Nomad Interviews

DN Interview – CoWorkSurf – Colive, Work And Ride Waves Around The World

pier stein coworksurf coliving coworking

We had a great chat with Pier Stein, the CEO of Coworksurf, a coliving and coworking company with locations all over the world. They gather  like minded people who want to escape the traditional office, work and meet other people whilst riding a wave. More on this great concept below! 

Hi, I’m Pier! I love singing, playing guitar, people, sports and nature. Life, really 🙂 I love seeing the world from space, without borders and rules, and (re)thinking about how we spend our time, and how we could make the experience of life better for all.

pier owner coworking surf

RTL: What is Coworksurf and what is the concept behind it?

If you want to hit the road for a while and bring your work, it’s sometimes easy to get lonely. If you want to live with other people who also work and want to (learn how to) surf, you can find one of the lovely spaces & communities on our site! 🌊🌊 We started as a physical coliving space in Portugal and Bali. Guests would stay long term and surf with each other, as well as work together in the coworking space, and generally just help each other thrive and have fun 🙂 

After a while, we started adding spaces of some of our friends to our site too, because guests wanted to have the same experience in different countries. We’ve now fully turned into a collective of coliving spaces by the surf around the world! We love helping travellers find the right places and people to hopefully have the life changing experiences we had too. 

There’s a lot of things to manage when running a coliving space – from marketing to bookings, and from community management to day-to-day operations like cleaning. We’d love to see the coliving model keep existing and want to help make it more profitable for the hosts. 

So, next to connecting them with new guests (like you?), we provide hosts the tools to automate the repetitive tasks of the business, so they can focus more on being present with the community. Because the true experience is the connection between the guests!

RTL: Your website says you are creating the future of living? How do you plan do that? 🙂

The only reason why we humans exist today is because of each other. We used to live in tribes for millions of years. Agriculture, and later capitalism have introduced individualisation and specialisation, and changed the world faster than we could adapt. Many things are amazing in this world, but we think people still fundamentally crave each other, new experience and some variation in their days. We just love hosting those communities, even if people temporarily want to zip in and out of them to feel more connected with themselves, others and nature again. To gain some new inspiration on new ways of living, or to just have some fun 🙂

RTL: This is a bit of a more philosophical questions. What do you think this type of business model is getting more and more popular? Can you see any upcoming trend where Cowork surf fits into?

Remote work + communities around interests, skills and hobbies + slow travel. We only have limited time on earth. It’s fun to explore more of yourself, the world and other than what the traditional 9-5 work-focused life offered. What better way to explore your passions, hobbies, and curiosities than with a bunch of like minded people? Communities are at the core of our human lives. I think I see a split into more online experiences (The Metaverse hype), and more offline experiences. I think more and more people realise that life is now, and want to live while they live. I’m happy about slow travel because it’s better for the environment and the local communities vs. short term tourism. I still hope to see carbon tax and a universal basic income being introduced at some point, I think we’ll have to. What would you like to experience in life if time and money didn’t matter?

RTL: What should people expect to experience when they join one of your camps? (activities, networking, overall experience?)

Get your work done and have amazing breaks and weekend adventures with new friends in new places. Learn new things from each other and surf as much as you want, or work as much as you want!

RTL: Ok so what kind of crowd do you gather in your coliving spaces? ( what kind of jobs do they have, lifestyle, common interests,etc)

Mostly people who work in tech, but I think the audience is widening to ‘people who can do their work over the internet’. The pandemic has sped up remote work by an absolute decade. From marketers, coders and designers, to thesis-writing-students to CXO’s. It used to be more freelancers and entrepreneurs, but we are increasingly hosting more remote employees from companies like Coca Cola, Google, and the United Nations. I think their common interest is that they’d like to combine their ambitions with a slightly slower and balanced life by the ocean 🙂
cowok las palmas
Las Palmas - One of the locations where Coworkurf has a camp

Las Palmas – One of the locations where Coworkurf has a camp

RTL: You are probably a digital nomad yourself. How do you manage to work on the go? Can you share a few practical tips with our readers?

Yup. I stay in places for 3+ months. Just came back from 18 months Bali. For me it helps to make a decision to stay somewhere longer, so you can invest in e.g. making your room cosier, and making friends. Making that decision brings more peace. I’m currently back in the Netherlands where I’ll probably stay for another 6 months or so. Love having my friends and family close for a while. I think some ‘digital nomads’ have the idea that living in your home country is a sort of ‘giving up’. I think remote work is about the freedom to live wherever you want, and if that’s home for a while, do it, and enjoy it 🙂

RTL: You’ve traveled quite a bit all over the world. What was your favourite country to live in and why?

I mean, I love Indonesia. My grandmother is Indonesian and I speak the language. Bali is connected and beautiful, the local people are amazing. I’ve spent almost 5 years in South-East Asia in total by now, and I think my next part of the world to explore will be South America. Also love living in Europe. It just works well here.

RTL: You’ve traveled quite a bit all over the world. What was your favourite country to live in and why?

I mean, I love Indonesia. My grandmother is Indonesian and I speak the language. Bali is connected and beautiful, the local people are amazing. I’ve spent almost 5 years in South-East Asia in total by now, and I think my next part of the world to explore will be South America. Also love living in Europe. It just works well here.

RTL: What’s your favourite remote working setup?

I now have the new macbook prooooooooooo!! 16′! It’s speakers are amazing too. So yeah, just a laptop.
 
cowork surf sri lanka

RTL: Remote working and digital nomadism seems to have taken off. What's your view on this movement and the remote working trend?

I think more and more people will move through hubs around the world for parts of the year, and live with communities around their interests and work.

RTL: And finally...what are your plans with Cowork Surf? What's next for you and what should the followers expect from you in the future?

Connected living around your passions, hobbies and skills! From surfing to yoga, and from crypto to music. Surf will be the full focus for a bit longer, but if you have a coliving / coworking space and are trying to build a community around a specific interest, feel free to reach out!

RTL: Thanks a lot for sharing these useful learnings with our readers. How can people get in touch with your and join one of your cool coworking spot?

Thank you too! Just go to coworksurf.com – I hope you’ll be able to find a fun crew! Thanks for reading, and do your best 🙂 xxx Pier
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About Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams is the Founder of Remote Tribelife, an online magazine for digital nomads and remote working. Andrew has an extensive background in SEO and content marketing. His experience with digital marketing goes back to his early age in University when he founded a blog about startups and funding. He does his best writing in the coffee shops in Bali or in the condos of busy cities like Bangkok and Singapore. He is currently based in Singapore. You can connect with Andrew on his Linkedin profile and/or follow Remote Tribelife on Instagram.