We're Creating The Airbnb For Corporate Workspaces

Jareer Oweimrin

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Published: March 27th, 2022

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Jareer Oweimrin

Founder, fluidmeet

Founders

Employees

fluidmeet

fluidmeet.com

from Dubai

started December 2015

Founders

Employees

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Fluidmeet was originally conceptualized as an on-demand and real-time marketplace for meeting spaces. Suli and I started this concept from a point of need. We were strategy consultants and we needed to book a meeting room to train our junior consultants. But the process to book it was long and cumbersome. We had to contact a bunch of hotels, share the same meeting requirements, receive proposals usually after 48 hours, view and share pictures on WhatsApp or email, negotiate, and then pay either at the venue. We thought there must be an easier way to do all of this. So we created fluidmeet and hit all these points. But we realized that it didn’t stop at smaller meeting rooms. Larger event spaces and banquet halls had a similar experience.

Since hotels were slower to adopt the technology in the beginning, we pivoted towards business centers which were growing tremendously at that stage. But they had serviced offices and coworking spaces, so we had to modify the booking and inquiry process to accommodate for that new growth market. Since meetings rooms and event spaces were similar to the office and coworking spaces, it was a matter of adapting our technology to different space types. So we continued to extend the reach of technological application into these new categories.

We have grown tremendously since 2016.

Until COVID-19 happened! We started noticing it early because there were quite a few events booked for several months in advance. When our partner hotels began informing us that they were receiving cancellations because of a suspicious health concern, we started adjusting our operations.

While the 2020 pandemic was a blip in our operations, we managed to expand to 5 new countries and expand our technological leadership. With the current market consolidation, fluidmeet is on the cusp of a major growth trajectory.

What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?

Jareer and Suli are no strangers to starting new businesses. Before their management consulting days, each founder had spent a tremendous amount of time formulating, developing, and executing innovative concepts. Suli had started an art marketplace before fluidmeet. He had also developed and built F&B concepts. Jareer had also started B2B marketplace for MBAers in 2009. He also established an educational business that has achieved numerous accomplishments over the years.

We continue to be hopeful which is a feeling nothing can take away from us.

At the moment that they wanted to start fluidmeet, Airbnb and Uber were strengthening their market dominance. However, no one was truly in the meeting and event space. So we conducted our market research, analyzed the competitive landscape, sought advice from market players, and began to formulate the product. We raised an initial seed investment from angels and went to the market to validate.

We quickly realized that it was a winning solution with application in many areas. To that end, we hired support sales reps. We strengthened our tech team and their capabilities. The train didn’t stop moving from that point.

Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?

It’s really important to set the expectation that what we as founders had planned wasn’t going to go as planned. We also knew that the reaction to our quest was going to be different between the planning and operations stages. We had that mindset and that mellowed us. From competition to the market landscape to investors and suppliers to clients. We knew that the value propositions offered to each were too good to be true. And no matter how hard we tried, there were always going to be outliers.

The sales process, in the beginning, was easy. Reach out to a hotel or business center and say we’ll feature you on the fluidmeet platform, and if you get any money, we’ll get a small cut (so insignificant that we thought they’d come to us with open arms). The first set of hotels said no. We thought ok, let’s go to the less prestigious ones, the 4 and 3 stars. They said sure. We hit the jackpot. Our supply of workspaces and meeting spaces started.

Then we started marketing these spaces through digital channels. At that stage, Google dominated. So we did a crash course and started our marketing activities. Then the clients started pouring in, but it turns out that some of these seekers didn’t want to book online. They still wanted to touch and feel the room before booking.

So we had to go back to our technology and rework to ensure that the process was smoother for the bookers. You would think that an inquiry button would be a couple-hour job. Well, the reality was that it took a few more days and weeks because the programming needed to account for requisitions and monitoring and tracking on both ends of the marketplace. We never relented and modified and launched the new service.

But then when the booker inquired directly with the business center or the hotel, fluidmeet has effectively connected the seeker and host directly. Their incentive to tell you about the outcome of their discussions and agreements is impacted. We were shocked in this area. A real challenge arose. So we went back to our technology to smoothen the process. That introduced us to the wonderful world of coupons and vouchers and cashback.

To be sure, there are always challenges that arise in all areas of the enterprise. It wouldn’t be as much fun if it weren’t for these issues is the mantra we’ve been living by.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

We’re slowly coming out of the pandemic in our part of the world while others areas are still struggling. With EXPO 2020 around the corner, fluidmeet is poised to offer a lot of value to expected visitors and tourists. That’s exciting for us.

At the same time, the breadth and depth of fluidmeet’s technology and services are available in 5 new countries so we are scaling our presence in those markets at a fast rate. The USA is just around the corner and we’re very excited about that. We are still looking for partners in new territories and we believe that we have the right formula to offer that. The value our partners and investors has achieved continues to elapse their other investments.

We continue to be hopeful which is a feeling nothing can take away from us.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Much of what’s been written about starting a business is true in varying degrees and scopes. At the basic core, we have learned so much more about human psychology through our interactions with our clients and hosts.

We have learned about the power of incentives for all users. We have met some great people and have also interacted with those you would wish were different. But the reality is you have to work with all sorts of personalities and logic. That has been fun.

We have also learned the power of the team. That went to new levels during the pandemic when our people were struggling. We committed to them after repurposing their roles from sales to listing agents. And we ended up rewarding them for that dedication.

We also learned that the world is full of opportunities. From meeting rooms, we extended into serviced offices and coworking. From mastering the marketing function, we ended up selling those services to hosts. From seekers who were event planners, we were able to formulate a whole new module and system for them. These are the opportunities that are rampant if we know how to identify and prioritize them.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We are continuing to hire all sorts of positions. To this day, I get involved in the HR process. We are always looking for more techies as that’s the core of our business. We’re also hiring more sales specialists. Our marketing team is strong, but we’re always looking out for the next innovative leader to join our team.

Where can we go to learn more?

Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]. We’d be happy to hear from you.