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ostoio

About

Fewer houses. More certainty.

ostoio (from the Polish ostoja, a refuge) organises team offsites in whole houses in Polish nature. We don’t run a catalogue. We choose a few houses and check each one in person before we propose it to a team.

A wooden house with lit windows and a porch in a clearing of a broadleaf forest. Warm late-afternoon light falls between old trees.

Where it started

Why we do this.

Ostoio started with the offsites we organised for our own team. Every time, the same thing happened: someone had to find a house that worked for actual work, check the Wi-Fi, sort out transfers and food, all on top of their day job, and there was never anyone whose job it was to get it right before the team arrived. So we made it our job. We chose Poland because it has everything a team needs within a few hours: mountains, the Baltic sea, lakes, uplands and even a desert, plus warm hospitality, a rich culture and food people come back for.

What we believe

Three rules we stick to.

  1. Specifics over adjectives

    Instead of “fast internet” we write how many megabits we measured in the team room, and when. Instead of “sleeps 20”: how many beds, in how many rooms.

  2. Fewer, but better

    We’d rather propose three houses we can vouch for than thirty we’ve never seen.

  3. Work, and time together

    A good offsite is the strategy session and then the sauna, the lake or the fire. One without the other isn’t enough.

Checking a house: on a wooden table, a phone showing a 312 Mb/s speedtest, a notebook with a checklist, a tape measure, keys and a coffee. Windows onto the forest behind.

People

Who checks the houses.

Gustaw Gawrysiak · Founder. Gustaw organised offsites for his own team and learned what it takes for one to actually work.

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