After tearing through Jessica Livingston's new book, Founders at Work, I was happy to see that of the 30+ companies that were profiled, just about all of them pointed out that they started off in crappy offices.
Livingston interviewed the founders of companies like Apple, PayPal, and ViaWeb, among many others. In just about every case they mentioned how they were working out of their apartments or makeshift offices, nothing like the big glass palaces of the corporate behemoths.
I think many startup founders think that startup companies need to look and feel like big companies. They think about what the workers of GE and IBM would have worn in the 80's and therefore don the shirt, tie or skirt-suit.
The truth is that startup offices are meant to be old, crappy, and cheap. They are meant to be makeshift hovels that serve one purpose - to provide power and an Internet connection. Anything else is just frivolous.
Go BIG is still in it's startup phases, as we're in year two of operations. We're very lucky, though. We're holed up in the Business Technology Center in Columbus, Ohio which is an incubator for startup companies. We've got well-equipped Class-A space with about 30 other companies here. And it's really cheap.
In the past this wasn't always the case.
When I started my first company, Blue Diesel, the only office space we could find was an old hippie clothing store on the Ohio State campus. It had no heat, no A/C, and no functional bathroom. But it was across the street from our dorms, and since no one had cars, it did the trick.
We outfitted that office with about $500 of furniture and supplies, most of which came from salvage or stuff we built from scratch. It didn't matter though. We had power and an Internet connection - we were off to the races.
Later on, like many companies, we went out of our way to pay for and create "really nice office space" so that we could look like a big company. So we went out and leased nicer space, bought nicer furniture, and picked up a few plants, because that's what big companies have - plants.
The change to our space did nothing. Revenues didn't go up, clients didn't care, and our overall demeanor toward the business didn't change a bit. The only thing we accomplished was creating more cost and a big distraction with moving and buying more stuff we didn't need.
Our original space was better. We were a struggling company and the space reflected it. I think what startups need is a space that reflects their condition, not a space that provides an illusion of what they are not.
If you're in a service business and you need to meet with clients, find a way to do it anywhere but your own offices. And if push comes to shove don't be afraid to say that you spend next to nothing on your offices - that's why you can be so competitive in your pricing. There's no shame in humility.
If you're a startup company and your space sucks, keep it that way. It's what a startup office is supposed to look like!