The Coffee Shop Office Equation

It's amazing to me how much cash startup companies spend on office space and the stuff to support it. Let's see, over the years, we've had something like:

• Cell phone
• Wireless internet (for traveling)
• Office phones
• Office rent
• Office furniture
• Printers (CD, photos, and presentations) Not to mention the Kinko's bills!
  

Anyway, after some foray into the world of the virtual office recently I thought I'd deep dive on this a little more. Even though before we thought we were managing things pretty well (not counting the Kingfish visit after our VC pitch in Boston).

After Guy's post everybody is looking at what it takes to build a startup, I thought I'd examine the office space phenomena. Now, listen to me closely. If you have less than 5 clients who MUST physically visit you, get this - you don't need an office. Visit them, visit Starbucks, figure out a way around it - you just don't need it. Most of the time, your pride will tell you otherwise, but just get some of this:

Rent: at least $2500month, likely 2-5x that. So... did you know this would buy nearly a man/month of development services in Russia? Or close to 3 man/months in Pakistan? (That's most assuredly a different blog post.) Imagine what kind of marketing this will buy?

Sure there are whiteboards, and coffee makers, and water coolers... and the conference room is good for entertaining clients. But add in the land-line phones in addition to the cell phones... it starts to bust out quick. Now, let's take a look at this option: THE COFFEE SHOP OFFICE

Just so you know, I'm of the ilk that says, "if you sit in Panera all day, you oughta buy something". For some folks that aren't quite that way, the price will be less.

Well, I'm in and out 3 times during the day. I get a coffee/bagel combo in the morning, approximately $5 (don't forget I'm Mid-Atlantic so adjust prices accordingly). For lunch I get a water and salad/sandwich combo, $7. In the afternoon, I need a boost, the latte $4. So, that's $16 per day.

Multiply that by the number of people while live there, let's say 3 for your startup, that's $48 per day. Now, we dock that by 50% because, heck, you're going to buy coffee, lunch, and the afternoon burst anyway... which equates to:

Rent: $480 per month.

And you know it - you were buying the coffees anyway. Now, cancel your landline phones and get one of those great services to host your virtual PBX (with human answerers) and save your startup $2k a month.

These are just the rapid decisions and cost savings that keep a startup rolling! Imagine this money going to product dev, or marketing... could change your world.

So the purpose of this post is to challenge you - think outside of the box from a business perspective. What can you to accelerate your business without accelerating your burn rate?