Knowing when to pivot and to cut sunk costs were two incredibly hard decisions for 2017. But I did it and in fact, I am excited for the change.
We shut down the Left Right Boom Collaborative on December 1, 2017. Working from home has it’s benefits and it’s disadvantages. As a coworking space for creative independents in advertising and marketing the Left Right Boom space was great. We had a 975 sq ft office in downtown Grand Rapids right across the street from the Grand Rapids Public Library. We used the space for industry meetings, we rented out the conference room, and we just hung out there. In case you didn’t see it, we had a conference room, kitchen, library and nine sit-stand desks. It was a great space for brainstorming and producing work with a team.
So what happened?
Our downfall was that we didn’t bring in someone early enough to administer and market the office. Once we lost a founding member due to personal reasons we didn’t backfill and shore up our needs. Simply put we got busy with the new found work and failed to properly address the exposure. We did everything right up until point. That said we had a great time with the two year lease.
Because of the space we met a lot of great people…
Tiffany Ewigleben, JR Muller, Tiffany Kreh, Ben Schaendorf, Alex Beerhorst, John O’Neill, Warren Mason, Jeff Joanisse, the folks at Chop and Hue, Minutopia, Deksia, Cull Deign, Carbon Stories, Veronica Kerin, Lauren Figeuroa, Ryan Johnson, Chris Brown, Greg Oberle, Chris Evans, Chas Appleby, Chris Fredricks, Andrew Sims Kelly, David PhiferSteve Bultema, Jeff Hage, Andrea Napierkowski, Karen Horrigan, Adam Bird, Jeffrey Huyck, Rob Rice, Andrew Montpetit, Jason Johnson, Rich McCarty, Casey DuBois, Richard Reiffer. Marshall Dillion and Liam OBryne. And If I forgot anyone forgive me.
Working from home hasn’t been bad.
Now that I know the difference between working in a studio and working from home, I can attest that hands down the studio environment is better and well worth the money. For one, you clock in and you’re focused on being there at work. Two, you have others to bounce off ideas and challenge you. Three, you have a place for collaboration. Four, being near the epicenter of where things are getting done means greater exposure.
So would I do it again?
Let’s just say I shopping around and you can expect to get a new business card and change of address from me soon.
