It wasn’t long after Shree and I started Jott that our wives got sick of us being/brainstorming at home, and we needed to find a place for a developer or two.
HQ v1.0
We found ActivSpace, a wonderful menagerie of psychics, massage therapists, guitar teachers– you name it. Their proposition is simple: they provide a spartan room, heat, rubber sink, secure access, month to month terms, and nothing else. At 250 square feet, we got the biggest room in the place, and it was perfect. It just needed a little TLC:
Next, we had to get furniture, and for this we went to semi-legendary Beoing Surplus. Some guy had a brilliant idea to sell the enormous amount of still useable ’surplus’ the giant pumps out every year. Where else can you buy, in one place, huge drill bits, sheets of aircraft aluminum, white boards used by the B-1 bomber teams, 200 lb. steel desks, and hundreds of perfectly usable office chairs (note, in the picture below, that chairs with wheels cost double: $2)? The final tally (3 white boards, a conference table, four desks, eight chairs, and a filing cabinet): $250.
(Candyland, aka Boeing Surplus)
We would have been quite content to stay at ActiveSpace had not the evil wood worker moved in below us in December 2006. The guy was running his lathe all day, and the whole side of the building vibrated enough to make one of our devs nauseous. Shree tried to talk to the guy, but he had a chisel. Neither did we get much love from the management: they reminded us it was called “ActivSpace” for a reason.
HQ v2.0
So we had to move, into the teeth of an insane Seattle commercial real estate market, with the cash runway of a bridge note. Happily, we found a place just down the street that was essentially a reworked apartment, and it was perfect: an actual kitchen, a bathroom, and pantry for servers. And Paseo was a block away (the best Cuban food you can get legally). Over the next six months, we had ‘good problems to have’. Our team was getting stronger, the product was thriving.
In July though, with 20 PCs and 10 humans baking in 935 square feet, we cracked… there was just no way to get rid of the heat. So we packed up again.
HQ v3.0
We’d managed to stay really cheap, and avoid long term, expensive leases. But we were growing fast, and we needed to provide humane conditions for our team. We couldn’t have conversations without stepping next door for a cup of coffee. So we took the plunge. It’s not huge or posh, but it does give us a little breathing room.
Perhaps the best thing about the new space are the beverage options: Victrola Coffee Roasters are next door, and the Six Arms Brew Pub is downstairs. So far that’s been a good thing, but not too much of one.
So it’s been a great ride. The team is rock solid. Ajay, Chris, Howard, and Mattias are incredible people and great investors. Jott’s product roadmap is amazing. We are lucky.
–John
