I

am proud to announce that I’ve joined the team at onefinestay to help build the unhotel.

So whats that? Well, onefinestay allows travellers to stay in characterful homes rather than bland hotel rooms. So it’s converted Churches, Mayfair boltholes, and houseboats rather than Hiltons or Holiday Inns. The aim is to lets guests live like a local but with the convenience and privacy a serviced hotel would offer such as toiletries, towels and a concierge. There are even some snazzy touches like an iPhone provided to guests during their stay with our app featuring local area information and a home instructional guide activated by pointing the phone at various barcodes located around the property (like on a wii or an oven).

Behind the scenes is a dedicated and smart team working on hard but solvable problems to keep the show running and increase capacity for the future. I’ve joined the operation team to help design and implement systems and processes to make our model work at greater scale. For example how do we accurately and repeatedly ensure that a home is left exactly as we found it? or what is the most effective way to move bedding around town, especially when there’s more than fits on a scooter?

I love the opportunity to work on building and improving a business I previously rated as one of the best emerging from Europe (and I’ve seen a few!). Also onefinestay is a great match for my interests/obsession with technology enabled businesses, good job as to work at a startup you need to be obsessed with what they are trying to achieve because the hours aren’t reasonable and the positions aren’t well paid!