Save money, share space
About Our Team
Henrik Hovstadius, Charlotte Aschoff, and Alec Jang, students in Lehigh University's Computer Science and Business Honors program, spent two semesters developing this web app as their capstone project. With a goal to curb high rental costs for small businesses affected by the growth of e-commerce and Covid-19 pandemic, these students worked to create a platform where businesses can find the space they need at the right price.
WeShare CRE began from the vision of a former Wall Street broker, Carl Fredrickson.
Years ago, while driving around I noticed that Dunkin Donuts & Baskin Robbins were sharing a business space. I was impressed because neither paid 100% of the rent, electricity, heating and air conditioning. Sounded smart. When thinking about the pain caused by the encroachment of E-commerce (Amazon from the West and Alibaba from the East) and the Covid virus on bricks & mortar and small businesses throughout the world, the DD / BR idea came back to me. There must be millions of businesses who do not need all the space they are renting. Why not share the unused portion with another business in a similar financial situation? Landlords will be happy because they will continue to collect rent. Sounds like a win-win-win to me.
We need to create a vehicle that would enable business tenants to find available space to share. WeShareCRE was born.