
Why is it so difficult to find an office for my startup? - tmwatson100
http://spaciousapp.com/blog/why-is-it-difficult-find-office-online/
======
leonroy
The post seems slightly melodramatic and certainly doesn't mirror my
experience finding an office for our company in the same area.

I'll agree that trying to find an office in London _online_ is pretty futile -
the best thing to do is leave the desk and take a walk.

Allocate an afternoon or two to pound pavement and start calling all the
letting agencies with signs on the outside of buildings.

In one afternoon I managed to get two viewings sorted for the same day and
several for the following days. Most of the agents would email us a daily
summary of new properties they'd get in which met our requirements (1500sq ft,
Old Street area etc.)

We had our new office sorted within two to three weeks. 6 month rolling lease.

Only fly in the ointment is that I'm still getting emails!

~~~
atoosh
Hi Leonroy

I'm Tushar, co-founder of Spacious (tushar@spaciousapp.com)

I'm glad that you found the process easy once you called up the relevant
agents.

The problem we are trying to fix is finding the space online. A lot of people
don't want to commit the time to pounding the pavements and physically calling
numbers. They would rather be able to browse space online, see all the
relevant information and be able to make an informed decision about what they
would like to view. In an age where we can browse most things from the comfort
of our home, why should commercial property be different? This is especially
the case for those who don't live near the area they would like to move into.

Again, everyone's different and I do very much appreciate the feedback!

I agree there are some agents out there who are excellent, and we maintain a
very good relationship with them over here in London.

~~~
leonroy
Hi Tushar, you raise a fair point and you're right spaciousapp does solve a
problem that could do with being a little easier for us couch surfers :)

Site looks pretty good. Like the app, and I think once our lease is up
(sometime this year) we might just be using it!

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bowlofpetunias
This may not apply anywhere else (though I suspect it does), but in the
Netherlands the office space market is deliberately kept obscure due to the
much higher supply than demand. Many thousands of square meters of office
space are currently vacant, and real estate investors are terrified of the
paper value of that office space collapsing.

As a result, cost and availability are deliberately kept obscure. Cheap small
office space is abundant, but usually not offered publicly. You have to ask,
and then you get things like "sure, we can split this huge space into smaller
units", or "we'll throw in x-months free rent" (so they can officially keep
the rent, and therefor the value, high).

~~~
tmwatson100
Hi Bowlofpetunias,

Absolutely, this is the norm rather than the exception. However, asymmetric
information only works as long as most parties in the market are acting in
this way. As soon as people start being more open, this changed the landscape
very quickly, which is what we are seeing in London.

If the market does indeed stay that way, rather than wasting time talking to
individual spaces we are working on technology that should be able to inform
all those with space (even if they keep the price hidden) of search and budget
requirements of a potential. This should at least open dialogue.

------
mattmanser
Feedback on the actual app:

Make the pictures click-able in the search view. In fact, why not make the
whole search result click-able...

Also the -/\+ and the </> buttons are just a bit of a strange UX feature and
have too small a hit area for such an important feature.

I was a bit confused as to what the '£500' actually meant, turns out it's
pppm. I now notice you have a hover state, but hmmmm.

Also the font looks _horrible_ on Win 7 Chrome. I know, I know, it's Chrome's
fault, but it still looks horrible.

Overall, nice app, looks good.

~~~
tmwatson100
Cheers for the feedback, all valid.

We've heard some of those things before and will definitely keep iterating on
it!

Appreciate you taking the time to comment!

------
jamiesoncj
This post really underlines my own experience of trying to find an office
space for a startup in London. There are so many sharks out there, and
everyone tries to get you to sign a 3 year (or more!) lease. We might not be
around in 6 months! But co-working spaces are sometimes just as bad,
especially the ones which are basically just feeder funnels for landlords who
want you to upgrade to one of their serviced offices / large units (looking at
you, ClubWorkspace). I think what Spacious is doing is really cool therefore -
and I'll definitely be trying out the service when our current office space
expires at the end of March :)

~~~
roel_v
"We might not be around in 6 months!"

What kind of premium were you prepared to pay for this risk to the owner? If
your answer is <10%, or even <50% depending on the actual amounts we're
talking here, do you find it irrational that you had trouble finding an
office?

~~~
mattmanser
What risk?

That they'll have to pay advertising again?

Because if you don't move in, it's still empty.

~~~
roel_v
This post just shows that you have never let out any real estate. Let me tell
you, it's not as simple as this.

It's not just the 50$ or whatever to put up one online ad. You need to
advertise on several websites plus offline. You need to show around various
candidates, and do background checks on the serious ones. You have to transfer
utilities, deal with mail, and other assorted tasks when somebody moves in.
All of this for (in terms of yield) slim margins. And assuming that nothing is
damaged or needs fixing up after somebody moves out.

Now, for commercial space it gets worse. When they go out of business, it's
highly unlikely that you will recover the owed rent - likely several (2-3)
months. Commercial real estate is vacant for longer, and having a tenant 'in
between' basically 'resets' the cycle of getting a new tenant. (businesses
take a few weeks to months before deciding, residential is usually faster,
i.e. faster turnover)

Also, businesses usually make changes when they move in, not always for the
better (network rewiring, dividing space etc for offices - for storefront it's
much worse still). If they go bankrupt, you as the owner are stuck with the
cost of repairing. The deposit (a paltry 2 or 3 months rent) is usually not
sufficient.

Again, all of this is assuming that there are no 'real' troubles - no lawyers
involved, no 'real' renovations needed after they move out, ... Just the cost
of getting somebody to dispose of an abandoned office full of furniture costs
a month rent, because second-hand office furniture isn't worth anything!

For me, I don't bother with terms of < 6 months for rentals, not even for a
100% premium (residential that is, I don't do commercial). And 1-year leases I
only take as a 'probation' period, if it's clear from the beginning that they
have no or little intention on staying longer, I won't accept such a
candidate. Financially it just doesn't make any sense, and I'm not even
counting the stress and the hassle.

