Meet Simon Lyngso, the founder of Joes & Cos, the app that gives you day to day access to the best coworking spaces in the city. Simon is on a mission. He loves remote work and strongly believes that 2020 is going to be the decade when we start to work from wherever, whenever we wish to work. He can’t get his head around why so many people still spend everyday commuting from home to work instead of just spending the day working from home or a local coworking spot. “For a lot of us 99% of our work can be done on laptops and portable phones anyway so what are we waiting for?”

So Simon, what gave you the idea to start the Joes & Cos app?

I was working between Helsinki and Copenhagen for most of the end of 2018 and start of 2019. When I was in Helsinki I often needed an office for the day or in-between meetings. I quickly gained access to various coworking spaces but most places didn’t accept day pass lodgers unless it was part of a test trial. I started “test trialing” new places pretty much every time I was in Helsinki until I finally had tried them all. It made me realise that there was a gap in the market for people like me who needed an office for the day. 

But if the coworking spaces didn’t allow day lodgers how did you then convince them?

Actually it hasn’t been that difficult. It turns out that Joes & Cos are helping out with two essential issues most coworking spaces face. First and foremost we help promote them by making it visible for everybody where the coworking spaces are located in the city. What has been a surprise for us is that we are also helping activating the open spaces. A lot of startups rent a closed office in a coworking space which eventually ends up being their little cave closing them out of all the co-creation and co-working which ought to be a huge part of having an office in a coworking space. Joes & Cos’ members bring in new life to the open spaces by just being present which then makes it a lot more fun for the residents to come out and spend time in the open spaces too.

Why do you think remote work is going to be a thing of the 2020s?

I see many things that point to this. 2020 is the first year where more than 50% of the workforce consists of millennials, generation Ys, and generation Zs. By 2025 they will consist of 75% of the workforce. In other words the baby boomers and generation Xs are for the first time being outnumbered. The old way of being employed by a company to have security, a pension plan, and a mortgage is on the way out. The next generations work on projects and assignments. Companies are entities that have gigs coming their way which makes them independent and flexible. Digital nomads. Living from one project to the next. Setting up their own solo-enterprise with plenty of gigs up for grabs. So why would they take a job with a company, waiting for a boss to decide what they should do, when they can be their own boss, and decide if they fx prefer to work out of Bali in the winter. 

Another thing that I believe is going to have an enormous influence on the way we work is efficiency. With more and more people doing gigs time will be money in all its cliché. We simply can’t accept wasting precious time on unproductive, and not least polluting, commutes in rush hours. Nor will we waste time in unproductive surroundings. We will search for local work spots that cater for our specific needs. Some days you might need a phone booth to have a couple of important meetings online. Other days you might be in-between meetings in the other end of town making it easier to plug into a local coworking office then wasting time on transport going back and forth. 

 What does the future look like for Joes & Cos?

Our goal is to be established in Copenhagen during 2020. We want to be a household name in Denmark. The place to go to when in need of an office. We are not an alternative to the regular office. We are more like a supplement. A spontaneous office for the day. The go-to app when you need a change of scenery. If you are in-between meetings. Or if you are out traveling. In fact, our future goal is to have partnerships with coworking spaces in all bigger cities around the globe. So ideally, once we are established in Copenhagen, we will conquer the rest of the World – no less!

We hope you enjoyed this blog post. Joes & Cos is the platform that grants you access to working spaces around Copenhagen to let you work wherever you want, however you want. The app brings you the future of work and lets you create your own work/life balance. Read more here or download the app here.