Recorded on 02/2020 in London, UK at Launch22. Remoter caught up with Rebecca Males, Head of Content at coliving and coworking company Outsite. Outsite is also a remote-first company committed to providing value found within face-to-face connections and community building. Being remote has allowed Outsite to focus on opening more physical locations to serve their community members, making this part of the new normal and contributing towards shaping the future of work.
Recorded on 02/2020 in London, UK at Launch22. Remoter caught up with Rebecca Males, Head of Content at co-living and co-working company Outsite. Outsite is also a remote-first company committed to providing value found within face-to-face connections and community building. Being remote has allowed Outsite to focus on opening more physical locations to serve their community members, making this part of the new normal and contributing towards shaping the future of work.
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Josephine Tse 0:00
It's time for season two of the Remoter Podcast. I'm your host Josephine.
Josephine Tse 0:05
As a continuation from season one with Alex and Andres, I had the opportunity to interview some remote work leaders, ranging from companies, consultants, advocates and more to add to Remoter's stash of free resources and human-centred stories, enriching our educational platform about remote work. This podcast is sponsored by Torre, a new kind of professional network that automatically connects talent with opportunity. Founded by Alexander Torrenegra, our goal is to make work fulfilling for everyone find the job of your dreams by visiting torre.co. That's T O R R E dot C O.
Josephine Tse 0:49
Almost didn't make it for this recording. And there were a couple of location mishaps that were figured out during the last hours of Rebecca and I meeting and then I almost had to record this in a small broom closet sized room because we didn't have any meeting rooms booked due to the location mishaps. But thankfully, one of the meeting rooms in this co-working space freed up just as I was about to setup. At the end of the day, everything ended up working out which was incredible because this was where I was going to tell Rebecca's story. A story about building community and trust with users. A story about unconventional jobs and career paths. A story about the dedication of helping others achieve meaningful face to face connections, while being run by Outsite's completely remote team spread across the globe.
Josephine Tse 1:39
Welcome to another episode of The Remoter Podcast and today I am in... in an old church, which is now turned into a co-working space, Launch22 and we are doing an episode in their meeting room with a lot of old pictures and boxing gloves and cassette tape.
Rebecca Males 1:59
There's a suitcase directly above your head as well.
Josephine Tse 2:03
Its... its outfitted with lots of old items, probably from the church, probably haunted. I have Rebecca Males from Outsite with me today. She is the head of content at the co-living space. Rebecca, could you tell me a little bit about yourself?
Rebecca Males 2:19
For sure. Yeah. So that's my title. It'd be head of content, recently- is only very recently that I've moved into that. So before that, I was head of community with Outsite and before that, I was working on a completely different project called Nomad House. Yeah, I'm 100% remote. I'm currently... well, I'm literally just back from a trip between Mexico and the States that's more or less, it's kind of where Outsite is based. So it's originally... it came out of Santa Cruz, but we're now in about 30 locations around the world. And so, our newest one is in Tulum, in Mexico and so, okay, yeah. So that's why I was over there. Yeah, I did two weeks there at the start January, and then we had our company retreat in LA, okay in January as well. And so, two weeks in LA and then two more weeks in Mexico after that.
Josephine Tse 3:11
Okay, I'm welcoming you back to your home. And can you tell me a little bit more about Nomad House? Because I saw yeah, you were working on that before.
Rebecca Males 3:19
So, I have no idea how that even happened. Literally. So I actually this is like, must have been five years ago now. I was just freelancing. And I just come out of like full time like office based employment as well. I freelanced on the side of that. And so I was like, oh, what am I doing? I may as well actually travel go and see places whilst doing this. At that time, I didn't know anyone else doing it. So it began to feel a little bit weird because I couldn't really check into a hostel because I couldn't work there. Right. Right. And anyway, I was alone. You just you kind of think too much if you're on your own and so, I start to find all these communities on Twitter and Instagram. I started talking to my then, like co-founder on Twitter and who's oh, I'm actually looking for some like social media and marketing help for this new project called Nomad House. After the first trip that I went on with Nomad House, it was just a conversation of okay, you're not really doing social media, you're acting like a co-founder. And now, like, well literally doing everything, so yeah. And that's how that developed. And we did that for about a year and a half. I think we did six or seven trips in total, okay. And that was like the co-working retreats model rather than co-living. As soon as I kind of accepted that I knew some people working Outsite already and the conversation just started with Outsite.
Josephine Tse 4:37
I mean, I feel like the transition from working at on a project like Nomad House to project like Outsite is just like that, that makes sense.
Rebecca Males 4:46
Yeah, it made complete sense. But then when I explain it to people, I'm like, I've literally no idea how I got to where I am now. Because yeah, I don't think you ever imagine doing this type of work. Maybe if you're in uni, or like, I started out in an advertising agency and then I went into a publishing house. Okay, okay. Yeah. Then I was doing freelance content creation social media work. Okay. And and now this is what I've fall into? So yeah, it's yeah, it's wild.
Josephine Tse 5:13
Are you born and raised in the UK or?
Rebecca Males 5:16
Yeah, so I'm actually from just outside of Manchester. I grew up on a farm, so not London at all. Yeah, was there until about age 18 and then moved over to Belfast to study. Okay. Yeah. So two years in Northern Ireland, and then I did a year in Australia as well, because they offered study abroad. So so well of course, Australia, yeah, yeah.
Josephine Tse 5:40
I really relate with that. Me personally, like I didn't really leave Toronto until I go to university and then I did a study abroad as well. And I was like, Oh, the world.
Rebecca Males 5:49
Yeah. Like,
Josephine Tse 5:51
There's more to it.
Rebecca Males 5:52
Where did you study abroad?
Josephine Tse 5:53
I did my study abroad in Singapore.
Rebecca Males 5:55
Oh, cool.
Josephine Tse 5:56
I was like, Oh, wow. This really is...
Rebecca Males 5:58
That'd be crazy different to Toronto as well.
Josephine Tse 6:00
Yeah, I also started in advertising as well before moving on to whatever this is. Yeah, job, content, content production but remote, completely remote. I think it's really cool what Outsite is doing, I was able to visit your Lisbon space. I haven't been in a co-living model yet, like, I want to try it in the near future.
Rebecca Males 6:23
I think that's like, our best Outsite in my personal opinion at the moment. Yeah, cuz that's why we have the cowork cafe as well. Yes. So that, yeah, that really helps mix in the actual like cowork vibe. And then we have the four floors above it, which is the actual co-living space. So, that's obviously the private part that, you know, its just guests of that. Yeah, having that on the ground floor, I think completely changes it because then it's, and it's not just coffee as well, like we have drinks and so it makes it quite a social thing. It's not just work anymore.
Josephine Tse 6:55
Can you tell me a little bit more about Outsite and the company's missions and values. And yeah, just give us a little briefer on Outsite.
Rebecca Males 7:04
Yeah, of course. So I'll start with the mission, we've been working on this a lot more tightly for the past six months. So the idea for Outsite is we want to create the infrastructure that makes it possible for anyone to just design the way that they live. So what would your ideal day look like? And what do you need to do that? And so one of the things that we noticed is, obviously, people will always need a place to stay, if you look at you and me at the moment. So we're not really traditional working models. And it means that maybe you travel a lot. And perhaps you're not meeting the same people that you would be if you were maybe in an office environment. And so then all of a sudden, there's a gap in the market that might move to that segment. And like the infrastructure is not there for them yet. And so that's kind of what we're aiming to do. And then around that, it's just kind of happening organically as well. But there's a huge community growing within it. And yeah, as mentioned before, we are originally based out of Santa Cruz, and that's because, so the founder is called Emmanual. And he's originally from Belgium. But um, he got a job out in San Jose. And then he was able to work remotely as well. And so he found Santa Cruz and he loves surfing. So then all of a sudden, he was like, this is wild, like, why do people more people not do this? And why is there not some sort of infrastructure to allow people to do it? And so he rented out this one house in Santa Cruz, which we still have, it's called Oxford on the website, and that was first Outsite. And so he started renting out rooms to different people. And then it grew to two locations in Santa Cruz. And then I think the next one was San Diego and then LA. And obviously, it's kind of gone from there. So that's why as well as some of the marketing that you see, there's a bit of a surf angle there because that's originally where it came from.
