors you have to in place to communicate with them, because working with a venture capitalist or business angel is like a marriage
  • If you want to work with more people it is hard to do this remotely even if you use Slack or other tools like this
  • When the work is tough or you fail, it is important to have a home-base, your personal safety-net
  • If you want to sell goods it is easier to do it from one place
  • If you produce something tangible it is useful to work closely with your suppliers
  • If you make money – fingers crossed, that it is the case – you would not want to fill out income tax sheets etc. for every country you make money in

Home Workspace (Source: Unsplash by Jeff Sheldon)

In the long-run it is more advised to either settle in a co-working space, if you love the creative buzz there, or you search for an optimal office space for your start-up, which can be sometimes tough, especially when scaling. Thus, Dr. Wagner & Partner decided to host a workshop series for start-ups which are growing and wish to create an innovative working environment. Feel free to inquire about the workshop series via our website. We are happy to help!