Meet Ashore: The remote work startup targeting ‘not-quite nomads’

Imagine you’ve gone away for the week, hoping to work remotely from your laptop with the ocean stretched out in front of you. But the wifi in your rental apartment doesn’t work and the only desk you have is your bed. 

Ashore aims to solve these speed bumps in remote work. The company acts like an Airbnb for remote workers. They team up with holiday rental host in remote parts of the UK and retrofit their rooms with fast internet access and stylish ergonomic furniture to transform them into remote work havens.

Offering digital nomadism has been a popular choice for companies. Work from anywhere schemes, where “not-quite nomads”, as Ashore calls them, can work in different countries for a certain number of days a year as a company benefit. 

Are people willing to forgo a traditional job and live in remote areas because of rising living costs? 

Remote working

Ashore was established earlier in the year to provide city dwellers with a safe haven in the country, while still offering all the amenities of a remote workplace. Ashore currently has 30 homes available and has 2,000 users. The three cofounders have already picked up a small sum from angel investors (whose identities they’d prefer not to disclose) and plan to raise money in the next six months, but fundraising plans are still “up in the air”, says cofounder Aled Maclean-Jones.

The company selects aesthetically pleasing apartments in charming towns and villages across the UK — a cozy cottage in the Cotswolds or an airy loft in Devon, for example — which it assesses in person to ensure it meets its standards. 

First up, the wifi has got to be speedy and secure as that is the “bedrock” of the entire operation, Maclean-Jones says.  

Second, it must be located within easy reach of a train station so that people can travel without a car. If you have a car, there must be parking. 

And thirdly, the location should be “remote but not too remote”, with local cafes and pubs around, says Maclean-Jones.

“Being in a cabin in the wilderness looks good on Instagram, but how productive can you really be?”

The market

There’s no doubt that inflation and the rising cost of living have deterred people from spending, especially when it comes to holidays, says Maclean-Jones. But Ashore occupies a “very different” place in the market to holiday rentals. 

Ashore believes that any person with a laptop can be a customer. This is a huge market considering how much work is done online. Its users are typically white-collar tech workers, professionals, or creative industry workers who reside in cities like London. The average stay time is one week. 

A stay at Ashore isn’t bargain-bucket, with prices ranging from £125 to more £400 per night for the premium properties. Maclean-Jones states that single occupancy is very rare and the cost for a couple is higher. Much more affordable. 

But it may not always be a consumer who pays. Ashore is developing a B2B offering — where companies could offer a stay at an Ashore property as an employee benefit — which it’s testing with three businesses, including advertising conglomerate Ogilvy.

Is the future work uncertain?

Ashore’s business model is naturally tied to people’s willingness and ability to work remotely, which some people argue is waning. TravelPerk is one of the European companies. Getir, are demanding a compulsory Return to the office, pronto. 

But Ashore is confident that people’s desire to work away from home in beautiful places — as artists, novelists or painters do to spark inspiration — will endure. 

“When I started thinking and speaking about (starting the company) last year, a lot of people were like ‘is (remote work) going to stick? Won’t we just go back to five days in the office?’ And the conversation has changed now,” says Maclean-Jones, pointing to a recent Survey by LinkedIn This revealed that 34% of Londoners would prefer to quit their job than go back to work full-time.

He adds that companies — “even the most hardcore taskmasters” — have found that there is an expectation of flexible work among employees, and if remote work isn’t offered as an option, they’re going to lose people fast.

It seems likely that remote work will survive in some capacity — but whether Ashore can convince employers to pay for their workers’ escapes to the country is another matter.

Miriam Partington works as a reporter for Sifted. She coauthors and covers the DACH region. Startup LifeThe weekly newsletter focuses on the challenges of building a startup. Follow her on Twitter And LinkedIn