Amina Moreau/Radious
- Radious lets homeowners rent out their houses to companies that want coworking spaces.
- The Portland, Oregon, startup tends to operate in suburban areas to be close to where workers live.
- Radious' listings range from your average home to an Airstream and even a yurt.
Laundry was what tripped up Amina Moreau's plan to go back to renting out a small apartment on the lower level of her house.
It was late summer 2020 and Moreau missed the income she and her partner had been able to draw from listing the unit on Airbnb before pandemic lockdowns made that unworkable.
Moreau was eager to start listing again, but having to wash strangers' sheets and towels at a time when many of us were still wiping down our groceries wouldn't fly. What she needed, in essence, was the perfect house guest: someone who wouldn't stay long.
Over breakfast one Saturday, Moreau and her partner landed on the idea of making the space available to people who just wanted a place to work for the day. So they beefed up their WiFi, bought a desk, and started offering the apartment as a freebie to neighbors who were delighted by the idea of getting to look at someone else's walls for a few hours.
Demand for the apartment getaway led Moreau, along with two friends, to start Radious. The Portland, Oregon, company lets homeowners rent to companies in need of coworking spaces. Radious began testing its app in 2021 and, by early 2022, the company was up and running. Robin Daniels, the former CMO of WeWork, recently decided to invest in the company, Moreau said.
Radious lists rentals — everything from your typical house to a shiny trailer to a slick auditorium — in Portland and Milwaukee and the suburbs of both. It plans to add an undisclosed city soon, Moreau said. Radious also lets companies request access to spaces in other cities across the US to tap into a network of not-yet-public options.
Recent listings include one outside Milwaukee for $114 a day. It has a private office for two with a whiteboard and refreshments. And it's a five-minute walk to Lake Michigan — the perfect antidote to an afternoon slump. Another listing near Portland is for a high-end cabin set amid 15 acres of forest. That one goes for $496, including fees, for the day.
Moreau told Insider the draw for workers is about a change of scenery and about escaping the diversions of home life. She said leaving the house but not going to the office can help combat what she sees as the three downsides of working from home: distractions, feelings of isolation, and burnout as a result of living where you work.
"It's hard to shut off at the end of the day," she said. "And these are usually things that tend to creep up on you over time. Working from home for a month or two, you're not going to feel burnout necessarily. But three years in, it might creep up."
Insider recently spoke with Moreau about what it took to get Radious running and what the company looks for in a city where it hopes to operate.
This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
Tell me a little bit about the company and how you got started.
Sometimes I say it's like Airbnb and WeWork had a baby. But effectively, you know, it's a B2B platform that outfits Airbnbs and other residential properties with workplace amenities, effectively turning homes into collaborative workspaces that companies rent by the day.
So the premise behind it — and, of course, the future-of-work conversation is shifting quickly — but right now, for so many companies, what's top of mind is cost savings. And our thesis is that it really doesn't make sense to pay for an office lease seven days a week if your people are only using it once or twice. The economics simply don't add up. And at some point, all of these leases are going to be coming up — many of them already have — and companies have either downsized or have eliminated their space altogether.
But working from home for the rest of eternity is probably not the be-all, end-all for everybody. And there is something to be said for the tens of thousands of years that, as a species, we've gotten together in person. People need a place to go to — whether to see colleagues or to just get some work-life separation. And that's why Radious exists. It's on a fractional model. It saves companies a ton of money.
But most critically, the reason why we're focused on converting effectively residential properties into workspaces is because residential properties tend to be in residential areas. That's where people live. And if you look at the stats, the biggest barrier to returning to the office is the commute. And so we're bringing the office to you.
How did you come up with this idea?
It was August 2020 and our Airbnb unit had been shut down for a few months at that point because of the pandemic. We live in a house that has a separate studio apartment in the lower level that we had been Airbnbing. It covers a good two-thirds of our mortgage every month, which is great; helps with housing affordability, etc. Problem is, the pandemic came along. We had to shut everything down. And in August we were allowed to reopen. But the one thing holding us back was laundry. It was the idea of washing strangers' linens during a pandemic. No, thank you. But we couldn't keep it shut indefinitely so we started brainstorming. Can we get creative? Well, to eliminate laundry, you'd have to get rid of the overnight component. And there really aren't any platforms out there that cater to day-only use in this fashion.
And then it occurred to us that at the time — because we're still technically in lockdowns — all of our neighbors are stuck at home. Their kids are home from school. Dogs are barking. Kids are screaming. How does a working parent get anything done? We thought, what if we buy a sit-stand desk, upgrade the WiFi, and invite our neighbors to come for a solo escape? Since, at the time, it was still much safer to be on your own. And we tested it and it went gangbusters.
Radious
You started renting broadly to people in Portland in January 2022 and then a bit more than six months later, you opened in Milwaukee. That seems fast.
We weren't expecting to expand to a second city so soon, but we were seeing such great interest and results in Portland. And we do eventually want to be across the globe. And so we started feeling like, OK, we've learned some really valuable lessons here in Portland, let's start learning lessons about what it takes to expand to a new city. Because it's different launching into a second city than it is starting from scratch in a first. And so we ended up accelerating our timeline because the response was so great.
I'm curious about what made Milwaukee an ideal second city for you.
We have eight or nine characteristics that we look for in a city. One of them is how community-oriented is it. Milwaukee and Portland are both midsize cities. And Milwaukee really prides itself on being welcoming and friendly. And if you think about it, our platform is rooted deeply in community. We're about neighbors booking neighbors' homes for work. And so you want to be launching in a culture where it's second nature to be welcoming. So that's one of them.
Of course, we did all of the standard business assessments — competitive landscape, where are there potential customers, where do we have letters of intent from employers that would be interested in subscribing to the service.
But Milwaukee is a great city and midsized cities have less of a coworking presence. Other coworking companies focus less on smaller cities and also less on suburbs. And we are focused on the suburban, more-residential areas where people are typically underserved.
Radious
Have you found there's a benefit to marketing the suburban angle?
That is one of our three strongest value propositions. So the three are massive cost savings — we are a fractional model; you pay as you go. So with Radious you never pay for unused real estate ever again. The second value prop is the uniqueness of the experience because now instead of meeting at a typical corporate office, you have access to a network of spaces. Each one is different — everything from tiny homes to mansions, 1970s Airstreams. Yurts. We have very eclectic spaces. New construction. We have some corporate-feeling spaces, some very homey-feeling spaces. Variety is the spice of life. And then the third value prop — in no particular order — is the proximity side.
Beyond the quality of life aspect — in terms of reducing the commute — have you heard any clients say they're pleased from a carbon-footprint standpoint?
Yes. So the most frequent comment that we get is that in addition to helping them meet ESG goals, it's also a really great way to engage their employees. Because right now, as companies bring people together, the number one priority is to create an inspiring experience. And it's easier to do that if the space is, A, easy to get to, B, really cool. So much so that the moment you walk in there, you want to take a selfie and post it to Instagram — but also is in a cool neighborhood.
Because maybe after your workday or your meeting, you go out to a local pub and do a team happy hour. And the beauty of this model is because we're all over the region, you can go to a different neighborhood every time or you could just find a favorite and go there each time. But either way, there is an element of exploration, not just of each property, but of different neighborhoods.
I imagine a neighborhood would have to have a certain cool factor. It would seem like some suburbs that are just house after house may not be as attractive. Or do those potentially even have their own value if you really just need the space?
Yes, yes, that's exactly it — going back to my previous comment that variety is the name of the game here. We've gotten requests from companies also for the farthest-possible space. They say, "What do you have that's in the forest? Because we want to get out of town. We want to do the opposite — and have a retreat where it's not overnight because we don't want to impose too much. But let's do a day trip, go and do some team-building exercises, have a working lunch and get some fresh air together."
It must be quite a job to vet the properties and the property owners.
We have a small but mighty host-success team that is responsible for exactly that — and really building relationships with each one of our hosts. And doing things like virtual tours, sometimes in-person tours, and making sure that everybody is set up for success and making sure that the listing is truly representative of the space.