Pop-up Offices & A Better World in Decades 🌎

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Your Office Can Be Wherever You Want It To Be

Just weeks before the 2020 global lockdown, the handful of employees of software startup Air were hustling out of a spruced up warehouse in Brooklyn, subsisting on pizza and craft beer. When the first wave of COVID-19 hit the city. Shane Hedge, cofounder of Air, told his employees to pack up their desks and go home.

The era of remote work has dragged on longer than expected, and like many startups around the world, Air remains without a headquarters 21 months later. And while that has saved Hedge thousands of dollars in office rent, employees say they miss the camaraderie of being around colleagues.

To solve this, in August Air started renting abandoned co-working spaces one to two days a month. Employees with at least two COVID-19 vaccine shots have the option to go work with their colleagues, some of whom they haven’t seen regularly since the pandemic began, and others who were recently hired. And so far, it’s been a hit.

Employees of Air at a pop-up terrace office.

The so-called pop-up offices have allowed the company to “stay asset-light” while fostering an inclusive office culture. Plus, the location of the office changes every month adding an exciting and surprising element to workers who’d like to explore working in different locations - hilltops, secluded spaces, old gardens, etc. Basically, your office can be wherever you’d like it to be. In January, Air will rent a holiday home for a day for employees in San Francisco. And employees who are unable to attend can join activities by video and receive a meal stipend.

The concept could become popular as companies push back their return-to-the-office dates, as coronavirus cases surge.

The Hottest Japanese
Startups of 2021
Japan's economy is buzzing with startups. So we've compiled a list of the top startups in Japan to watch out in 2021 .

It's Not All Bad News

The world has seen some terrible days this year. With forest fires, Delta and Omicron waves, and Crypto crashes, it’s been as memorable a year as any. But it would be a mistake to view that as the sum total of the world in 2021.

Some aspects of life on Earth are actually getting better. Just that many of us aren’t aware of it because the press — and humans in general — have a strong negativity bias.

Survey indicates that only few people in rich countries have any clue that the world has taken a happier turn in recent decades. Let’s see how.

One of the most important developments of the past few decades of human history is the dramatic decline of extreme poverty. Global poverty has fallen dramatically since 1996 when in 1981, 42.7% of humans lived in absolute dire poverty.

Worldwide, deaths of under 5 year old children fell by more than half between 1990 and 2019, with some of the fastest progress in the poorest regions, like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The world has made massive progress on preventing diseases through bednets and better water sanitation.

Reductions in cancer death rates have averted nearly 2.2 million deaths in men and 1 million in women. That’s a huge number of people who got to enjoy longer lives due to progress in medical science.

Lastly, it’s notable how fast Covid-19 vaccines were developed. There are illnesses whose biological origins have been known for over a century — like TB and malaria — for which a reliable vaccine still does not exist. Malaria’s underlying parasite was identified in 1880 and the WHO first recommended a vaccine against it this year.

Covid-19, by contrast, was first detected in China in December 2019, and a year later, the FDA had approved Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine against it. Moderna designed its Covid-19 vaccine over a weekend in January 2020, two months before the pandemic hit full force in the US.

Best of all, these vaccines have shown that mRNA and adenovirus-based vaccine can work at scale, which raises the prospect of more effective vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.

Signed, Sealed, Not Delivered. How a $17M Investment Was Lost
What happens when investors negotiate and close deals with startups despite not having their own funds secured?

Superlatives '21

Time for 2021 Superlatives Awards. Want to the know the best or the weirdest or the funniest things the world's been into this year?

The 12 most Fascinating IPOs of 2021
These IPOs deserve our attention for being some of the whackiest and inspiring startup stories of the year.

8 best TV Shows of 2021 that every entrepreneur must watch
Some shows are just meant to give you crazy startup ideas or motivate you to run your business/side hustle differently.

The most popular Wikipedia Searches for every day in 2021
Get to know what the world's been reading this year and wonder why.

The 5 weirdest Product Launches of 2021
You probably shouldn't buy these, but you'll want to out of sheer curiosity. Yes, someone, somewhere thought this product would be a great idea. Feel free to judge.

The hottest new Startup Sectors of 2021
Lastly, whether you're an investor or someone trying to set up shop in a less competitive market, here's a few industries to consider.

Start-up Life vs. Corporate World: My Experience Making the Switch
In the corporates, a lot of skill was convincing others to prioritize what you needed them to do. In the startups there’s no one to convince, you just need to work out how to do it yourself.

Psst... We have something to say

We've been seeing awesome views on our newsletter and blog lately and we'd like to thank all stash readers for making this a great year. We'll be elated to expand our reader family and spread the news about all things startups. So bring your friends aboard the Stash wagon and help us become a big global family of entrepreneurs, hustlers, productivity experts and smart workers.

Follow us on Medium or check out our website if you're looking

to read experience stories by startup gurus.
to find awesome tools to upgrade your day or top startups in countries to invest in or take motivation from.
to access our stash of hundreds of tools from around the web for every purpose for free.

Together let's make 2022 a fruitful and productive one!

What Business Schools Don't Teach You About Entrepreneurship
Almost no good companies end where they start. The chance of a deal happening goes down 10% every day you don’t close it.

Shorts ⏳

The Lumber Bubble - Lumber price is up 50% this month - hitting $915 per thousand board feet, and up 135% since August.

Wikipedia vs. its Creator - An NFT of Wikipedia’s first ever edit sold for $750,000 in December, while the 20-year-old iMac used to create Wikipedia went for $187,500.

Coffee or Oil? - Oats and coffee prices future rose 87% and 81% respectively making them costlier than oil and natural gas.

Sex vs. Education - Unplanned pregnancies cost the US billions of dollars but the cheaper alternative i.e. sex educations still remains sparse. Funding for abstinence education rose to $110 million in 2021.

What are SPACs? - Here's an awesome and detailed beginners guide to understanding SPACs.

Stash Recommends: Tools to Explore

🤝 Samepage: A collaboration software that makes team communication and online project management easy from any device.

🥼 Gitlab: From source code management to CI/CD and monitoring, GitLab is a complete DevOps platform, delivered as a single application.

👁 Visible: Engage your investors with automatic, data-driven investor updates they can access anywhere.

📊 Chartio: Chartio’s cloud-based business intelligence and analytics solution enables everyone to analyze data from business applications.

Top 20 Online Calendar Tools for 2022
There is a barrage of online calendars in the market to plan your day, month or year, all claiming to be the best. So to make life easy, we've curated a list of the best tools from around the web .

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Pop-up Offices & A Better World in Decades 🌎

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