In the Texas Startup Blog‘s top 5 things that startups need and what to avoid, I noticed a similarity relating to my post about seeking an office.
When you are young and not so full of cash, the best thing to do for a a business is to make the office a comfortable place to function. You might even go off the deep end providing comforts like extra plush chairs. All five of the top 5 items mentioned by the Texas Startup Blog are related to making the office comfortable. Money is better spent on these comforts than intense spending in advertising or over-the-top software.
- Comfortable chairs.
- Creature comforts such as ergonomic keyboards (if they are requested).
- Bigger monitors.
- Free soft drinks.
- White boards.
The benefit of this investment may not be immediately obvious, but by making it more comfortable to be there, you not only breed goodwill and morale by making the office nice for the workers. You also get a higher production out of these morale-boosted and comfy workers who can stay at the office longer.
With free caffeine, nice viewing monitors and plenty of white board space to dream–or plot–tons of work can get done no matter how many hours of the week it takes. I know I do.
Of course, these tips are mainly geared at tech startups who need the large screen real estate for coding and engineering projects, not necessarily every small business that you have in mind. Free soft drinks and white boards can be fairly universal, but chairs/monitors/keyboards might not matter to a company where employees are not constantly on a computer.
