Dubai-based Letswork aims to be the AirBnB of work spaces
Customers who sign up on the Letswork app can choose to work from a variety of spaces—from co-working spaces and studios to cafés, restaurants and luxury hotels.
Meeting a startup founder at a café or a restaurant has its perks. While noise can sometimes be a deterrent, the ambience helps in having a more relaxed conversation. And what better place than a restaurant for a meeting with Hamza Khan, Co-founder of , a startup that partners with restaurants and cafés that offer spaces for people to work from.
But there was more to the meeting than a conversation over coffee. We also got to have a look at the work space at TGIF at Rove Downtown, Dubai, where the meeting took place. A long wooden table occupied the floor, around which people were working—their devices plugged in, and coffee cups, juice glasses, and plates of food strewn around.
“We are building a world where work can be done from anywhere, and not just from home or an office space. Anything could be a co-working space. It basically is about activating spaces and maximising their potential,” Khan explains the concept behind Letswork.
Founded in 2019 by Omar Almheiri and Hamza Khan, Letswork offers a subscription and service app that aims to make flexible work easier.
Prior to Letswork, Almheiri and Khan were part of Emaar and had met during the E25 startup initiative by Mohamed Alabbar, Founder of Emaar. While Khan is a lawyer, Almheiri is an engineer. Both were born and raised in the UAE and had studied in colleges abroad.
As a part of E25, Khan was working on an urban farming idea, while Almheiri was looking closely at co-working spaces.
“This was in 2018 when co-working spaces were taking the world by a storm; they were unicorns and decacorns. And the Middle East didn’t have a big brand that time,” says Khan.
So, initially, the duo thought of building a chain of co-working spaces but soon shifted to a different business model. They decided to partner with hotels, co-working spaces, and cafés and create a network of spaces that people can work from. Thus Letswork was born.
The Letswork app was officially launched in February 2019. Once the idea was in place, the challenge was getting outbound sales. The duo would land in hotels and talk to the owners; initially, it was an uphill task. But now the request is more inbound, says the co-founder.
“We cater to freelancers, SMEs, businesses, entities and companies—all of these may have offices or can’t afford one and are looking for a more cost-effective solution,” says Khan.
How it works
All that the customer has to do is open the app, browse through the different spaces available, and check into the space they want to work from.
The available spaces are marked in green, while premium spaces are marked in dark blue. The spaces include co-working spaces, hotels, cafés, studios, and even a car showroom that doubles up as a part-time café.
Apart from work spaces, people can also book meeting rooms, podcast studios, and creative spaces and rent offices on a short-time basis through the app.
The Letswork team partners only with spaces that have the infrastructure in place.
“We look for places that aren’t too noisy; people wouldn’t want to have spaces with blenders running while they have Zoom call,” says Khan.
Business model
People can sign up for memberships for a day or a month. The membership includes wi-fi and functional spaces. Customers can also pay as they access the spaces—the cost depends on the space and ranges from AED 25 to AED 150 ($8 to $50) per day. A day pass for a luxury space would cost around AED 150.
Subscription bundles range from AED 50 to AED 500 per month.
Letswork also offers corporate membership for hybrid work, helping organisations reduce their fixed costs.
Multiple options give people the flexibility to choose the spaces they can work from, says Khan. “You can choose to work out of a cheap café one day, and another one for a Zoom meeting, maybe a co-working space, and you can choose a hotel for a client meeting,” Khan elaborates.
The startup works on a revenue share model with the spaces it has tied up with. The revenue sharing percentage depends on the facilities and services offered to users.
Growth and outlook
In four years since launch, the team has signed up over 40,000 members and partnered with nearly 400 locations across the UAE, Portugal, Spain, and now Saudi Arabia. The company entered Portugal through the acquisition of competitor Krow.
Letswork has a team of 22 people based out of UAE, India, and the Philippines. The tech team is in India, while customer support is based in the Philippines.
The startup is also looking to expand to the rest of Middle East and Europe.
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In December 2022, the company had raised $2.1 million in seed funding to expand its product. The funding round was led by Space, DTEC Ventures, 500 Global, and other notable angel investors.
The startup’s competitors include India’s MyHQ (which was acquired by Amarock), Singapore- and Dubai-based Deskimo, US-based Flex, and UK-based Hubble.
Speaking of Letswork’s differentiation, Khan says most of their competition is focussed on enterprise clients from the demand side, while Letswork also focuses on the supply side—the co-working spaces.
“We partner with every space… And demand-wise, we cater to everyone, including enterprise. The idea is to democratise space for anyone and everyone,” explains Khan. “We aim to be an Airbnb of spaces, where anyone can list their co-working space, café, or office.”
(Cover image designed by Nihar Apte)
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Edited by Swetha Kannan