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Updates - 13 & 20 March, 2020

· Updates

Let's be real folks. We just started a several month long health crisis and are possibly at the beginning of a recession that could last a couple of years. At Serendipia, we care deeply about our community. We hope your family, friends and loved ones are safe amidst the biggest pandemic humanity has known. Sending you positive vibes of love and unity. ❤️

 

The Techstars program has gone fully online. All the startups have returned home and we are now preparing a virtual Demo Day on YouTube Premium. As a result, you will still get to watch the fruit of our labor during the accelerator. Thanks to the Techstars team to keep delivering value to the class.

At Serendipia we see this crisis as an opportunity to self-reflect from a personal, company, societal and global perspective. Indeed, we all knew our economic system was overdue for a recession. Many problems couldn't be solved without a disruption. (Climate crises, overpopulation, mental illness, sustainability in general, etc.) Serendipia always stood up for new systems that would be more sustainable and bring people together for the betterment of humanity on this planet in the long term.

Last, we are focusing on building our technology now rather than opening new spaces amidst current situations. Online coliving is possible.

Quick update on the week

- Our community managers in San Francisco put in place safety and hygiene measures for people to stay safe and respect the social distancing.

- We had to fire fight all the 18 cancellations for the next 3 months. In total we had more than $18,000 of cancellations. Quite a lot... Of course the coliving side of our business is very affected by the current conditions.

- We had to cut on costs on the engineering and product management side to ensure we budget well moving forward. We want to ensure the runway will be long enough for us to still boom.

- We went through all the expenses that were not vital and cut them.

- We had a virtual chat with other coliving leaders to see how everyone is handling the crisis.
 

Highlights & Wins 🙌

- We had a great call with Steve and Anita last week to launch a pilot of our coliving facility management and community management platform. The pilot should start in 2 to 3 months and their 400 bedrooms facility will open during July 2021.

- We had a call with SeedInvest interested to create an equity crowdfunding campaign. Our concept is economic crisis-proof. There is a good appetite for coliving from family offices and PropTech VCs. Once the Corona has ceased, we should be up for a ride. We want to launch it after Demo Day and once Corona calms down as a wave of positivity in the market. "Be part of the new world." kind of campaign.
 

KPIs 📈

March sales: $21,741 (Corona Virus brought three cancellations)

March occupancy rate: 81.85%

April sales: $11,041 (Corona Virus brought eight cancellations)

April occupancy rate: 49.90%

May sales: $6,564 (Corona Virus brought seven cancellations)

May occupancy rate: 33.94%

Days it takes to fill in a bed: 10 days
 

Ask❓

Tips on navigating this current crisis are welcomed. 🙏 Thanks already to Elisabeth, Nora, Johann, Tibor and Laurence for the contingency plans meeting.

Serendipitously yours,
- JLo, Drew, Christine, Sam, and all our amazing mentors/advisors/investors ❤️