Member Article

Interview: Rob Rebholz, co-founder of innovative storage specialist SpaceWays

A London storage provider has ended 2014 by celebrating a successful London launch, and has plans to expand to other cities in the UK.

SpaceWays, which is back by Rocket Internet, one of the world’s largest company builders, offers a flexible storage solution, allowing Londoners to save time and money while storing property in a safe and secure environment.

Bdaily talked to Rob Rebholz, co-founder of SpaceWays to find out the story behind the concept as well as his plans for 2015.

What inspired the idea behind SpaceWays?

Rob: “My co-founders and I have had the opportunity to live in cities all over the world, but wherever we go, we’ve all experienced the troubles of high rents and small apartments.

“A flexible solution to give us more space was something we’ve needed plenty of times in the past. We had tried self storage before and found the process to be terribly inconvenient; it requires you rent an entire storage room and have to make time to take your items into storage, which can just be annoying.

“We always dreamt of a straight-forward service to store not only seasonal stuff like skis, bicycles or winter clothes, but boxes of documents and suitcases as well, to name a few examples.

“Having everything readily available within a few clicks would have been just what we needed.

“With this experience in mind, we knew immediately that with the SpaceWays business model, we had the chance to address a major need and to make life easier for people with limited space in their homes, especially in big cities.”

What are your internationals aspirations for the company?

“Our goal is to make our service accessible to as many people as possible, in major cities around the world.

“We will look at different cities all over the world facing this problem and see where SpaceWays can help people to create more space. But for now, we are focused on building SpaceWays in London and ensuring that we provide the most amazing customer experience possible. Next to London, where we first launched, we’re already in Paris, Chicago, and Toronto.”

How is the storage industry changing and how is SpaceWays adapting to these changes?

“People – especially the younger generations who have grown up with the Internet – are increasingly getting used to organising their lives online.

“You can order and buy everything from food to clothes to music on the web. Storage however is traditionally an offline industry; people have to transport their belongings to a self-storage warehouse which is usually in a remote location.

“This inflexible and inconvenient service needs to change and that’s why SpaceWays seeks to disrupt the market by bringing tech into the game; our business model means that you no longer have to personally bring all your stuff to a storage unit.

“You simply go to our website, spaceways.co.uk, indicate what you want to store and our drivers will deliver storage boxes to your doorstep for free. When you have finished packing, the boxes and your oversized items are collected and stored in our storage facility. Then when you need something back, you can simply order items you need returned online anytime. Return delivery is possible within 24 hours.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .