Leases are an easy place to make expensive, and slightly long-lasting mistakes. In our first office:
1) we didn't insist that they install a mini-kitchen. Not a big deal for the first week, but sucked to have to take plates to the bathroom to wash, and not being able to have a coffee maker
2) we luckily negotiated dog-friendly -- I've known others who forgot to do this, and then found that their landlord wasn't open to negotiation
3) forgetting about parking spots. I don't think you should pay for them for employees, but having them available can be very helpful
4) +1 for having a great broker -- ours has treated us like a massive company, and always saves us money. I don't fully understand how they make money, but I'm not worried about it -- they're awesome.
Nowadays, there are co-working arrangements in most major cities with month to month leases. In the early stages, why bother getting locked into a lease at all?
There are also coffee shops and 101 other ways to work without a physical nexus.
I think at some point, however, when you're growing, having everyone in one location that is "home" can be very useful, and these tips are good for if you get to that point.
At Ontela, we thought that working virtually from home was awesome until we got office space. Then we realized that the office increased our productivity massively. It was a combination of no home distractions, less inclined to do pseudo-work things like checking HN, and being able to ask questions of and be inspired by folks around you.
The article is great... and I can't emphasize enough "short lease = good".
he didn't mention the 'co-sign the lease yourself or not' question... perhaps that's obvious to those of you who have funding and lawyers and stuff, but for those of us who don't, it can often be difficult to impossible to get leases without personally co-signing.
This is a good article and the same scrutiny should be applied when signing any contract.
In the past I was burned by contract with a data center for colocation of servers. The contract had a really _ugly_ termination clause.
The lease term was one year and company required 30 days notice of termination or the lease would auto-renew for another one year term. After 3 years of hosting our servers at this data center the company I was a part of dissolved. When we called to cancel the colocation we missed the notification deadline by a month and the contract renewed for another year. The data center had our servers and was unwilling to negotiate an early termination.
One key thing to remember is that for commercial spaces, you are bound to the text of the contract. If it's in there, you've agreed to it. If it's not, then don't count on it. This differs significantly from residential where you can't sign away certain rights.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 35.2 ms ] thread1) we didn't insist that they install a mini-kitchen. Not a big deal for the first week, but sucked to have to take plates to the bathroom to wash, and not being able to have a coffee maker
2) we luckily negotiated dog-friendly -- I've known others who forgot to do this, and then found that their landlord wasn't open to negotiation
3) forgetting about parking spots. I don't think you should pay for them for employees, but having them available can be very helpful
4) +1 for having a great broker -- ours has treated us like a massive company, and always saves us money. I don't fully understand how they make money, but I'm not worried about it -- they're awesome.
I think at some point, however, when you're growing, having everyone in one location that is "home" can be very useful, and these tips are good for if you get to that point.
The article is great... and I can't emphasize enough "short lease = good".
In the past I was burned by contract with a data center for colocation of servers. The contract had a really _ugly_ termination clause.
The lease term was one year and company required 30 days notice of termination or the lease would auto-renew for another one year term. After 3 years of hosting our servers at this data center the company I was a part of dissolved. When we called to cancel the colocation we missed the notification deadline by a month and the contract renewed for another year. The data center had our servers and was unwilling to negotiate an early termination.
Lesson learned.