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I am still surprised by how many early startups have offices. After seeing it burn two different startups I was at, I am baffled why they burn money to have of

I am still surprised by how many early startups have offices. After seeing it burn two different startups I was at, I am baffled why they burn money to have offices in a big city when money is tight (or they should be acting like it, rather than assuming they will always get another round at favorable terms) When you are stable and profitable, having an office isn't that big of a deal. When you are burning money and looking down a cliff, maybe a $25k+ / mo expense is better spent hiring someone. Plus you can ethically pay people under market and both sides are happy (employee cuts their expenses by 50%+, you cut your payroll by 25%). Your employees will be happier, you get to pay them less, no need to buy desks, you can scale your business infinitely and you get rid of likely your biggest expense. Startups could even spend a tiny fraction on improving their employee's offices. $1k yearly home office stipend would be huge for an employee, but a drop in the bucket compared to $1k / employee / month office expense. VC funding causes people to make dumb decisions.

bengale 6y ago
The inverse of an off-site presumably. Where people would go away from the office for a meeting.
poisonborz 6y ago
Don't know about other places, but in Europe office space in central metropolitan area is as low as 1-2 employee's monthly wage. For 10+ people, the community benefits are clearly there. The bigger question is, can the company quickly scale with finding on-site people around the area quickly enough?
- carterklein13 6y ago
  Depends on the location. In NYC, at least, that's definitely not the case (and it's a big reason why Manhattan is quickly turning into block after block of Starbucks followed by Chase Bank followed by Chipotle).
marcinzm 6y ago
Remote makes communication harder and startups generally lack good process. Bad communication + bad process = a disaster. Startups can't have good process because they don't know what they're doing yet so process would be a slow down. Startups can also be very stressful and without the human empathy component (that is hard to gain remotely) small arguments can explode into epics nuclear explosions. Startups are about balancing a bunch of things rather than having some type of optimal stable configuration. Working in an office let's you balance a bunch of other things more easily.
- gravypod 6y ago
  There's a large amount of software built on free time by much larger teams than are staffing new startups that are nearly exclusively remote. For example Linux has always been developed remotely from what I can tell.
  - eipipuz 6y ago
    There might be a survivor bias here. How can we know how many similar projects didn't make it out of that cohort?
    - gravypod 6y ago
      What successful oss has been originally built by in office teams? I struggle to think of things past golang or mysql.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        The point is that there are lots of failed oss projects. Further, a startup has a lot more requirements than an oss hobby project. For your hobby you can send an email to a listserv and say “burned out, taking a three month break” or you can focus exclusively on the code. But a startup needs to make money or it can’t pay people. You don’t just need code. You need a product and you need to sell it.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Start-ups live and die on fast frictionless communication speed is every thing. Larger companies can live with the slower pace the remote communication creates - exasperating as that can be.
- nikolay 6y ago
  Wait, sitting at an office and still using Slack makes on-site work much different than remote? You think in-person meetings at work are productive? I can't forget the nice excuse to have an hour-long meeting, which lasted only 15 minutes, but people had a proof on their calendar that they "worked" for an hour. Or "starting work" at 9am... but really having coffee and eating breakfast until 10am... or having a 2-hour lunch break, which was supposed to be just one hour. Oh, wait, it was a working lunch. Although offices open at 9am, nobody dared to schedule meetings before 10am or in the 1pm-2pm interval for the above-mentioned reason. Can't forget also the blood-sugar spike right after lunch when people were falling asleep during the afternoon meetings. I've been working remotely in the past 10+ years and I'm never looking into on-site work again! The time "invested" in commute with all the risks associated with driving are not worth it - even if it pays slightly better. But usually it doesn't. For example, in Orange County, CA you can't find a well-paying job - the best jobs are remote and OC is not a fringe case! Remote work is the nightmare of micromanagers! Everybody else loves remote work!
bby 6y ago
sir but then you lose out on the Culture.
dangerface 6y ago
> I am still surprised by how many early startups have offices. Business is a cargo cult

bengale 6y ago

The inverse of an off-site presumably. Where people would go away from the office for a meeting.

poisonborz 6y ago

Don't know about other places, but in Europe office space in central metropolitan area is as low as 1-2 employee's monthly wage. For 10+ people, the community benefits are clearly there. The bigger question is, can the company quickly scale with finding on-site people around the area quickly enough?

carterklein13 6y ago
Depends on the location. In NYC, at least, that's definitely not the case (and it's a big reason why Manhattan is quickly turning into block after block of Starbucks followed by Chase Bank followed by Chipotle).

marcinzm 6y ago

Remote makes communication harder and startups generally lack good process. Bad communication + bad process = a disaster. Startups can't have good process because they don't know what they're doing yet so process would be a slow down. Startups can also be very stressful and without the human empathy component (that is hard to gain remotely) small arguments can explode into epics nuclear explosions. Startups are about balancing a bunch of things rather than having some type of optimal stable configuration. Working in an office let's you balance a bunch of other things more easily.

gravypod 6y ago
There's a large amount of software built on free time by much larger teams than are staffing new startups that are nearly exclusively remote. For example Linux has always been developed remotely from what I can tell.
- eipipuz 6y ago
  There might be a survivor bias here. How can we know how many similar projects didn't make it out of that cohort?
  - gravypod 6y ago
    What successful oss has been originally built by in office teams? I struggle to think of things past golang or mysql.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      The point is that there are lots of failed oss projects. Further, a startup has a lot more requirements than an oss hobby project. For your hobby you can send an email to a listserv and say “burned out, taking a three month break” or you can focus exclusively on the code. But a startup needs to make money or it can’t pay people. You don’t just need code. You need a product and you need to sell it.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

Start-ups live and die on fast frictionless communication speed is every thing. Larger companies can live with the slower pace the remote communication creates - exasperating as that can be.

nikolay 6y ago
Wait, sitting at an office and still using Slack makes on-site work much different than remote? You think in-person meetings at work are productive? I can't forget the nice excuse to have an hour-long meeting, which lasted only 15 minutes, but people had a proof on their calendar that they "worked" for an hour. Or "starting work" at 9am... but really having coffee and eating breakfast until 10am... or having a 2-hour lunch break, which was supposed to be just one hour. Oh, wait, it was a working lunch. Although offices open at 9am, nobody dared to schedule meetings before 10am or in the 1pm-2pm interval for the above-mentioned reason. Can't forget also the blood-sugar spike right after lunch when people were falling asleep during the afternoon meetings. I've been working remotely in the past 10+ years and I'm never looking into on-site work again! The time "invested" in commute with all the risks associated with driving are not worth it - even if it pays slightly better. But usually it doesn't. For example, in Orange County, CA you can't find a well-paying job - the best jobs are remote and OC is not a fringe case! Remote work is the nightmare of micromanagers! Everybody else loves remote work!

bby 6y ago

sir but then you lose out on the Culture.

dangerface 6y ago

> I am still surprised by how many early startups have offices. Business is a cargo cult