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I am a man of two hats, my first hat revolves around a very established business. We have customers, battle scars and have been in the space for years. Its a great company to work for, although I am very senior, I am not the founder and I wasn't there at the beginning.My second hat revolves around my startup Powered Now. We are a 5 person team spread over the globe. Our product is a business administration platform for the Field Services world, we are hoping to launch into private beta within a few weeks.My established business is a bit of a hybrid. We have two offices in the UK and a distributed workforce of about 20 working at home. I really get to see both the advantages and disadvantages of office / home working. It works for us, but we have been doing this for a long time and I wonder if I am being blinded by the convenience factor.With Powered Now I have a distributed team, half of us are in the UK the other half are based in Budapest, we try to meet up to work together once every 4 to 6 weeks. When we do its insanely productive, but I wonder if it would be better if we were under the same roof?If you believe the guys at 37 signals home working is the way forward, and to some extent I believe them, its enabled us to go to the best people instead of hiring in a limited area. However I'd be interested in your stories, have you consolidated a team into an office, or did you do the reverse? Are our productive meetups that good because they are a relatively rare event or would it be like that every day? Also if you were founding a startup today, how would you do it?I'd love to hear your stories and advice.Thanks,Ben

My startup began life working from home/remotely. We had a team spread between London and Brighton.We moved into a shared office space in London which an early investor helped to hook us up with. It sucked. It was a crummy, distracting environment. A lot of people there were working on pretty weird/lame projects (including a Russian "get rich quick!" motivational speaker, who was apparently had eight-digit wealth but worked from a £100p/m office space).Things which are poisonous to your productivity:• "Networking" events of any kind • Talkative people who are working on projects which they don't believe in • Talkative people who are working on projects which they do believe in • People from other projects who want your advice on something • People from other projects who have heard you just did a raise and want to ask questions • People from other projects who want you to test something really quickly just this once • "Oh you must just meet this person they're so relevant to your project" • Anyone talking on the phone for any length of time (this is personal. I find it annoying to hear one-sided conversations).We just moved in to shared office space with a YC company and another company. It has only been a week or so but already we're more productive and it feels more like "work" (in a good way). Fewer meeting rooms but fewer distractions. More focus.Don't go to a shared workspace. You'll do poor quality work with a ton of distractions. Find another company who have some spare desks, and go there.Working from home is not productive for most people (hence all the "HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE WORKING FROM HOME" linkbait articles you see all over Lifehacker and occasionally on HN).It's also a psychological help to have somewhere that you invite people: you invite investors to your office, you don't go to them. Even being able to say "we can do it at our place?" makes you seem like you have clout.HTH.

Having an office makes such a difference to work flow and production. Also good to have a hub, where people can always drop in.We use a number of freelancers they like to work from home, but its great they can always drop in and work in the office for a few days.

A combination of co-working + working from home is low cost and provides space and collaboration when you want it.

Ask HN: So, does my startup need an office?

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Ask HN: So, does my startup need an office?

3 条评论