Remote working start-up Jarvo set for key city launches

Jarvo is set to launch in Reading and Bristol in as ‘work from anywhere’ movement grows

Many a business idea has sprung from a casual conversation between a friend or close acquaintance and Jarvo was no different. Dan Hillman had a neighbour with a spare room he wanted to monetise and the pair discussed the pros and cons of home rental service Airbnb over the fence.

The contents of the conversation faded in Dan’s memory until he had to make an important call with his bank but was contending with a teething toddler. He contacted his neighbour to see if he could use his room and in two minutes, the Jarvo founder was set up in a spare bedroom.

The Reading man then became a frequent visitor with the two agreeing a fee and the concept of Jarvo was born.

The rise of Jarvo has been rapid considering the above conversation only happened 12 months.

Dan has since raised £300,000 through crowdfunding site Seedrs, breaking his fundraising target in less than 42 seconds, exceeding Monzo Bank’s target completion which took 96 seconds.

Jarvo now has 1164 approved workspaces pre-registered across the UK, a user wait list of more than 16,500 and is imminently set to launch the app serving Reading and Bristol before rapidly expanding to towns and cities across the UK and internationally.

On recalling the conversation with his neighbour, Dan said: "From that day, my mindset shifted from having an asset growth mindset in that we have to acquire assets to create value to one of creating something that can leverage existing inventory so that I can create value in a different way."

When the Jarvo concept began to crystalise, Dan began searching for similar services that already existed and was surprised to find little existing competition in the marketplace.

He found a company in San Francisco - Codi - which had tried the concept but quickly pivoted to become a coworking aggregator service.

Dan said: "I think that was definitely a case of first mover disadvantage. Look at Friendster and Google Glass. When they came out, they were so far ahead of their time and they flopped because the timing wasn't right."

His next step was to road test his idea by creating a basic site and then inviting friends and family within a 10-kilometer radius of his home to trial out the service with homeowners earning income each time their home was used, and Jarvo taking a fee.

Dan said: "All of these homes created a network effect as the people who took part started talking to their friends and family about it as they were earning money and wanted to continue doing that.

"I started speaking to users of the pilot to understand their pain points and found that they enjoyed working from home but it wasn't the office they had the problem with it was the commute.”

Dan's background is in design, and he started his career at renowned international interior designers Candy & Candy (now Candy London) where he spent just over four years.

He said: "I moved back home to Reading and experimented with interior design businesses, then went into project management which eventually lead to becoming a property development business having £17 million worth of assets."

He said: "Unfortunately Hillnic went into administration in 2019 as a result of being over leveraged as well as other mistakes made along the way. Failure shouldn't be glamourised but absolutely shouldn't be something you are fearful of as long as you learn from the mistakes that you make.”

His experience in design and the property industry has shaped the concept of Jarvo and at its core is a belief that everyone should have access to the benefits of good design around them.

Dan said: "Design and attention to detail has always been instilled in me and I want to make well designed workspaces accessible for everyone. What will Jarvo spaces look like?

Dan says they will go beyond the conventional thinking of a workstation in someone's spare room and will be community-focused.

He explains: "We prefer to think in seats, so if you were to think of an apartment there could be a desk and chair in the corner, a sofa area and a coffee table with say six seats around it.

“More areas for homeowners to reap the financial rewards from. We have a strict criteria on what is accepted onto the platform; i.e superfast wifi as standard, well designed environment, and very accessible.

"It sounds quite unconventional but if you look at most co-working spaces now, they are designed to look like a home."

The Jarvo founder says the shift of large corporations moving outside of large cities and drawing on work forces from around the UK and indeed the world is driving forward change.

The early Jarvo model involves individuals letting out their own workspaces or “seats” as explained above in their homes to other individuals. However, Dan sees his business evolving into a subscription-based service that companies will buy into.

The model would see companies take out memberships for each of their employees that would allow them to choose a different workstation around the country and eventually around the world.

Dan says that this model has networking advantages as those using the app will be able to request meetings with people who are booked into the same location as them on the same day. The advantage over coworking spaces being that there is a minimal journey to a Jarvo space in someone's home over commuting into a town or city to a coworking space paying inflexible monthly fees.

He said: "Companies will have a mechanism where we are the aggregator with one simple billing process and they will pay an amount per month and their staff can choose wherever they want to work.

"Remote work is still so early and it is as revolutionary as the internet. People want that nomadic capability and being able to use workspaces wherever they are in the world."