If AirBnb can rent private accomodations to sleep, can we rent them to party, work, study or… farm?

This was the trigger behind NeedSpace, the result of multiple pivots by the me and the other members of ‘Team5’ – attending a startup acceleration program called Intraprendendo.

Each of us joined with an early stage idea, but only few of them survived the numerous sessions with mentors and experienced founders. Ultimately, Team5 converged into NeedSpace, taking inspiration from AirBnb and bringing it to a new level by allowing privates to share their space for a variety of use-cases: workstations for freelancers, birthday parties, teamwork study sessions, playing games with friends and, why not, farming.

The concept was: do you have a space you don’t need? We have an algorithm to understand what’s the best use for it, and a platform to offer it to interested consumers. That was broad: you have a room, an office, a car box, or even a farm land – we can find the best use-case  for you.

Long story short: we won the competition – €10k cash with no duties and 8 young brains to invest in this crazy adventure. Do you want to know what happened? You won’t believe it: the majority of the team decided to ‘invest’ the money in their summer vacation and the dream just ended with a picture of us holding a giant check.

Lessons learned

• Carrying on a team requires a skill, it is not something you can improvise
• Be transparent since the beginning about your intentions in a project
• Having the right team is the one key success factor