Ask HN: Rent Office Space vs. Distributed Team?

jitbit · on May 24, 2012

I vote for distributed teams. Even though me & cofounder are in the same city, every time we meet, the meeting closing phrase is always "why exactly couldn't we discuss this over Skype?"

So, from now on we meet for beers only.

We use: DVSC with an issue-tracker (Bitbucket) + Skype (chat & sometimes voice) + Droplr (works great for quick screen sharing) + some experience required.

Mind the "experience required" part. Cause if a person has no exp in remote work and/or has trouble expressing his/her thoughts and ideas in written form - won't work

The rest of the team is also remote, of cource. We have a designer in Israel, a coder in Seattle etc. (we're in London)

Coworking once a week is a great idea tho. Brainstorming is the only activity that makes office a good idea...

randall · on May 24, 2012

Communication overhead is a bitch.

I like to think of offices like a node process. Ideally you should have a tight event loop (your core team) who are physically located in the same location. That could consist of just founders, or founders + a few key employees.

Then, if you develop the right APIs, you can effectively run the rest of your team asynchronously.

But, from past experience in three completely virtual companies, not having people in the same timezone / a drivable distance is the company equivalent of blocking i/o.

Regarding your specific sitch... I'd say early on you want to be together 24/7. If you're past initial prototype / first customers and you're comfortable moving at the same pace, you can probably parcel it out a bit more.

zawaideh · on May 24, 2012

love the distributed systems references! :)

yamaplos · on May 25, 2012

when it comes to communication giftings, just as with everything else, all men are NOT created equal.

A startup dynamics relies 83.5% on communication flow, so there are inherent advantages at having people be able to use many of a variety of means: texting, face-to-face, a ticket track system, whiteboard, email, wiki, a chat around some beer.

This is easy to accomplish when you have everybody in the same building, and throw away the key.

Alas, some people have a /life/, and do not feel the Yahoo sleeping-bags-in-the-corridor to be their ideal (see? not everybody same=same).

so, let me ask you, what do YOU prefer as comm models, you people in your core team?

If y'all are the touchy-feely type, that like to look people in the eye, and have a hard time editing even a Wikipedia page, you're better off with some sort a headquarters.

OTOH, if you apologize every time it takes you longer than 2:48 minutes to answer an email , 24/7, and Joomla is your middle name, then remote becomes /possible/, and then you can gain the many advantages of remote, the first one being able to hire beyond normal commuting range- lowering costs and raising quality of available hires to the point you actually can get the very cream in your field.

One other thing to consider: what is your product? As in eating your own dog-food, the medium is the message, and all that, if you're into mobile or software, well, relying in bodies present in one place becomes sort of silly, or the other way around, if y'all are into some new walk-in service franchise.

brudgers · on May 24, 2012

Simple answer: What works better for the Owners. They're the ones who have to live with it.

Personally, I would start with everyone in the same place and then become more flexible regarding remote employment because it is much harder to go the other way (it will cost you knowledge when you lose employees), working together builds stronger relationships (most communication is non-verbal), and informal interaction is where many creative ideas are developed and interpersonal chemistry is created.

Good luck.