As an introduction. Somehow, comparing business conditions with their Finnish colleagues from Vaadin, they mentioned that our company pays for renting 100 meters of space in the basement of our university at 20 euros per meter per month, which led them into a deep stupor. They in Turku can rent a class A office in the city center at this rate, and companies with a university pay a maximum of 5 euros, or more often they don’t pay anything at all if the subject of the company's activity is close to an educational institution. How can the Finns explain that our rental rates are determined by KUGI, and that start-up entrepreneurs are supported only by family, friends, and "fools".

There are actually more options for solving the office issue than in the title of the article, you can still sit at home, work in cafes and transport, rent a place in coworking and much more.
I want to tell about our experience in solving the office issue, I hope it will be useful to many readers.

Under the cut options:

• Office for interest,
• Office for work,
• Rent for money
• Buying a ready office
• Building your own office building.

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Office for interest

I already wrote about the organization of a startup at the university . Back in the 97m year, we received a room of 30 sq.m. almost nothing ($ 150 per month for the entire office). For three novice tycoons of the Russian IT business, there was plenty of room. Only three years later, when we were 10, we began to think about another room.

Oddly enough, today there are similar options and sometimes completely free. For example, in our university (SPbGETU) there is a technology park, which has equipment for startups equipped with technology and an Internet. They especially nobody uses. Probably not enough marketing question and the place is not the most rave. Much more interesting to spin in the floors or weavers with a view of a successful young IT businessman.

Another lease option for interest was realized when an office was set up in another city. When we put in a demo room a company selling scanning equipment of our employees who offered scanning services and organizing electronic archives. Of course, we compensated the partner for part of the cost of renting the premises, but the meaning was in symbiosis and providing customers with a complete solution (hardware + services + software).

Pros : Cheap or completely free.
Cons : Freebies / interest ends sooner or later. Over time, there were a lot of questions from the university administration, such as “what are the guys doing here?”, “Is there any hidden rent, corruption and other illegal weapons / drugs?”.
There is no lease agreement, which requires everything from banks and tax to customers.
Recommendations : Sign a formal lease agreement with your partner, sign a partnership agreement with the university, this will legitimize your presence in the school.

Office for work

We began to work for rent in high school. In 1998, a crisis struck and the money was gone, the head of the department offered us to read IT subjects to students, we agreed, and we still do.

At some point in time, the native institute could not satisfy our growing need for premises and we began to look for a place. Taking into account the rather modest monthly budget allocated for rent, they began to look for premises supposedly in a state institution (scientific research institute, library, museum) that would be interested in our services. A short search gave results, we moved to the St. Petersburg Center for Scientific and Technical Information (CSTI), developed a website for them, began to support and promote, at the same time we were engaged in some new business areas related to information services of CSTI.

Pros : cheap and cheerful
Cons : dependence on relationships with the leadership of the organization. Relations deteriorated - on the way out.
Recommendations : Any barter must be documented. Let it be a cashless agreement, but at least everyone will know and remember their obligations.

Rent for money

The most common option, a lot of offers, a large selection of classes, areas and conditions. In our case, we chose premises exclusively within a radius of 1000 meters from SPbSETU, in which most of our leading experts teach and even have one business with the university - the Uransoft Training Center .

Business center
Our current residence is Kantemirovsky Business Center - a classic example of class B and C. Repurchased and repaired factory in the city center, with often changing administrators, Zhlobskie managing and security companies, constant milking money and a complete lack of interest in long-term relationships. As a result, high rotation of tenants and a sense of impermanence of life.

We remove the whole floor in 400 sq.m. Standard corridor-room cutting. From the changes made: the kitchen was installed, the former freight elevator was turned into a server room, a pair of partitions were demolished, forming two large 70-80 sq. M. rooms for the development department and the marketing and sales department, organized music in the toilet .

Commercial non-residential premises
Our previous office is 500 sq.m. was comfortable on the first two floors of an elite house with numerous working rooms, toilets, corridors, a large kitchen, a shower room and just a huge warehouse. We spent two years. Given the problems with the HOA with the owner of the premises, which we had to decide, the lack of demand due to the location in the second courtyard of the house far from the main roads, the price turned out to be quite acceptable. For us, it was extremely convenient. the office was located opposite the exit from our institute. We drove after the Moscow owner’s request to immediately increase the rental rate by one and a half times. By the way, a year later they also sued the landlord in an arbitration for the payment of electricity (subject to a conflict with the HOA).

Pros : Tolerant money for rent on a monthly basis, the possibility of changing areas as upward and downward. Quick change of location.
Cons : Not protected from landlord landlord (rate increase, mode of operation, various fees)
Recommendations : Look for office illiquid, do not be lazy to walk through the streets and courtyards of places of interest

Purchase of finished office space

On the acquisition of their own office began to think long ago. It is like a solution to the housing issue, only in the context of business. The purchase of a room, the cost of one square meter in the area under consideration ranges from 90 to 150 thousand rubles, which, with the required area of ​​400 square meters. respectively from 36 to 60 million rubles. The payback period of 10-15 years, and if you take a loan and even more. We have repeatedly considered and worked through this option in detail, but the astronomical nature of the amounts and the duration of the final solution of the question stopped us.

Buying a large apartment for office
At a certain stage of the company's development, this option was considered. On the face of a violation of the housing code, but a number of specialties of a home-based nature (lawyers, notaries, seamstresses) have the full right to conduct commercial activities in the apartment. I am sure and programmers with friends (testers and managers) can be attributed to this list. Some of our clients in both St. Petersburg and Moscow are sitting in apartment-offices and have no particular problems.

Pros : Quick results: bought, repaired, moved in.
Cons : The most expensive option, you need to go into loans.
Recommendations : Real estate fund auction, we bought the first land through the fund from the state. Look also for apartments and houses of large metric areas, not liquid for housing.

Building your own office building

There is an opinion that only Lukoil and Gazprom can afford to build their own office knowledge, and among IT companies only large system integrators with billions in turnover can afford. This is not the case and we are going to dispel this myth.

Starting the project, we were guided by the following considerations, paying rent at 1 thousand rubles per square meter per month, building an office with a cost of 50 thousand rubles per sq. M. You can fight for 4-5 years. And if you meet the cost of construction of 30 thousand per square meter, which is quite real, the office beats off in 3-4 years.

A few years ago we bought land for individual housing construction in the city with the goal of building a building on it with its further transfer from residential to commercial. Last year, construction was started and for 9 months they were able to build two buildings (the main 3-storey 650 sq. M. And a warehouse-garage of 50 sq. M.) And proceed to the interior decoration. Plans to visit a new office by the beginning of winter 2015.

Pros : Ability to implement the project as opportunities become available. My own landlord. Register IP and turn the office from a liability to an asset.
Cons : The question is not fast, it requires significant investments. Money leaves very quickly. It takes a lot of time to break away from your main job. There must cover you.
Recommendations : Do not be afraid of construction, it is no more difficult than writing software. Find an experienced and intelligent foreman who you could trust.

How we were built and what we ended up with, I will tell in the next article, and in the project our office looks like this: