<em(The Swanky Office Space con’t…)

So what should I not have?

Here are three quick “never haves” from my past experience:

Open Work Spaces

When I first saw those dot-come spaces that were all open I thought they were really cool. Then I had one for our office and all I could think of is “everybody shut up!”. It was very noisy and you couldn’t have any kind of private conversation. You usually had to walk out of the room on your cell to talk to someone. The “ad-hoc” conferences became distracting for people that were not involved and need to get real work done. Don’t do this. You will regret it.

Huge Lobby Areas

This is just a waste of money. Most startups leave the receptionist as the last job hire so the front area is usually empty. Keep it small and simple. And no expensive furniture that no one sits on while they are waiting for someone.

Massive offices for executives

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You must be thinking, I am the master of my company I should have the biggest office so everyone knows who the CEO is. Trust me, they know who signs their checks so they know who the CEO is. You probably hired them yourself. Big offices just piss the rest of the staff off because it communicates that you deserve better than the rest of your staff when you are busting your ass as much as they are but still they come to resent you. Resist the massive office, you will have more space to put valuable staff in its place.

So what do I really need to have?

Here are three quick “must haves” from my past experience:

A big break room with free stuff

Tiny little crappy kitchen says to everyone that they should eat at their desk and never talk to each other. Smart startups put free stuff in their fridge (e.g. sodas, beer, snacks) and have good water machines along with great coffee machines. This keeps people fed when they are working late nights or want to work through lunch. You might also be surprised that buying lunch once a week can really keep morale up.

A “fun room”

Of course you should have big break room, but with many startups you are probably hiring a younger, hipper crowd. What better way to create real camaraderie than to have a plasma with a Wii or Xbox and have lunch or Happy Hour tournaments of Guitar Hero or Halo. People have fun and it helps give them an overall perception that going to work can actually be an enjoyable thing.

Great chairs, crappy tables and large multi-monitors for your people

I heard this from Jason Calcanis but he must have gotten this from me. People don’t need fancy desks, heck they really need a table to work from. The chair is way more important. People are sitting on their butts for 8-12 hours a day. Great chairs like Aerons are amazing and keep people from having to go to the chiropractor and be out of work and ultimately raise your health care costs

The other part of this great work environment is providing large multiple monitors because it has been proven that people see at least a 30% productivity improvement with two monitors. Go with two 24″ monitors so they can multi-task maximize the effectiveness for your company. Plus, if you have video game LAN parties after work, HALO looks amazing across two monitors. I am just saying….

So when is the time to get the swanky space?

Mostly, never. Spend it on getting good people.