3 ms·

Working at a table with my small team (4-6 people) in a small office was my favorite working environment. Any discussions are likely at least somewhat relevant

• dmix 7y ago
  For startups it's really not a significant expense if you do it right. We're a small team and have multiple developers in the original private office, which I'm assuming the prior occupant CEO previously used solo, and then the sales/support guy share the larger main office area. Plus all food is eaten in a common kitchen area (keeping various smells contained, which matters more in smaller offices, is quite easy via perfumes/scent policies and simply not eating at your desk). It works great for us and lets certain personalities control the level of interaction based on their tolerance. The sales guys love to chat naturally. For the employees who cross both sales/support + dev roles where we keep 1-2 "free" desks in the grouping which you can just pull your chair too. Multi-person office rooms is really the ideal solution. For us we could scale it up as the company grows by building a 3rd wall creating 3 offices of equal size capped at 4-6 people each. The hard part of course is scaling beyond that as almost every office property has been previously designed for with the open-concept in mind. Building your own walls or tearing down others isn't the easiest thing to do (or get approval for) in plenty of buildings, especially older ones. But as others have mentioned it's worth its weight in gold.