The Story of FLOWN

It all started with a creative funk,
a puppy, and a sparkle of inspiration.
Let us explain...

The creative mission

When serial entrepreneur Alicia Navarro exited her ad tech company after 11 years, she sought spaces that would unleash her creativity. She had books to write, companies to start, life decisions to make! But she was sick of WFH, and co-working spaces sapped her of inspiration.

The research trip

So, she bought a car and a puppy, and went on a three-month road trip around France and Spain, trying to find spaces to work remotely.

The spark

She then discovered Cal Newport’s book Deep Work. It backed up her convictions with a wealth of research on how modern work fails to foster inspiration. And that modern living, with the constant pings from IM, social and email, is eroding our ability to focus on the big stuff.

The experiments

Alicia developed a hypothesis about what the ideal tools to enable deep work might be. She tested her ideas with a series of deep work retreats – at a villa in Spain, a chateau in France, and a townhouse in Portugal. Forward-thinkers flocked to do deep work in these kitted-up spaces.

The plunge

Just as she was preparing to pitch to investors, Covid hit. The pandemic massively opened minds to the feasibility and benefits of remote work. Alicia raised her investment, hired a team during lockdown, and launched FLOWN just as the Covid restrictions eased.

Take-off

Having validated the need to help people achieve deep work, Alicia devised a model to make deep work accessible to many, and embedded into the way we work and think. Her idea was to provide a range of software tools for getting into the perfect mental state for deep work. That's FLOWN!