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Enric Solé and Natalia Juncosa, spent some time in the USA, particularly in Silicon Valley where they lived in a ‘Hacker House’. This means sharing a house with startup founders and entrepreneurs, sharing ideas and helping each other grow.
This idea, combined with Enric’s experience of how lonely and uninspiring business travel can get, made them decide to establish Circles.
Circles is a boutique coliving space in Barcelona, where it’s not only about having company, but also about growing your business. They opened their first house last year in May and by June they were fully booked.
Seeing how the pandemic accelerated the remote-working and digital nomadism movements, they see great potential in their project and are looking to open more houses in different cities.
“The point is connecting like-minded people so they can help each other learn and grow,” explained Natalia. Enric added that they have an application process, and interview their candidates to make sure they are a good fit for the community, that’s how they manage to connect with like-minded people.
They give their guests a soft landing, where they can start working immediately and blend in the community. In Circles, guests have common dinners, gym, social areas and several events during the month like roundtables and workshops.
Circles currently have a crowdfunding campaign open, aiming to support its growth.
“We want our members to have the ability to be co-owners, to feel that this is their project too” Enric said. He added that he wants Circles to become more like a movement, where entrepreneurs and investors can join and take it to the next level.
Anyone can join the crowdfunding campaign and be part of Circles, while making profit from this movement. There will also be more rounds of crowdfunding in the future.
Enric and Natalia emphasized that what makes Circles unique is the fact that they put helping their guests promote their business at the center of their efforts. “We help our guests with our connections, network and with promotions on all our channels” Natalia said.
Members of Circles can attend any online event and have networking opportunities even if they are not physically at the coliving space.
Barcelona was the 1st city they chose, firstly because it’s their city and it would be easier to establish something there, and secondly because it has everything a digital nomad may need. Great weather, good food, friendly locals and a coliving space near a natural park and only 20 minutes from the center.
The next steps for Circles are summarized in 2 words “Growth and Learning”. They want to learn more about their guests’ needs, so that they adapt to them in the next houses they will open. Their goal is an inspiring and easy experience for every guest, in both arenas of work and fun.