Josephine Tse 8:48
You guys are looking to expand and build into other places, right?
Rebecca Males 8:51
We're currently looking at a lot of new spaces in Europe. Okay. Yeah. If you're really looking at the big cities, so London is one of them. It's not easy because we want to find these, you know, perfect buildings for what we want to do. It's got to be the right price for it as well, and then the right location. So there's all these different factors going into it, which means finding the right place and opening it takes way more time than it might look like on the website.
Josephine Tse 9:17
Oh, of course, I'm just like, I'm sure like making sure that it is outfitted for people who want to go work there and live there for maybe a longer period of time.
Rebecca Males 9:27
Yeah, because like, you've got, there's expansions so that's just looking for the locations and deciding on the neighbourhood and the the actual physical space. And then you have the opening stage, which is where we are trying to make sure, does it need renovation, do we need to change any of the property?
Josephine Tse 9:46
Thinking about like, the local laws and everything?
Rebecca Males 9:48
Yeah, absolutely. And then you consider the fact that we're not just in the States anymore, and especially once you go into Europe, so obviously Portugal we actually have two locations now, which has made it easier because we can use the same company and the same laws apply. But then we've opened in France, we've opened in Switzerland. So yeah, it's getting used to the well, not just getting used to, it's understanding the local laws and how it all works in each space and particular in the US, actually, because of Airbnb and the residential laws.
Josephine Tse 10:20
Oh, right.
Rebecca Males 10:21
Yeah, that come in there and again, I'm not really on the operation side, so I can't speak to it so much, but I know that it's, it's not made it easy.
Josephine Tse 10:30
Mm hmm. I've heard, I've heard about that. I know like in Lisbon, I think in London as well like they were saying how it's harder to run Airbnbs now because we are stricter on the laws, they have to be like registered get a number...
Rebecca Males 10:40
Oh yeah, absolutely. Mm, like Portugal, it's 'alojamento local', I think, yeah and I think there is a good reason for it. If you look at what an Airbnb can do to a city, I can completely understand where the locals are coming from. And so to control that yeah, I think it does make sense. I hope that the type of travellers that we're encouraging to come to these places, they're more conscious, more understanding, and perhaps they want to stay for a longer time. And, so hopefully we bring a more positive type of tourism to these places when we do open in Lisbon, for example, wherever we open next.
Josephine Tse 11:18
And I mean, as you said, like you don't work in the operations part, but you do work in the marketing content. And I am very interested to talk about your processes and I guess your strategies that you use to build I guess, a community of returning members to Outsite.
Rebecca Males 11:34
Just making sure you have a product that people want to use and people get value from for the actual experience. That's guest experience, that's hospitality, and making sure that people are looked after, they're really comfortable, and they have the best experience that they can in your spaces. And a huge part of that for us, it's not just you know, having a nice room. It's making sure that they're meeting the right people, it's making sure we have weekly events, for example, or like the WhatsApp group. That's been crazy, like the way that that's changed how people communicate. Because before that I think we had we had Facebook groups and Slack. And then like, oh, why do we not do WhatsApp because it's the most universal and it's also very personal. Whenever you give someone a WhatsApp, you're on like first name terms. And so I have WhatsApp groups for every location and they are super active. I think a huge part of it is just to create value and make sure that's what your members are kind of looking for from you. And then for actual membership, we create value in different ways there. And so whenever you become a member, there, you get huge discounts on the actual spaces, but you also get access to all these perks with different partners around the world. Okay, yeah, generally we'll try and partner with people that are really useful even when perhaps you're not in an Outsite space. So say maybe you're from Chicago or something and um, you know, we have like car rentals, we've got travel insurance - it's all these cars like all those actual lifestyle perks that people do want to use. But yeah, that I think that's a huge part of actually creating a returning user base as well.
Josephine Tse 13:10
Have you gotten any feedback from users that they've told you like, this has worked out really well for me, like keep doing this? Or maybe you guys should look into doing something else? And have you gotten anything like that?
