Start-up office is an essential element of your journey. It is not something that you will change every day so you better choose it right the first time. But before you do, first let’s understand some basics:
How much area per employee?
How to choose what sq ft should you plan per employee? A thumb-rule says 175 sq ft per person is a perfect calculation for commercial office space. More than this would be unnecessary wastage of space.
Plan for future
Your company will surely hire few more folks soon. Better if you have a plan, then calculate your space accordingly keeping the future joinees in mind. In case the plan is not in place, then you can at least plan 30% extra space for urgent hiring.
The decor
Many start-up offices are choosing glamorous designs and artworks across the office. They now have some fancy designed chairs, tables, fooseball and what not. But if you are a bootstrapped start-up or a start-up that is currently not funded beyond Series B, you might want to tighten your purse on unnecessary decorations. While you should definitely have an encouraging atmosphere, it need not necessarily be jazzy. You may run a contest among your employees for decoration ideas and see if you can figure out some cool DIY stuff as well.
The location
This is important if you have clients visiting your office. You want your office to be in a convenient location for their easy travel. It should have proper signs and parking space. But if your office is more for employee workplace, then choose an office which is convenient on your budget. Also in this case you may even move to a Tier 2 town as it will provide you better rents and facilities.
Also consider the location of office in terms of its neighbourhood. You don’t want to choose a place so far that you end up travelling kilometers just to buy your raw materials (or a chai). Also check whether you will be able to find the right talent around the location? Or is the location good enough that your talent will be ready to move there?
Hope you get a great office space!
For any queries, write to me on Rajeev@TBSPlanet.com