What if you have a billion-dollar business idea, but no savings to make it happen? You turn to investors. One of our youngest Depsters, a working student in DEPT®’s marketing department, Casper Noordhuizen took the leap and gave it a try. With success: his office sharing platform Plekky earned a €100.000 euro investment at the TV program Dragons’ Den. Curious to learn a little more? He’ll tell us all about it.
Depster Casper Noordhuizen (22-years old) and companion Tom Remy (21-years old) took their start-up to Dragons’ Den, an international TV programme that gives businesses the opportunity to pitch their idea to a panel of five very successful entrepreneurs, in the hope of receiving an investment. After hearing Casper and Tom’s sharing platform idea, one of the entrepreneurs, Shawn Harris, decided to make an offer and the students left the studio with a remarkable €100.000 euros. Then, it was time to get Plekky off the floor.
Tell us, what is Plekky?
“Plekky connects businesses with extra space in their office to workers who need an on-demand workplace. In this way, existing spaces will be used more optimally, the monthly costs can be compensated and start-up entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to rent a unique business space on-demand at an affordable price. Plekky makes the on-demand rental of existing business spaces even easier, more economical and more sustainable. That is Plekky!”
Why the name Plekky?
“Plekky is a typical Dutch name. It is some sort of slang if you ask someone if they have a plekky for you. It translates to; do you have a place for them to sit. We love the personal touch and wanted it to reflect who we are: down to earth, our Dutch identity and easy-on.”
How did you come up with the idea?
“During the Coronavirus pandemic, we were forced to work from home. A direct consequence is the under-utilisation of offices and business premises: under capacity. The Dragons’ opinions about this new way of working went two ways, considering there are lots of people who love to work from home and many who prefer to go back to the way it was. Offices that previously had a workplace for everyone, will now have empty spaces. On the other hand, there will be lots of people who are done staying at home, they will run to their workplace as soon as possible. Meaning that some buildings will be full and some of them will be more vacant. To avoid this situation we wanted to connect business premises which do not have enough room with the ones having too much space. But we do not stop there. We want to give all entrepreneurs the opportunity to rent out their space, such as a small lunchroom. Due to COVID, it is empty most of the time. Via Plekky you could just rent out this space to work.”
What is your ultimate goal?
“The ultimate goal for Plekky is to make renting out your office space just as easy as renting an apartment on Airbnb. This way, it will be much more efficient and doable to rent out your on-demand workplace. Instead of building new offices and places to work, we can just use the ones we already have, but aren’t used as much due to remote and hybrid working habits.”
The students are eager to get their platform started and learn all about being a successful entrepreneur. We have faith that Plekky will soon take off. If you have not seen the episode, make sure to check it out here (spoken in Dutch language).
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