Rebecca Males 13:23
The thing that we always hear back from when we've done something good is the community aspect. Okay. Because I think that is primarily what people are looking for when they come to Outsite is that they just want to meet people and make sure that having the right conversations. We did part of our membership recently was like an expert network. So that is making it easy to find the members who are doing the things that perhaps you want support in. So we had from one of our members, so she offers virtual assistance. Okay, officially Yay, yeah. And so she mentioned with the expert network that we set up, she's got a ton of leads and from that, she's super proactive as well. And so I think it's a two way street. Like, we'll build the ability for you to meet these people and actually network. But then if you start taking advantage of that, you can. Yeah, like it would work really well for you. She said, yeah, I just got a few new clients that and that was really great for me. So that was good for us to find out as well.
Josephine Tse 14:26
On on top of topics like that. Are you guys working on any environmentally focused initiatives?
Rebecca Males 14:31
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot going on. So I don't manage our stainability, someone called Christina does. And so there's a few things that we do. So when you book with us, we plant one tree, we weren't we weren't tree planted on that. So that's kind of the first thing we do in the buyers journey as such. And so the next part for us is when you get into the house, how can we make that more sustainable? And so this is not the most like glamorous topic. The biggest thing is just recycling and composting and making sure we're doing that, like, we get so many people for houses, and like, everyone eats, everyone like, goes out and you know, to some groceries. And so they'll come back with like, maybe a tonne of like plastic wrap stuff. And so it's making sure okay, if people are gonna buy it, like how can we dispose of it in a way that's gonna be better for the environment. And then on top of that, is making sure we can compost but even that, it gets complex depending on the location you're in. So, we're working with different partners, whether you're in San Francisco or New York or LA. It's yeah, it's always different. And then on top of that, like all the toiletries used they're all eco friendly, yeah, there's a tonne of different things going on kind of behind the scenes. Yeah, probably to see it more when you're a guest because we have messaging around the house to say like, you know, please refill your water bottle. Don't be using single use plastic. Yeah, we do. We do a lot towards sustainability. And hopefully we'll do more and more as time goes on.
Josephine Tse 15:55
Hmm, I'm personally really behind the companies are actually actively trying to do something about it. Like one thing that I was wondering was because when I was in Lisbon, I was talking to my Airbnb host. And he was saying that is it even? Like I saw that there was just one trash can, I'm like, where's your recycling? Where's your? He's like, well, the building doesn't even do anything. They don't even sorted anyway, so we're just gonna have this Oh, we just gonna put everything in one place. And I'm like, but how many places are really like that? And then that that's the other like, added level of behind the scenes that I just, you know?
Rebecca Males 16:29
Yeah, like how every country does it. So in Portugal, where at least we've always been told that you sort to yourself and so when you drop off your recycling, you drop off in the bins like glass, plastics, paper, cardboard, whatever. Okay, okay. Yeah, but like, you have to understand how it's different for every country. Exactly. Like I have no idea actually, I haven't been to our Swiss Alps location, so I don't know how we manage it that but in Mexico, for instance, I was actually in an Airbnb as well. So I don't know how I did this but I managed to find someone who was like really into recycling that is, yeah, there's like these are voluntary projects for recycling in Tulum, and she did composting as well. And as well, to say, I think being around those people as well, it makes it really helpful for actually understanding the location and like, Okay, so how does this work for you? Because, you know, when you have we really want to support all these initiatives, but we don't know where to start. Yeah, exactly. We're in a new location.
Josephine Tse 17:26
Exactly. Given that there's all these things that you have to think about when you guys are implementing all your locations and your sites and your projects. Would you say there's a level of added difficulty when doing all this and trying to scale with your team remotely?
Rebecca Males 17:43
So I think there's a lot that perhaps we almost don't see as a remote team. For every location, there's probably things that perhaps we're just not seeing, because we don't touch the product all the time, at least if you're selling something online, you can see a website you can see your analytics so you can have an idea of like what's doing well and what's not doing so well. Yeah. And so we rely really, really hugely on community managers just to tell us like, hey, what's going on? Like, is there any problems? And they're great. Like they are a key part of making this work. Of course. Yeah, it's an it's an in person experience. It's not something that you just saw online. So that's certainly an obstacle with the remote aspect of it.
Josephine Tse 18:23
So it's more so you make sure you keep a tight communication between those who are on the ground and those who are not on the ground?
Rebecca Males 18:30
Yeah, absolutely. We've got so our COO, Liz, she's hugely responsible both for a lot of that. And so she does, she is like all over it with most of the locations, she'll understand exactly what's going on at any given time. It's wild, considering we have so many locations as well.
Josephine Tse 18:45
Now, I want us to talk a little bit about your team, as everybody is probably wondering, what are you guys doing to kind of keep up your, your team culture?
Rebecca Males 18:55
We have like one annual retreat where like, the whole team is in on it, and then we'll have smaller ones as well. I work on content, there's someone I work really closely with on growth. And so it's likely that we'd have like a smaller split off retreat to just focus on those type of projects. And so I think that's the biggest thing that we do. And then for actual, like, I guess day to day remote culture, we just we talk to each other a lot on Slack. And then we do whenever we have actual meetings, we'll, we'll tend to always use video because it sounds like the smallest change and sometimes you don't really want to be on video. Like, I am pretty tired, da da da but like, that's what you'd be dealing with an office so it, it should feel the same I like but I think maybe sometimes we're just not as used to it anymore because we're remote. We don't have to like see people every day, but I think the video thing really helps change it because then you get a sense for like how someone's feeling beyond how their voice sounds. So yeah, it makes the actual remote culture much more personable.
Josephine Tse 19:57
People say they're like, why would I go back after experiencing this life, so that's kind of what I was going to ask you next about your overall like experience or your overall feelings about working remotely since now you've done it for over five years now. And freedom is such a big thing for you. What would it take for you to go back to an office space?
Rebecca Males 20:18
That's a great question, actually. Um, I actually think the education part of being in an office would be what would pull you back because say that saying, you know, like, you should make sure you're not the smartest person in the room or like, make sure you're the most dumb person in the room as such, because then you're always going to be learning from people. But if you're the only person in the room who you're learning from, yeah, that maybe would be the one thing that would probably turn your head if you've been in remote for so long, like to learn from other people again, in real life. But I think when you're remote, you do just look for other sources for education because you need to know what other people in your industry are doing. Like what's next? And so you keep yourself up to date in that way.
Josephine Tse 21:04
What are some things that you do to keep yourself updated?
Rebecca Males 21:08
Honestly, there are a few great platforms. So, I love the newsletter from, I think it's Later.co or Latergram, they have a scheduling app. Yes. Yeah. I just I love their content, they present it in a way that's so readable. You can just flip through the newsletter and you're like, okay, I know exactly what I want to read, like, and I work with social media managers, as well. So it makes it really easy if we ever have a new idea. So they did this article on the engagement rate on posts that are designed for saving rather than liking or commenting on. And so we did some experiments based on that. And yeah, like their content is just really easy and educational, I find.
Josephine Tse 21:49
Okay, any, any other platforms? That
Rebecca Males 21:53
Reddit actually, oh, yeah. Reddit's a great one because I just feel that they've really cooked for you. I guess that would be the opposite of creating content for education as such, because as more people are actually having conversations about what they're doing, what's working, what's not working, and you can see, yeah, it's just like a very real life conversation rather than as something being presented to you in that format.
Josephine Tse 22:18
So this is one of our last questions on the episode - has working remotely opened up anything for you that's outside of your career? Yeah. Anything that? Yeah, like a new hobby, anything in general?
Rebecca Males 22:32
So whenever we started travelling, more and more with Nomad House, so I I've always loved photography. And then this is when Maverick started coming out of all their drones. And so I was like, Well, I'm spending this much time my travelling and these coastlines would look absolutely crazy if I had a drone and so all of a sudden, I bought a drone as like the only thing I was doing like, I just, I just want to go like drone here and there and everywhere. And yeah, we've done this, we've done this trip out to the Azores, and I knew there was this, could see on Google Maps was like the coastline here, it just looks weird. Like, there's all these rocks and waves and like, I was like, we should definitely go here. And so at one point we had, I think two cars full. And it was just because I'd said like, I really want to go and like use the drone on this like rocky outcrop. And so we're racing against sunset to get to this one spot to make sure we had daylight so we could send the drones up into the air.
Josephine Tse 23:25
So do you still do it? Like,
Rebecca Males 23:26
Not so much now, yeah, well, I've been living in London for the past year. So it's definitely not drone friendly here. But um, yeah, it's funny how it changes how you do things if you're on a trip because then all of a sudden, you're like, where can we go which will have like a really weird thing that we can video or take photos with on the drone, and everyone gets into it because it means you're outdoors like all day, just trying to find these like really cool spots.
Josephine Tse 23:49
What are, what is like one of the most memorable spots that you found, like randomly through your drone footage?
Rebecca Males 23:54
So um, we were looking at new locations, and this was a maybe a year and a half ago, with Outsite. And we went to Peniche and Baleal which are like surf towns in Portugal. And so we've gone up to Baleal, which is like a surf spot. Not many people go there though because there's like a dirt road and it doesn't look like you're going anywhere when you're down the dirt road, but then you're there, and um we're on the beach and so I sent the drone up. And it just looked crazy, because you don't realise it when you look at it, but the sun was like orange and the water was blue. And so you see this crazy contrast from you know, 500 feet up in the air. And yeah, like moments like that way like this just doesn't look real. Right? Yeah, yeah.
Josephine Tse 24:03
Wow. I mean, that's awesome that, you know, like you being able to work remotely and working on these community centric projects have led you to this hobby.
Rebecca Males 24:48
Such a random, like yeah, all the sudden like, you got a huge group of people running down the beach just to get to this one drone spot. Yeah, yeah. It's wild.
Josephine Tse 24:56
And I'm like, that's the really cool thing that I like to kind of dig into when speaking about remote work because with the freedom, I mean, a lot of people have been able to do other things with their time Maybe, maybe not like maybe, people may have to take care of their family or you know exactly, but it's still something
Rebecca Males 25:00
That's like, why I think this is gonna stay around though, because whilst I might be, you know, chatting away about drones, for someone who wants to have like a family life like, that means that they have the flexibility and the freedom to do that. If someone wants to start a farm like they can do that. It's it creates more hours in the day for you. If you look at people who are commuting in London, they can spend like two hours or more commuting, which I think is crazy. It's insane. Yeah, because if you give that two hours back to someone, like what would they do with that- would they they improve their health, do they improve their relationships, their career, like, you don't know what they'll do even til you give them that time? Mm hmm.
Josephine Tse 25:57
Given that you guys have that time, I want to know if you think that Outsite's story and your story as well, but the company's mission and values and everything will help encourage and enable more people to maybe check out this remote lifestyle.
Rebecca Males 26:14
100% because I think what we're doing is we're making it more normal. And the more normal it becomes like the more it's maybe then, it's that we're not even calling it, it's not inspiring people. It's just showing them this is the way to live. These are the people that you can meet and the people that you can work with. This should be the new normal.
Josephine Tse 26:34
And with that, I just want to thank you so much for being on the Remotor Podcast and giving me your time today in this kind of gloomy weather in London.
Rebecca Males 26:45
Old church building. No, thank you. This is the first professional podcast that I've done. So really cool.
Josephine Tse 26:54
I'm excited for this episode to come out.
Josephine Tse 27:01
Remoter Podcast season two is recorded, produced and edited by Josephine Tse. It is mixed and mastered by Stephen Stepanic and Vanesa Monroy. Graphics and visuals by Valentina Castillo. The music track used is Skip by OBOY from SoundStripe. Follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts wherever you listen to your podcasts. Don't forget, we've recently made our Founding and Growing Remotely online course completely accessible and listed on our site. Visit us at remoter.com, that's R E M O T E R dot com for more relevant content. Follow us on social media @remoterproject to stay up to date with our latest initiatives and collaborations with other remote first companies around the world. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about each episode, so feel free to tag us on socials anytime. And remember, we're here to make work fulfilling, so what part will you play in shaping the future of work?