~~~
mattmanser
_For me, I don 't bother with terms of < 6 months for rentals...I don't do
commercial_

Well there you go. The standard in residential is 6 months - year, so what are
you talking about?

It sounds like someone trashed your residential house and you're personally
angry about it.

Being screwed over is a risk of doing any business and you can't take it
personally. Some people will screw you over, not pay invoices, bills, etc.

You can't base all your future dealings off that one event.

~~~
roel_v
What? How can that be what you take away from my post? I don't know what
geographic area you know about and if 6 months to a year are anything but
exceptions there, but my whole point was that short term (< 1 year) rentals
don't make financial sense, unless you put a big premium on it. The premium
would be 100% or so (as I said, for others, who can be bothered, which I
can't), whereas the discount for >5 years is 0, or 5% at best.

Nobody trashed any of my properties, and the disputes I had were settled in my
favor by the courts. I'm a lawyer, I can take care of myself. My point wasn't
about me - it was about illustrating that short term rentals don't make
financial sense at the rates people expect, and that most prospective tenants
don't see that. Everybody thinks that real estate is easy money, but it's very
competitive, the margins are slim and one decision on who to rent to can make
or break your ROI for that year.

------
ChuckMcM
Personally I think this would have worked better for me if it were a 'Show
HN:' type post rather than a blogvertisement.

That said, look at www.42Floors.com, clean, crisp, right to the point. Better
yet hope they don't open a London branch :-). As an exemplar for an online
experience tailored to a particular demographic (small space seekers, ie
startups) they hit a lot of the right pain points. Sort by neighborhood?
check, space constraints? Check, it goes on but I'm not here to advertise
them, I'm just comparing notes.

If you're catering to startups, and it looks like you are, then the 'office
space' problem is probably the CEO or VP Ops' "other" job. Their needs change
from seed, to series A, to series B+. How do you transition them into 'bigger'
space and hand over the reigns to dedicated facilities person in the company?
Do you co-ordinate other services? Janitorial, snacks services, 'fix it' type
services? How about vetting/rating landlords, another useful service for the
startup founder. If you want to be the "AppStore of Space" you need to
consider that the person using your service really doesn't want to make it
their life's work, and at the same time doesn't want to look stupid for
picking "this space."

~~~
tmwatson100
Thanks Chuck!

Really appreciate the feedback and we have indeed looked at 42floors

The other points you mentioned are things we are thinking hard about at the
moment and building out solutions using a lot of customer discovery

------
ghiro
I have literally all the problems you outlined in the blog and so I checked
out the app. It looks cool but why on earth do I have to signup for an account
after browsing for a bit? I understand that at some point you want people to
login for the enquiry but it makes browsing a new application very very
irritating.

Additionally, my biggest annoyance with the commercial real estate is the
"MANY OFFICES UP TO Xsqft/FROM £Y". I was hoping this would be something where
the lettor had to list offices as opposed to just a general space that can be
broken up.

------
angelohuang
When we started our project Peer.im ([http://peer.im](http://peer.im)), we
were very lucky to find an office in Santa Clara for merely $500 a month. The
space is large enough for 6 people. If anyone is interested, here is the
address. 3200 Coronado Drive, Santa Clara.

------
pc86
It would be helpful to see different map markets for shared/serviced/SA, or to
have the markers change with tab selection.

~~~
tmwatson100
Thanks pc86 - really helpful feedback!

------
nikanj
It's easy to see how this benefits startups, but what's the upside for the
landlords?

~~~
tmwatson100
Hi Nikanj,

We think this is of enormous benefit to landlords:

1\. Fill vacant space for which you are business rates (UK specific)

2\. Be more visible in search for when companies are looking for space

3\. Have visibility over the state of the market and what type of space people
are demanding

4\. Have confidence that if you let your space on a flexible basis, that you
will always be able to sustain a high rate of occupancy

5\. A beautiful profile of your space online, where thousands of businesses
looking for space in your area can come across you

------
apunic
Linkbait

~~~
atoosh
Hey apunic

Thanks for the feedback!

We were initially hesitant in posting this on HN because of this exact reason.
However, this was actually posted on our blog and people actually found the
content useful. This included not only those who were searching for space, but
also serviced office operators and some of the largest commercial agents in
London.

We decided to post it on here this week to see if people had the same problems
in London, but also in other cities.

The market is very opaque, so it took us a while to figure out and articulate
these issues.

------
ahtomski
So what do you do apart from just list spaces?

~~~
atoosh
Hey there ahtomski!

I'm Tushar, co-founder of Spacious (tushar@spaciousapp.com).

Our vision is to make renting an office easy by pulling together a fragmented
market and presenting the company searching with all the options available for
their specific criteria.

Once you know where you want to move to, we help you arrange your entire move,
storage, furniture, utilities etc.

If you are renting out excess space, we manage the entire headache of taking
rental payments and licencing agreement for your space.

Do let me know if you have any more questions!

------
n0
Why is it so difficult to read that font?

~~~
atoosh
Apologies n0! We just started blogging and are yet to optimise our post page
for design.

I agree with you - it needs to be easier on the eyes!

~~~
Heavy
You need to stop hotlinking all your images too:

www.washingtonparent.com, creativeteachersupport.files.wordpress.com,
www.nicoletschampel.com, etc...

~~~
tmwatson100
All valid - thanks for the feedback!

