[DividesByZero]

I don't think this makes economic sense. Equity in startups who don't have enough cash on hand to pay rent is likely to be more risky than equity in those who do.

Giving away equity for rent at an early stage doesn't make sense for founders either - making a mess of your cap table for office space is a poor decision when you could work from many other places for free, or remotely from home.

This sounds like a bad deal for both parties in the marketplace.

[ada1981]

Do you see any way you could structure the deal to make sense for both parties?

Also - the main idea for this was for residential space, we added the commercial cause, well, why not. But this was literally to give you a home to work out of.

[DividesByZero]

From my own recent experience, there is definitely demand from the side of founders for an AirBnB style deal specifically aimed at a place to live-and-work, especially for start-ups who need to relocate.

Take a look at listings like these:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1337007

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/133974

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/264052

AirBnB doesn't accommodate them effectively because this is not their target market - AirBnB is mostly about holidays and residential space. Similarly, 42Floors doesn't do this at all because they are about Co-working and Commercial space.

I would suggest, forget the equity part of this completely. Start-ups are already bad customers without having to wait to recognise any revenue, and also have to go through regulatory implications. Let me rent a place with a sleeping area, a bathroom, a kitchen area and an office area for my whole team for a reasonable price.

It cost me a $4,000 deposit, $2,500/mo in rent and about $1,500 in IKEA/WalMart, and $3000 in temporary AirBnB accommodation to get my team situated in the bay area. Give me a better deal than that, especially one that saves me time.

Ship me groceries weekly, get me a rental car as part of this deal, and have it all ready as soon as I arrive and I wouldn't use any other service ever.

Additional features I would want:

- Connect me to the local hacker community - Tell me where I can get exercise and where I should shop

[saryant]

Isn't this basically what a relocation specialist does? Other than the startup focus, I've lived through pretty much this exact deal in several relocations with the oil industry (I spent my childhood bopping around the country courtesy of Big Oil).

- Temporary furnished corporate housing and vehicles - Expertise on the local area (shopping, restaurants, schools) - One signature for all of this, paid by the employer

Surely those firms could offer similar services for startups? That said, service providers in this area seriously pad their margins. You wouldn't believe what I've seen some apartment complexes bill a basic 1-bedroom unit out at as part of a corporate relo deal. $3000+ for suburban Houston. The family doesn't care, they aren't picking up the tab.

[DividesByZero]

Exactly. But those services are typically provided to entire families by BigCo - padded margins sound like this is a space where a cost-focused company could stand to make quite a bit of money.

[ada1981]

This is really valuable - thanks for this.