Nivi · July 1st, 2010
We’re spending the next few months officing at Kicklabs at 250 Brannan (info@kicklabs.com) and the new SOMAcentral building at 153 Townsend (ken@somacentral.com).
These spaces are good for startups, service providers, lawyers, VCs, and folks in the south bay who want an auxiliary office space in the city. Leases are short, rent is affordable, and they’re perfect for small teams under 5 people.
Kicklabs (top) is a big fun open space. SOMAcentral (bottom) is the opposite: private offices with doors that close and great views. We’re using both. If you’re looking for office space in San Francisco with Zipcar-like simplicity, check them out and tell them we sent you.
Please add your office space suggestions in the comments — keep them restricted to places with leases under 6 months that are good for small teams (~ 5 people).
At the end of the day, the reason to get an office is simple. It is so you can bring people into your office and say, this is where I office.
Topics Administrivia · Resources
If you happen to be in Helsinki, Finland (who wouldn’t!), I can highly recommend Papula: http://www.bcpapula.fi/en/
The BlockChalk team is happy to have you guys as neighbors at SOMAcentral on Townsend! We’re really pleased with the space.
Nice! I visitedKickLabs for the launch party and was impressed. The slide reminds me of Excite’s office (RIP) in Redwood City circa 1999 (except ours was bright red).
I work out of pariSoma at 10th and Howard. It’s a relatively small coworking space with the feel of a bona fide loft — top floor of an old industrial building that’s been redone with a nice touch of Parisian aesthetics, skylights to keep it bright, and the cutest little dog. I wrote a blog post about it here:
http://bottomlinelawgroup.com/2010/03/30/working-coworking/
In the DC area, there are two fantastic incubation hubs run by Affinity Lab. They always have great art and a good vibe.
I hear Baltimore has something called the Beehive, so I’m guessing most cities have a little something of this type.
Postbox hunkers down at American Industrial Center on 3rd St., just south of the Giant’s ballpark in San Francisco. The building(s) contains startups (Revision3), photographers, printers, artists, non-profits, the SF School of Digital Filmmaking… you name it.
Here’s the link:
http://aicproperties.com/
When in Boston: http://umb.edu/vdc/
If you go to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, Check out the Trinity Center for Business!
http://www.trinitycenterforbusiness.com/
For people interested in being near MIT in Cambridge, MA, check us out: Cambridge Innovation Center (www.cictr.com). This is a large building with ~300 startups, some co-working style, some with doors that close. We’re 100 feet or so from the Red Line Kendall Sq. T stop. Hubspot started here. Google and Linden Labs opened their New England HQs here when they moved here.
A similar formula in Ann Arbor, MI, at the Tech Brewery (http://techbrewery.org): big open bullpens, plus small private offices in a historic 1880’s brewery
If you are in Oakland, Ca, I’d like to invite you to check out my co-working space, Tech Liminal (http://techliminal.com). We are small, but close to downtown, and host a variety of techie, entrepreneurial people and organizations.
Too funny, Nivi! I just wrote about this issue today and had a debate in the comments section on why having office space is important. For readers it’s here:
The Benefits for Startups to Be Co-Located http://bothsid.es/6lK
Looking for co-working options on the Peninsula and South Bay (Palo Alto to San Jose). Ideas? Plug & Play not suitable for my needs.
Looks good, but they seem to require that you apply for funding to be considered for office space. Is that right?
For North Bay peeps I would def recommend the Regus office at the Marina Business Park in Petaluma. I have been working there for the last 4 months and really enjoy it. They have some weird pricing structures but a bit of bargaining does the trick. Nice people and one of the very convenient North Bay locations.
Awesome. Would love to see something like this in Orange County, CA. Maybe I need to move to SF?
Looks great and excited to see things like this popping up. We started one in Grand Rapids, MI called the Factory – http://www.workthefactory.com.
Stop by if you’re in the area.
We launched areatres, an on-demand workspace, in buenos aires argentina just over a year ago. Its amazing to see the energy thats produced in a pleasant, shared workspace filled with enthusiastic and passionate people from all over the world. That enthusiasm becomes contagious and self perpetuating. Great post, thanks!
When in Central or Upstate New York – check out:
http://www.thetechgarden.com/
Which houses:
http://www.thecleantechcenter.com/
& has great ties with regional education institutions: http://www.SyracuseStudentSandbox.com/
Access to teams of advisors, amazing networks & scalable space! Awesome to see so many incubators tending the entrepreneurial spark.
The Mass Challenge (http://www.masschallenge.org/ ) in Boston is providing some nice digs this fall for it’s finalists out at Fan Pier. Check out the view, http://yfrog.com/jag92ej .
If you own or manage a space and you want help marketing/promoting.. post it up on eVenues.com. It’s easy, free, and takes only a few minutes.
If you’re looking for great, unique and affordable desk space, meeting rooms, classrooms or event space.. search eVenues:
http://www.eVenues.com
There are many options like this in San Francisco, The SF Chronicle Building at 901 Mission houses start ups, like Square and now Foursquare. Citizen Space is good also at 425 2nd, citizenspace.us, Dogpatch Labs on Pier 38 also works, dogpatchlabs.com. There are also many shared options for short term with businesses who took on too much space in the boom time. I can help find these spaces in San Francisco, if you are a start up and have questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly.