Start-up glamour and the trendy office

Note to self: “Settle down already.You don’t need to spend on trendy offices and fancy interior design to innovate”

Our company is a hybrid. We do client work during the day and turn into crazed hackers after 6.00pm. We’re half start-up, half consulting firm. And life in-between is not always easy. You have to switch mentality so often that many of us have dissociative identity disorder. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is for now but I don’t think we are the only ones. Surely there are other companies out there doing their client’s deeds while stealthily building a product of their own. But there’s no denying the appeal of the start-up life.

So when I read @homebrew’s Hunter Walk post about their new office my start-up-founder-wannabe-self goes Ooooh! Wow! I want … *drool* . And all that noise wakes his strategist alter-ego, who comes down with a smack behind the ears and this: Settle down already. You don’t want the start-up life, trust me. All this glamour and pretty talk is bait. You don’t need to spend on trendy offices and fancy interior design to innovate.

I’m too emotionally involved in this monologue to tell who’s right and who’s got an ego problem but I know that @homebrew is not the only company with cool, trendy, home-comfy offices. So I wonder, should we spend energy to make our office more comfortable ? Or maybe we’re not at that stage yet. So when does it become important to invest more in your working environment?

Our staff are already making the nest in the office. They bring they own personal equipment. They bring their own coffee maker and I think there is a sleeping bag in our kitchen. So, is there much of a point in making the office more comfortable at this stage? Look at Google, Facebook and other tech companies. Their office is better furnished than my apartment! How can any start-up (or non-start-up) keep up with this?

This leads me to think that all the perks and fancy offices is part of the competition for talent. It’s about attracting people and getting the first pick. It’s selling glamour because, hey, who doesn’t like a bit of glamour, right? So here’s to my start-up-founder-wannabe self :”settle down already …”. You know.

This is not to say that I don’t see the point of offering great working environment to our team. I get what Google and Facebook and @homebrew are doing. But for most companies who have to count pennies, lofty office isn’t the priority list.