I recently read a great article “Entrepreneurs: Beware the curse of the new building” by Steven Blank, who is a down to earth and experienced entrepreneur I greatly admire. While the case he describes is a bit dramatic and partly stems from deeper issues, many of his points were definitely something I have seen. The one sentence summary of his article: brand new offices disrupted SuperMac’s culture, detracted from growing the company, caused excess politics, and gave competitors lead time. I will not discuss the benefits or detractions new offices create. At one time or another we will all need to move our companies. Instead, I wanted to share what I have learned from my experiences.
I have moved two companies during my career. One was a small move, but the other was a major production that was complicated by the fact we were moving in the middle of busy season. As I have mentioned, though I mostly agree with Steve’s points, in my case it was a bit different situation because the companies were late stage startups (4- and 7-year-old companies). I’d like to share my tips for moving, which I acknowledge are more applicable to organizations like software development or professional services companies, that are dominated by knowledge workers.
- Avoid giving anyone offices if you can. Even your CEO should be in the midst of it. If the mayor of NYC does not need an office, you don’t need one either. Office walls help create a “bubble” effect and rob you of 18-25% of usable space, make you less flexible, create needless hierarchy and status, and most importantly – exponentially magnifies office politics. An open office creates better accountability.
- It is a myth you can’t control noise in an open office. Cubes work, but they are not flexible. Partitions are much cheaper, more flexible, and do the job. Plus, open office helps with employee etiquette (you know, the stinky food, cellphones, and other issues). If your fish dish just stank up the office, now you have an angry CEO. You want to bet you will not do that again?
- Don’t segregate sales from your developers or other folks who make the product. Sales folks need to know what is down the pipe (meetings don’t cut it) and product people should know how hard it is to sell. Now there are product folks who cannot handle distractions. The solution is to buy them the best darn noise-cancelling headphones on the market.
- Not all the conference rooms need to be enclosed. I personally see conference rooms as an expense one should avoid. They are a waste of money. Either make a deal with a neighboring office to use their conference room, or take the money you have saved from not having that room and hold your meetings in the restaurant. If you choose to add expensive furniture in those rooms, the numbers will be even worse. The best option is to have bunch of foldable rolling tables, so the teams can put needed setups together for group conversations. Everyone can roll up their chairs too (that is $100-$400 of savings per person right there, just in chair costs).
- Those who will service the infrastructure (like your ops and IT guys) should be part of every stage of planning. Some ideas might sound great for you, but may be a huge budget drain for your infrastructure folks. One badly placed power outlet or the lack of the right number of outlets in certain places could cause major headaches and needless retrofit costs.
- Don’t EVER ignore local building codes and laws. A fire marshal can shut down your entire office for one infraction he/she deems not safe. Back when I was in IL, the fire marshal could shut down your office even for one space heater your team member decided to bring in and use. Huge bonus points if your operations person knows the fire marshal on a first name basis.
- Don’t let marketing people anywhere close to layouts, color schemes, etc. Every time they look at it, your costs go up. Most first impressions about the company are made outside of the office walls. Invest in that, not garish color schemes that cause eye fatigue.
- Buy used office furniture. You can get impressive stuff for 1/3 the cost and no one will know. If you can buy it from another soon-to-move company directly, you will save even more. If you really have the funds, than go for quality IKEA type furniture (however much I love IKEA, I am convinced it is cheaper to get more quality stuff long-term).
- Make your building manager love you. Give gifts to them on their birthdays, occasional “just cause” cases of cookies, and gift certificates to restaurants. I found that an extremely cooperative building manager is worth their weight in gold.
- And the last one - be frugal but not cheap. Example: don’t ever be so cheap you use flat paint on the walls. Pay extra for at least eggshell or semi-gloss. You will be surprised how even the cleanest team creates endless scuffs and stains on the walls.
Hi, my name is Apolinaras Sinkevicius, but most call me Apollo. I am the guy who takes care of the day-to-day business and technology of rapidly growing companies. 12 years in managing the "nuts and bolts" of companies and being a steward of corporate cultures makes me a seasoned operations professional and right hand person to founders and CEOs.
You forgot one important thing in all of this very good description: moving services. Take care what company you may choose and especially if you are transporting sensitive data from one place to another. You should make a list of moving companies that could help you and choose the best price/quality ratio and maybe sometimes pay a little more, but you will be sure that all of your stuff gets in one piece at the destination.
When it comes to anything sensitive or extremely important to you – do it yourself. Servers and other sensitive equipment should be handled by company employees only.
EVERY moving company, however highly recommended and rated they were, screwed up somewhere. I have absolutely no confidence in moving companies.
In the case of startups, see if you can do it with your team. Skip the moving company, if you can, or just leave them to move stuff you don't care about losing.
Lastly, in unionized buildings you will be forced to hire overpriced inflexible slow union movers. If you do it with your team, they can't say anything.
You forgot one important thing in all of this very good description: moving services. Take care what company you may choose and especially if you are transporting sensitive data from one place to another. You should make a list of moving companies that could help you and choose the best price/quality ratio and maybe sometimes pay a little more, but you will be sure that all of your stuff gets in one piece at the destination.
When it comes to anything sensitive or extremely important to you – do it yourself. Servers and other sensitive equipment should be handled by company employees only.
EVERY moving company, however highly recommended and rated they were, screwed up somewhere. I have absolutely no confidence in moving companies.
In the case of startups, see if you can do it with your team. Skip the moving company, if you can, or just leave them to move stuff you don't care about losing.
Lastly, in unionized buildings you will be forced to hire overpriced inflexible slow union movers. If you do it with your team, they can't say anything.