The fire is screaming with cracks and laughter. The keyboard has become my channel to capture thoughts that at this point in time influence my thinking.
When writing a letter to myself, the importance lies both in the intention and its enabling: the process itself.
It’s been a while that I had (or wanted) to write. The years at university turned writing into a skill, elaborated also under the influence of romantic relationships and strong expression (or need for expression) of love (in the “falling-in-love” typology).
And then came coliving. Ha, catchy title, huh?!
But it’s true. It came. It overcame. It overcame me.
Fulfillment is the alignment behind highest values and daily actions (or at least, their direction, the direction they’re stirred towards).
When it became clear that my core desires were to bring personal growth and emotional well-being to humanity, then coliving aligned as the most direct, enthusiastic, desirable option to fulfill that desire.
But it’s not about coliving. It’s about the desire that’s behind, and coliving is a means to that end. So are social clubs, personal growth coaches, entering into politics, to name but a few of an endless line of choices.
The year of 2019 was incredible to explore the coliving scene. As a fresh enthusiast, I came in with an open heart and tons of energy. The confrontation with reality, including all its adventures and craziness in the process, was both eye-opening and direction-setting: eye-opening to actually see, live, and understand coliving spaces and their systems, processes, and structures; and direction-setting because it brought me to become more aware of the implications of coliving and both its positive and negative impacts, which gave me the chance to be more critical, deep and positioned - or better, detachedly committed - to a coliving with positive outcome for humanity.
That outcome is around the theme of self-actualization, and it happens on different areas:
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Actualization of self: coliving as an opportunity for personal growth through increased interaction with trigger points (and how to turn them in personal growth, eventually leading to collective one).
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Actualization of others (group/community): aligning interests of group members and empowering them to collectively pursue life-enhancing solutions.
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Activation of the larger eco-system: that includes the actualization of the company (and their values), of the neighborhood (and how coliving can become a power of good for the locals), of global interests (ecology, eco-farming, supporting local stakeholders), etc.
I’ll therefore jump into the predictions - you know, it’s time - although they’re at first hard to fish:
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There will be a 300-400% growth in the announcements of purpose-built projects compared to 2019 (probable typography: 150-400 people per building).
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We will witness the opening (hopefully, if not communication about) a coliving space that targets multigenerational and/or affordable (as defined by public housing principles).
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Regardless whether coliving gets adopted as its own “asset class” (which might, if it does, happen first in selected, progressive countries such as the US or UK), institutional investors will be willing (at least certain) to enter the coliving industry, and funding for even smaller coliving spaces will raise - if not as quickly as for the big guys first, but the rise of the big fish will lead to the rise of the small ones.
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The coliving ecosystem will grow stronger, with the flourishing of organizations such as Co-Liv and Coliving Hub, with value-driven initiatives such as the Co-Liv Summit and the Coliving Awards, leaving a lot of opportunities open to arise.
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I believe that certain opportunities for the coliving sector lie in: the education of colivers (onboarding/art of living with each other), IoT (especially for processes, learnings, improvements, automation), investment (and investment-related activities, such as events à la Hello Tomorrow), accelerator programs (including funding and/or living/office space), and offering coliving as a service (to companies, communities, governments, etc).
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The rise of coliving won’t be led by the true visionaries, as they are not pragmatic enough: which leads to the question of “how pragmatic am I and how much more could I be in order to serve my own benefit”? Although a lot of coliving CEOs say that their company is about “fulfillment”, the actual product outcome is a piece of “non-hotel” themed hipsterized hotel, and many don’t even dare, care or can talk about it: their drivers are on fulfilling a housing demand for transitioning city dwellers at scale.
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I’m not sure when the question “Is coliving a scam?” will be the heading of a big newspaper article. What I know is that the press is becoming increasingly skeptical about the movement, although its non-skeptical coverage brings in a lot of new views. In-depth journalism will by 2020 not yet be established, and deeper research will mostly be done by ecosystem actors (consultancies, Coliving Diaries, JLL, etc).
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Coliving tech systems and solutions will emerge, such as PMS, aggregator platforms, IoT solutions, and more. While there is a market for those, the market is already crowded and in my opinion not yet big enough for solutions to be profitable. Coliving.com will continue running (and growing slightly steadily), KNDRD will still exist and have gone through its second round of funding - most probably working on its V2 release before entering the metrics-driving growth phase, ColiveMe will still not be break-even and continue being supported by their mother bank, and Wigawam will still be trying to make sense out of its business model (with the potential to have been accepted in an accelerator program).
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For myself, I’ll most probably focus on one of the big opportunities I mentioned above, among others 1) consulting & developing projects with kommun, 2) working on a “coliving” accelerator and/or investment fund/event, 3) focusing on deeper personal growth (such as romantic or coliving relationship classes), 4) or of course something else that I couldn’t predict (although I think that chance isn’t higher than 40%).
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The chance of coliving being adopted by the press as its own term in 2020 is 30%, followed by 50% in 2021 and 15% in 2022.
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The official marketing discourse of coliving will still be around Millennials, targeting efficiently new city dwellers, many of them not even having the intention to stay, or even more direct, having the intention to move out after using the coliving as a physical and social landing pad. If that’s the case, coliving operators could be transparent about that and even increase their level of engagement, such as free counseling services (à la ECLA), help with onboarding and finding roommates for the self-managed / self-organized flatshares.
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kommun might not hit its desired numbers, and if it doesn’t, then has the potential to make it for it in the upcoming years. If this business grows and evolves with the founders’ vision over time, then its revenues will grow exponentially as well. It’s important to create a culture of expansion and actualization, which might not be accepted at all ends.
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The Co-Liv Summit will be a major success. Its major challenges will be: finding the right mix of people (and the acceptance process), creating true connection between new people at the Summit (therefore needing to ask ourselves: “what can we put in place to improve the experience?”), the way we as hosts engage with people/attendees, coming to a fair agreement with Co-Liv and closing our 60k sponsorship target.
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Frictions within the collaboration with Antonin will probably arise, especially emotional ones. I will learn to deal with those and not repress them, rather embrace them for my own sake and turn the energy back into laughter. By showing example is the only chance I can lead to being a true mirror for others. I know Antonin has good intentions and I can bring him the juice of life to take action onto his peaches of life.
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The future of Co-Liv is unsure. My prediction is that it needs to be energized by at least one person - while this year of 2019, it used to be me, we now have to find someone else. It could be me coming in again, or we’d need to find (or get found by) someone else. If neither of them happens, then it might enter a state of highly predictable slow growth, with larger unpredictabilities for the future, and missed its own hockey stick moment.
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2020 will be the first year that I will create financial value with the intention of saving it and building upon it. I’m incredibly thankful for the last years of living in pure abundance, and am entering now a stage of value-creation, of playing the infinite games.
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If the publishing of my book (especially in coordination with agent and press) is being executed well, then I’ll level up quickly to another category if I am able to maintain giving my best over time. Financially, I can easily think of another 3-5k€/month coming in from speaking sources.
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Coliving Insights will see the publishing of two editions, which will be led by Bart, Matt and myself. Dario will show a lack of engagement on the second version of N°1 and eventually drop off to focus on his venture. One of the biggest risks I currently see is the lack of leadership, limited time and focus ability from its members.
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Let’s stop making predictions. It’s more important to take action.
Achilles (Or: aGuilles)
En una finca, Mallorca. December 13th, 2019.