cnagele

Thinking of "email delivery as a commodity" is the first mistake people make - all ESPs are not created equal. If this were the case, there would not be such a huge variance in not only getting to the Inbox, but how fast you get to the Inbox. This is why we've focused on transactional only, knowing fully well we will grow slower as a business (and why we are more expensive), but have superior delivery since transactional email has a much higher engagement rate and reputation with ISPs.

The entire idea of "dumb pipe" or "commodity" needs to go away. There is a reason why companies like Asana, Desk, and Minecraft chose Postmark, since their email is critical to their business and choosing the right providers makes a real difference. Now, if your emails are not critical, I can see how any service might work. I have yet to come across a product owner who is comfortable letting their customers wait for their transactional emails though - no matter the size of product or company.

Full disclosure, I'm the founder of Postmark - the best "dumb pipe commodity" money can buy.

When we were searching for space this was our preferred choice. We wanted a large single floor space with offices on the perimeter. Each office would have a glass wall to see the open space. This way, as you said, people can see what is going on. Searching for office space is hard, so we ended up where we are and made the best of it. We still get the offices on the perimeter and the glass wall, but separated by multiple floors. Maybe we just put Dropcams everywhere so people can see when lunch is ready :)

These are great questions. I'll be sure to do a follow up post in a year and see where we are. I know that the biggest reward when we went from 100% remote to having an office was the feeling of being in touch with what was going on. It was also the spontaneous conversation. I am hoping we don't lose that.

It's actually the biggest reason why we have a chef prepared lunch. We found that it forces everyone out of their desks at one time to hang out as a team. We usually don't even talk about work, which is the way it should be.

The other assumption is that the break out rooms will become longer term project team rooms. So if a couple of people are working on a feature for a few weeks they can take over a room to focus together.

I can say for sure that being a remote team enabled us to work around a lot of these concerns. It's easy to feel isolated when you are remote, so we work hard to make sure all communication happens asynchronously or in chat, even if we are in the same room. We also use video a lot, and my hope is that we can use it even more in the new office with remote team members.

Your first point reinforces our decision on private offices. We encourage only working 8 hours a day. This way you don't have a chance to stay late or work long hours to find that "quiet time" when everyone is gone. It's up to us, the founders, to make sure you are productive during the day.

We believe that when you come to work you should make the best of those hours so you can spend the evening with your family, friends, or just relaxing.

Chris from Wildbit here (author of the post).

Half of our team is remote. Using physical space for controlling productivity (or lack of) is not a solution. You and the rest of your team should keep each other accountable through performance metrics that are mutually agreed upon. Being a remote team for so long (15 years) has forced us to find alternatives to traditional office babysitting and it has helped us design our new office as well.

That's the best part, we are not funded at all and are building this office after eight years of profits from our products: Beanstalk, Postmark and dploy.io. We count every dollar that goes into the space and it is purely an investment in our team and culture. I'm personally researching everything from glass panels, to steel sourcing to carpet with our architects to keep costs down.

Capitalism works how you want it to work, that is the beauty of it. It's the business principles that lead the decisions that are made, either big or small. The point of the post is deciding what principles you set, and how they will shape the company as it grows. It's my personal feeling (along with my wife and business partner) that while we have competitors, and we compete every day, there are still some boundaries.

There are an abundance of opportunities to obtain new customers and demonstrate a superior product. While this might be one of them, it is not one I respect as a tactic to grow a business, and one I would never use myself.

Don't forget, the principles you set early should stick with your company as it grows. If you "take advantage of every opportunity you can" you may one day find yourself in a place you do not respect either. I think this is the definition of what people have termed "evil companies" in our industry.

It's your choice of course, and that's the beauty of it.