Our November Webinar was dedicated to the power of Community. John Ho, founder of Alt_ChiangMai shared with us his experience starting his first coliving in Thailand and how, to his surprise, he and his team managed to crowdfund his second location.
Originally from Hong Kong, John worked in the hotel industry for many years before getting into influencer marketing and finally, coliving.
The Key that adds value.
From the start, John understood that it is the people that make the coliving. That is where Alt got its name. Alt is a function key that only produces value when combined with another:
"We are the space that enables the people to add the value."
About 3 years ago, John and his wife who is from Thailand, took over a guest house and after 18 months of trying and iterating, they opened Alt_ChiangMai, a 27 bedroom coliving bosting beautiful shared spaces, coworking area, offering yoga, ice baths, and other exciting events.
Digital nomads quickly added Alt to their route and soon came the question of a second location. Being a foreigner, getting a loan was not the "easy road" for John. When an agreement with an investor fell through, a resident asked:
Why not crowdfund it?
Half convinced, John created a pitch deck including essential information such as valuation and offerings for investors, revenue projection, exit options...and started spreading the word. Which quickly snowballed.
Within 3 months, John had gathered enough to kick start the building phase, and 3 months after that, he had reached his goal of crowdfunding 500 000 dollars.
Who chipped in?
John noted that there was 4 different kind of investors:
Alt_ Family. To his surprise, 60 to 70% of the money came from Alt_ users!
Friends & Relatives
Digital Nomad friends
Friends of friends
Learnings to harvest
Anyone can be an investor if they believe in you and your story.
Digital Nomads have more money to spend than we think. They just rarely spend on material things.
Vistion 1st, ROI 2nd.
Build trust: be prepared to answer questions.
Thank you So Much John for being so authentic and transparent in sharing your experience. We cannot wait to follow your second location's adventures. (Opening is planned for Feb 2024).