How to Create a (Great?) Startup Office Space While Being Absurdly Cheap | Hacker News Reader

How to Create a (Great?) Startup Office Space While Being Absurdly Cheap

dontrepreneur.com

30 pointsdcharlton48 comments

This article was totally reasonable and interesting until I got to this part:

Employee office chairs – $60 to $80 (must be ergonomic!)

Your office chair – $150 to $200 (it is worth it)

Huh? Now I'm left wondering what else is wrong with this guy.

Fair enough – the intent was to say as the founder you should splurge on yourself a little – not to say you're providing others with inferior stuff. I was able to find great chairs at an affordable price. When I can afford Aeron chairs for everyone, I would do that!

I removed that part because it takes away from the point of the article.

I think that first sentence is profoundly wrongheaded. It's not just unpleasant, it's also penny-wise and pound-foolish. It is very hard to keep employees happy over the long term. Turnover is extremely expensive, and expensive in insidious ways. Employees already think that the founder is getting all sorts of perks that they aren't getting. Making that clearly apparent to everyone by giving yourself better digs is a terrible business move.

I just tracked you down on LinkedIn (we're only 3 hops away!). This is your first company. I'm not on my first company. Let me spare you a lesson I am still gradually learning the hard way: whatever day-to-day pains and frustrations your team is dealing with, you should be sharing.

Take the extra money for the Aeron chair and buy a couple of six packs for the office. I may have just saved you several tens of thousands of dollars with that bit of advice.

"Let me spare you a lesson I am still gradually learning the hard way: whatever day-to-day pains and frustrations your team is dealing with, you should be sharing."

This is a great lesson. People only fix problems when it affects them directly. If you are sitting in a better chair and a developer says that his chair doesn't suit him, you will take it as whining. After all, there is nothing wrong with your chair.

However if you are sitting in the same chairs, you will experience what it is like. After a few weeks, you may realise that these chairs are horrible for your back.

I lived in Kenya before where the roads are terrible and full of potholes. To avoid this problem, the President had special shock absorbers installed on his limousine. After all, he is President. He must deserve it and splurge on himself. Now when he goes anywhere he doesn't experience the same things others do. Since there is now no problem for him, there is no incentive for him to fix the roads.

Don't be a leader who only solves his own problems.

See my comment above about the employee perks. I forgot to mention the fridge is already stocked with drinks and snacks. I am indeed learning and appreciate your feedback.

Employees in this office will have plenty of perks – including $100 travel reimbursement per month, plus free lunch every day. I would not want to hire someone bogged down into such minute details of chairs when the entire space is obviously meant to make it as comfortable for them as possible.

are you kidding me? After the PC/Laptop/screen the type of chair is very very important. Any developer that is worth something, knows that they will have to sit down for long period of time, it better be a good chair.

If not, then it shows a lot about the employer. You risk looking like a company that buys cheap desktops, and and small screens to save money, but don't realise they are loosing tons in the way of lost productivity.

At home I have an $200 Ikea chair, and it is really nice. Not bank breaking for sure, but I expect my employer buy something similar in comfort level. Doesn't have to be a top of the line, but something that I can sit for few hours at a time without breaking my back.

I learned it the hard way, but I will never work in a place that cheaps out on chairs.

If you can't afford a $200 chair per employee, then you shouldn't be hiring. You need founders, and they can bring their own chair.

I think not hiring because you can't afford $200 chairs is silly-I can either hire you now or wait until I can afford 600 chairs. There are part time employees out there too! I was specifically referring to the fact that as an employer I am doing the best I can to get good chairs within a budget. These chairs are extremely comfortable and happened to be affordable.

I went to IKEA looking for chairs—and hated all of them. To me, these chairs are very comfortable.

I think you're missing my point. Chair quality is a red herring. It's "visibly splurging on the founder" that's going to kill you.

If you stopped by our office I think you would say there isn't any splurging anywhere-we aren't VC backed

I would much rather have a comfortable chair than free lunch everyday. Free lunch would save me some money but a good chair will save health problems down the road and make me feel better while working.

Why don't you trade the free lunch for better chairs?

I recently went ergonomic chair shopping and find it extremely hard to believe you can get a decent chair for $60-80. The price range was 10x that where I looked.

The chairs in this photo - http://dontrepreneur.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/office2.jpg - do not look anywhere near ergonomic. If it only goes up and down, it's not ergonomic.

This is a great idea that fits our budget

Very nice job on a $4,500 budget. I am impressed with your results.

It stands to reason that everyone is different and some people will not care one way or the other about this, some will hate it and think it’s dumb, and some will think it’s heaven on earth. I think when you hire if you look for the type of person who truly appreciates this type of environment as much as you do you will have a much better team for yourself. I think that someone who finds this workspace as invigorating as you do will excel in this environment more than they would in a drab one and may end up producing at a higher level than someone who does not.

This color scheme and attention to detail is not for everyone, but it is for you and your company--it sets you apart. It really seems to set the tone for your company culture right now and I think you should stick to your guns on this plan as you grow larger and try to hire those who share your appreciation for it. Build a GOOD TEAM.

I'm working at a fairly established small programming shop, and the boss basically set a budget and let us choose our own desks and chairs.

Because I wanted a fairly fancy chair and didn't really give a crap about having an "executive-looking" desk, I splurged on the chair a bit ($299 on sale for $249), got a fancy n-way adjustable keyboard tray second-hand ($100), and a Fredrik desk from Ikea ($149).

Chair: http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/510830/Realspace-PRO-9...

It's super comfortable and adjusts in height, seat depth, back height, armrest height and position, etc. The only downside is that it could use another half inch of seat height (and I'm not even six feet tall)

Desk: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60115989

I can't say enough good things about this desk. I've got the first of the two top shelves about six inches above the desktop with two 19" monitors on it. With bigger monitors I would take it down one notch, but there would be room for dual 27" screens. I did have to put a couple of spacers to mount the keyboard tray, as there's a cross-brace that's in the way.

Here's my setup: http://img39.yfrog.com/i/fobj.jpg/

We did this too and I advise against it. There are desks that people will find that will screw up your space in unpredictable ways. Get everyone the same desk.

(For what it's worth, we eventually standardized on the same Ikea Frederick desk you like).

awesome suggestions

One of the more horrific color choices I've seen in a while.

I like that it's colorful, even if the colors are kind of hamhanded; it's good for your office to have an identity. I wish we could paint our offices (we could, but we need to be able to trade up to bigger offices on very little notice).

Instead of painting your office, you could print posters.

Assuming you can find a cheap printing place, there are tons of high resolution creative commons images on flickr and elsewhere.

My university has a super cheap copymat, it may be that a university near you has similarly cheap prices.

Posters = clutter, and I'm already pretty cluttered:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45585199@N07/4186099566/

It's a great idea, though.

That's a good point: if there's a poster there then it can't be a white board.

Me too. The last office I was in was all grey and white. I would prefer lots of colours even if they are all mismatched. It's better than looking like a prison.

Have you taken a look at how much it would cost to repaint your office beige when you needed to? It could be worth it in the productivity gain department to paint your offices interesting colors and then contract out when you need the bigger space. Though don't skimp on the chairs to paint the office.

Yeah pretty vivid. I'd have gone with much more muted colors to avoid the day-care center look.

I think also I should not have punched up the saturation in the photos!

Interesting article, particularly in regards to the tax credit for office spaces (I happen to be in Pittsburgh, might be useful knowledge for the future).

I guess I don't agree with everyone else here, but I think it all came together well and I actually enjoy the color choices

Agreed - Also in Pittsburgh here. Looks like he was able to get office space on the North Side that qualifies for that tax credit. Not a bad area at all - just a short walk along the riverfront park to PNC Park/Heinz Field!

We did something similar with Citizen Space I in San Francisco (CS has since relocated to the ground floor of the same building in a different space, with decor less to my liking).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/294769682/

As you will see from the photo we were able to create a very slick space for little money - mainly using Ikea furniture.

I believe we worked out that our budget for 6 people was less than 3 Aeron chairs.

I don't get what the point of hiring more employees if you don't outfit them with the most productive tools. Great machine, great monitor, great chair- 5-6k max.

Of course you get the best hardware - this article was meant to show that even a non VC backed company could get an office up and running. Were the other tips helpful?

Someone once (okay, I forgot the article this was in) recommended that for an engineering/programming office it's a good idea to get a pool (snooker, billiards, etc) table for a recreational area. This helps lessen eye strain as there are many different coloured balls at differing distances that one must focus on and thus relaxes the eyes.

Also if you have reasonably even matches players it's quite fun to play.

I wish he'd speak more about what prompted him to get an office space. Is it because he's hiring more people? Did he consider virtual collaboration models instead of a 'real office?' Did he just want to get out of the house?

I am beginning to bring on part-time help and needed an office space so we could collaborate. Plus the business needed to feel more "real"—this is a hard concept to explain but what happens in your house can sometimes feel more like a hobby.

Ah - got it. Just curious, but are you basically getting most of your part time help from locals to Pittsburg? Any particular reason why you're not sticking to virtual? Also, did you consider a co-working facility (not even sure if they have any in Pittsburg, but they sure are cropping up everywhere)

I considered a co-working facility—I would have loved the collaboration, but this was a great deal for some private space.

Working at home makes you treat things differently than waking up and going to a space 100% dedicated to work. Maybe it's just me, but it seemed like the right time after 12 months.

The best startup office tip I have heard is buying sheets of 'Solid White Tileboard' from home depot. It is a material used in commercial shower installations that works well as a white board. 8x12 sheet is ~14 dollars.

I did that once and hated the results. I glued it to a wooden backboard and it's very obvious where there is glue. Maybe it's just my poor craftsmanship, but if I were to do it again, I would look for some cheap glass (old shower doors on craigslist) and paint the back of it white.

Not able to find that on the Home Depot website. Do you have a link by any chance?

I wasn't able to find it on the site either, but it was in their lumber department. I read about it on a couple blogs: http://www.johnmurch.com/2007/10/20/diy-whiteboard-on-the-ch...

That's pretty expensive, isn't it? (I assume those are inches, not feet).

They're feet - whiteboard is cheap. (I don't have any experience with whiteboard paint.)

A whiteboard room may be the best investment you can make.

No, that is feet.

That is crazy-ass cheap. URL?

This seems to be the same, but at Lowes. Correct me if I'm wrong: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&prod...

I found out about his after I purchased white boards

Looks more like kindergarten than an office space. Where are the crayons?

What's a decent ergonomic chair for under $100?

Bizchair.com around the holidays had some great deals.

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