Breakfast brainstorms and dirty dishes: inside an entrepreneurs' houseshare

Whether it's 12 strangers in a two-bed flat or friends sharing ideas over a cup of tea, living with other business owners can be a route to success

Communes may have gone out of fashion since their hippy heyday in the 1960s, but the concept of people with a shared outlook living and working together is being reinvented for the 21st century entrepreneur. House shares where small business owners sound out ideas with like-minded peers are popping up in cities around the world.

Berlin has been experimenting with the concept for years. Palomar5 was the first "innovation camp" to launch in Germany back in 2009. Over a seven-week period, 30 participants under the age of 30 from 17 countries lived and worked together in an old warehouse in the city's Tempelhof neighbourhood, coming up with tech projects around the topic of "the future of work".