I’ve been shopping around for bigger office space (since both WooThemes and Radiiate has been growing immensely) in the last couple of days, when I came to a realization that I was trying to be too fancy here.
See, when I started out (with Premium News Themes, which became WooThemes and freelancing before it became Radiiate), I was working out of a student apartment with a crappy broadband connection. Even when Cobus & I moved into our current offices in July 2008, there wasn’t much here beyond our two desks, a couch and a broadband connection. So why the sudden need to upgrade?
At this stage, we have 8 people (comprising of the WooThemes, Radiiate & Rockstar Foundation teams) in our Cape Town office and admittedly we’ve just about maxed out the space. Realistically we could stay here for the foreseeable future or until our needs really change, but I’d still prefer a slightly larger space. The decision to purchase instead of leasing like we do now is purely a financial one, as it makes more sense to spend money on the down payments of my own assets, compared to leasing and helping pay someone else’s asset (with capital growth being the carrot we are after).
So upgrading isn’t an overly radical idea; in theory at least. But when I put those “wants” into the context of where I had come from, I realized that I don’t really “need” to upgrade at this stage or move offices at all. Hell, I’ve bootstrapped everything we’ve done until now, so why now suddenly heap bucketloads of overheads to our monthly bill?
The decision is a straightforward one in terms of pure financial considerations: upgrade away, as both revenue & profits allow for it (unlike Twitter who has no revenue stream to justify their fancy new offices). But that still doesn’t necessarily mean I should, because we don’t *need* to do so just yet.
Screw the fancy. I’ll keep my money in my pocket and bootstrap for a little while longer.
DISCLAIMER: I may still purchase office space if I can pick it up at the right price, because it is a great investment vehicle. But I will only do that when it makes much more sense than it does now.