House project
Cowork Free
Find a good free desk. Anywhere. Cafés, libraries and community spaces that genuinely welcome laptops. Wi-Fi speed, minimum spend and stay limit known before you walk in.
94
Spaces live
7
Cities at launch
4
Weeks end to end
0
Ads, trackers, paywalls
The spark
The directory we kept wishing existed
Anyone who has tried to find a decent place to work from on a laptop in a new city knows the pain. You open a guide, scroll past four sponsored cafés, read a paragraph of search engine filler, and still walk in to find no Wi-Fi, no sockets, and a polite reminder that laptops are not really the vibe.
The remote workforce has roughly quadrupled since 2019. The directory it deserves never arrived. The tools that exist optimise for ads, not for the person sitting on the other side of the screen trying to find somewhere to open a MacBook.
So we built the one we wished we had. Then we put it online, for free, forever.
The mission
Make finding a good place to work the least stressful part of the day
We wanted one place, global, that tells you the truth about a venue before you show up. Whether the Wi-Fi is any good. Whether you can stay for two hours without feeling rushed. Whether there are plug sockets. Whether the staff actually like having laptops in the room.
And we wanted it free. Not free-then-paywalled, not free-with-ads, not free-in-exchange-for-your-location-data. Properly free. The kind of free the internet used to be good at.
What we shipped
Three products, one honest source of truth
coworkfree.com
A global directory built for speed. Browse by city, filter the things that matter, switch to a full-screen map with every venue. City pages, venue pages, discovery view, pricing, and a proper "Where are you?" flow when the IP guess is off.
Cowork Free for iPhone
A native iOS app submitted to the App Store. Opens on the map, caches your last session for instant second launches, and works the way you expect a travel app to work. No dark patterns, no account required to browse.
Vendor platform
Venue owners can claim their listing with a magic-link sign in, update hours, upload photos, and upgrade to a paid tier if they want richer placement. It is the only place money changes hands, and it keeps the visitor side free.
Inside the product
Honest details, up front
A directory that treats you like an adult. Every listing leads with the facts you actually need before walking in, then gets out of the way.
Four weeks
From idea to live, in the time most agencies spend scoping
Week 1
Listening and mapping
We sat in cafés. We went to libraries. We talked to baristas about laptops, to librarians about plug sockets, and to remote workers about the last time a "quiet coworking friendly spot" turned out to be neither. Out of those conversations came the four things a listing actually needs to tell you before you walk in. Wi-Fi, min spend, stay limit, vibe.
Week 2
Designing the honest listing
We built the venue page around facts, not flowery copy. Verified Wi-Fi, visible before you arrive. A coffee, a meal, or nothing at all. Two hours, or all day. Library-quiet to lively, so you pick right. No sponsored placements, no paid ranking, no "premium partner" badges. If a library beats the café next door, the library wins.
Week 3
Building web, app and vendor platform
Three products, one source of truth. We shipped coworkfree.com, a native iPhone app, and a vendor dashboard where venue owners can claim their listing and keep the details fresh. Until they do, cards simply say "details pending", because we would rather admit what we do not know than guess.
Week 4
Launch and the App Store
Field-verified the first 94 spaces across seven cities. Submitted the iPhone app to Apple with full metadata, privacy manifest, and hero screenshots. Hardened the search, pushed the web app to production, wired up the vendor billing. On launch day it was live, free, and useful.
Launch cities
Seven cities, one consistent experience
We picked cities with a real remote community, then field-verified every venue on the ground before launch. The next cohort is already in the pipeline.
How we built it
Four principles we refused to compromise on
Honest by default
Every signal on every listing is something a real person can verify in thirty seconds. Wi-Fi speeds are measured or owner-confirmed. Stay limits and minimum spends are on the card, not buried in a footer. If we are not sure, we say so.
Free to the visitor, forever
The browsing experience will never carry ads, affiliate rails or tracking pixels. The business model sits entirely on the venue side. Café and coworking operators pay only if they want premium tools. Visitors never pay anything.
Built for the way people actually look
Most people open a directory when they are already on the move. The app launches to a map with your nearest venue. The web app lands on your city automatically. Search is instant. The details that matter are above the fold. Nothing gets in the way.
Written for humans and machines
Every listing is marked up so search engines and AI assistants can pull it cleanly. Ask ChatGPT for a good spot to work in Lisbon and we want Cowork Free to be part of the answer. That only happens if the information is structured and verifiable.
Why we built it ourselves
We ship what we sell
Most agencies tell you what they could build. We prefer to show you. Cowork Free is a house project, designed, built, launched, and operated by Ikaroa. It exists because we wanted it to exist, and because it is the clearest proof we can give that a small team can go from idea to live, in-market, in weeks, not quarters.
If you are thinking about a product of your own, this is the rhythm we would run it at.
Got an idea that deserves to exist?
Tell us the itch you cannot scratch. We will come back with a plan to ship it, fast, honestly, and well.