As some of you might know, the coliving company Hub Haus had to close down a few months back.

Founder Shruti Merchant wrote in her Medium article how this came to happen, how to company got impacted by both WeWork and COVID, and how coliving is still a needed solution.

https://medium.com/@shrutimerchant/the-fall-of-hubhaus-and-the-future-of-co-living-9a3c9f93c233

PS: From a founder's perspective, I believe this post is the best way to end a company - taking responsibility for what didn't work, while also explaining why it didn't.

And here a couple of updates:

1- Paris developments are going wild and Urban Campus just won a competition to run a 4800m2 project. The company has been one of my major influencers on who to run community, especially with deep principles such as individual and collective responsibility. Really glad to see what's going to come out of it!

https://urbancampus.com/blog/urban-campus-to-develop-and-manage-a-4800-m%c2%b2-coliving-residence-in-the-heart-of-paris-saclays-university-and-research-hub/

2- With Co-LIv, we released a special edition of the HMO magazine around the coliving topic. 16 pages for those who want to know how to apply coliving principles to HMO!

https://hmouk.org/hmo-special-offer/

3- Aaaaaaaand the latest Coliving Insights edition is out! 💥

Probably the biggest and heaviest in terms of content to date. In it, I wrote two articles:

One on the key principles behind the Art of Coliving model (how to overcome the tragedy of the commons and how to create alignment). I truly believe this simple equation:

Community = finding alignment - overcoming differences

The other one is on how Co-Liv was able to grow tremendously this year, and how it'll help the industry in 2021.

https://www.colivinginsights.com/publications/invest-develop-operate-and-scale

Happy Christmas week everyone 🥳

Imagine this:

One flat fee per month, and access to worldwide coliving spaces. Live anywhere for a flat fee.

How amazing would that be?

My friend Thomas Despin once wrote an article about it, which inspired me to enter coliving (true story). That was five years ago (what the heck!) and it's been a landmark for me since today:

https://medium.com/france/digital-nomads-nouveaux-standards-6d1a5b30bbf6

(it's in French, but you can probably Google Translate)

Since then, many have tried:

Roam has tried, and failed.
Common is building up a huge network, but only in US.
Selina had the ambition to do it in-house, but couldn't grow further this year.
Outpost Asia once had it (!) but moved away from that model.

Creating a one-time subscription for global living is hard for many reasons - logistical ones, but also price differences: if everyone lives in San Francisco instead of Bali, an average membership pricing would not make sense.

So - who is going to do it?

Right now, Stéphane from Hackerhouse is the next to tackle this problem. Check out the Hackerhouse World project, where this coliving company (and the first one in Paris, btw!) created tons of partnerships with coliving oeprators and are soon going to unroll:

https://hackerhouse.paris/world

(in case it appear sin French, switch to English on the world button on top)

Really excited about this one. And soon, I'll unveil another one who is trying to do so - stay tuned!

Hello all 👋

I wanted to share something with you that marked my Christmas, two years ago.

We all spend Christmas with our families. It's the time to get together and invest into each others with gifts, food, and especially, quality time.

But there is an issue: we all have our child-parent problems 🚫

Even though these differences dissapear after time and when we grow up, they often remain.

One of my mentors once said:

"If you blame people for the wrong they've done in your life, then blame them for the good, too."

So, two years ago, I wrote a long letter to my parents. It was a letter of gratitude, five pages long, in which I thanked them for all the good and bad they did to me.

Why? Because without them, I wouldn't be myself ✨

For example, I thanked them for not being able to create a space in whcih I could ocmmunicate my emotions, because this made me sensitive to emotions and allowed me to create the space for others.

For example, I thanked them for punishing me in my childhoo dwithout explaining me the reasons for my punishments, because it made me more aware of searching the WHY behind actions and made me a better communicator.

Or for example: "Grateful for not wanting to support me in my risky decisions, because it allowed me to find better ways to communicate with you, and because it taught me that the only way to prove that I am right to believe in myself is to demonstrate it."

And the list goes on...

I am sharing this letter with you, just for inspiration, in case it helps (note: it's been Google translated into English, so please mind the few sentences that don't make sense).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v-1ler6lvmEkrCQiDyaPYpsvGjGDEFIlYL9uToDJUuo/edit?usp=sharing

👉 So, imagine you're going to die tomorrow, what would you like to thank your parents, partner or family today?

Thank them for the good, and thank them for the bad. Because if you choose to see the bad as something that brought you good, then you will live within a powerful story of gratitude.

With love, and merry Christmas to you all 🌲

Gui

PS: I just shared everything that we've been doing at Co-Liv, from where we're at to where we're heading, and especially, who the people and organizations are behind this tremendous organization.

It's been an honor to serve and will continue doing so:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2020-co-liv-review-gui-perdrix

Comment if you want to get involved in 2021 in any way!

- Gui

And, I couldn't withhold myself from sharing these two screenshots around the topic of loneliness and coliving benefits:

From the report "Kinship in the City", shared to me by my dear friend @matt lesniak!

https://issuu.com/futurespacesfdn/docs/fsf_kinship_in_the_city?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222&pageNumber=1

PS: Hoping these stats don't apply to you, and that you use this end-of-year time to reconnect with your loved ones! ✨

Hello dearest human beings ✨

First, welcome into 2021.

It's the year of the Ox according to Chinese Zodiacs. What does that mean? According to my first Google search, "this year is going to be lucky and also perfect to focus on relationships, whether we are talking about friendships or love".

Whether this is true or not (or rather, whether you are making it your truth or not), may this year boil down to the essentials of life - as I used to say: "at the end of the day, life and happiness boils down to food and people", which I often tend to forget while being busy changing the world in my head. So, let's relationship!

There has been a bunch of stuff happing in the last weeks. I'd make it short: