“They can’t build these things fast enough, but there are underutilised private spaces around.” Traditional co-working spaces, which often require membership and aren’t necessarily geared towards sporadic users, likely won’t keep up, according to Hinden. With an increasing number of people working for themselves - one study from Intuit and Emergent Research found that in the United States alone, 43 per cent of the workforce will be freelancers by 2020, up from 36 per cent in 2015 - demand for this kind of space is only going to grow. While it’s difficult to quantify the market for app- and website-driven on-demand office space, the co-working sector itself is projected to tally a nearly 24 per cent compound annual growth rate between 20, according to Emergent Research. “I knew about this on the vacation side, and then I got thinking that there are so many meeting rooms gathering dust, why couldn’t we apply the Airbnb model to the business world?” he said. Think of the service as Airbnb for office space, said Dan Hinden, the London-based CEO of Ofixu, who came up with the idea while working at an Airbnb competitor. While they may offer slightly different services focused on private office space, larger meetings rooms or co-working spaces, they all allow people to find quiet spots to work at a moment’s notice. Over the past few years, several similar office space services have popped up around the world - London has Ofixu, Montreal has Breather and Germany has Optionspace, amongst others. “I opened the website, booked a space and then popped into an office.
“I went back to visit friends, but I still needed a place to work during the day,” she said. She enjoyed being surrounded by others and working downtown so much that she has since used the service to book spaces in London and Berlin. Wells first tried it about three years ago in Vancouver, booking a desk at a co-working space for the day. A London native who often travels to Europe, Wells has solved her workspace dilemma by tapping into ShareDesk, a service that allows people to book office space by the hour or more.