SpareFoot

Describe your office space to us.

The SpareFoot office is modern and industrial, with materials and doors reminiscent of a storage facility. It’s very reflective of our personalities and philosophies: we have sushi-inspired conference rooms that honor our tradition of sake bombing with new employees (and so many of us are sushi-nuts.) We have dashboard metric screens all over because our company believes in transparency and letting the numbers speak for themselves. There’s also a ridiculous amount of white boards because we’re dedicated to collaboration.

Where did the inspiration for your office space design come from?

Our inspiration came from the building itself. When it was built in the 1930’s, it was the tallest building in Austin. Now it’s dwarfed. But it’s historical, and you can see the previous office spaces on the floor. We tried to pull the urban elements of the neighborhood together. The graffiti wall was the brainchild of our designers at S.Tipton Studio. We wanted it painted on the door—and they put it on the wall. When I met with Sloke, our artist, he was showing us pictures of more abstract works. There was a particular style that looked like stained glass, in the shape of a vaulted window in a church. I thought, “You know what, there’s a church across the street that looks just like that. Let’s do it.”

What is your favorite part/design of your office space and why?

The actual layout is perfect. We can collaborate easily. Anyone can have a complete sense of what’s going on. Also, the fact that there are games everywhere. We’re a competitive bunch and the company itself is very competitive. That ambition trickles down into our meetings; everyone is vying to get their ideas onto the table. We always pick a winner by which idea is going to get us the farthest, and then we play foosball.

Do you feel that having a well designed and inspiring office has changed the way you and your employees work?

It instills a team spirit that we were lacking in our other space. There’s a locker-room effect, because the space is so branded you feel a true ownership over it. For the employees who started very early on, this feels like a huge milestone. It’s a major checkpoint in the life of the company. We’ve earned the right to have a keg in the office.

If you could use one word to describe the feel of the office space, what would it be?

Playful

Tell us about your company and what it means to you to have a well-designed office space.

At SpareFoot, we’re revolutionizing a legacy industry. SpareFoot.com is the largest search engine for consumers to find and compare storage units online. We’re also helping storage operators reach modern customers with marketing tools, like a website builder. We don’t confine to convention, and the clock wall illustrates that point perfectly. We like to poke fun at time-honored business traditions and do it our way. Our co-founders are eco-minded, frugal people, so we’re proud 99% of the office is repurposed. We’ve been trying to build the company for years now, and we weren’t bringing in much money. Now we have SpareFoot all over the walls.

-As told by Chuck Gordon and Jeffrey “Steve” Cherewaty to Alana Peden

By the way, If you have a stylish, modern or innovative office you want to feature on TheOfficeStylist, or you need help transforming your space, please contact us. Located in LA? We’d love to stop by and take photos of your space and profile your business. Love this Office Profile? Take a look at the other Office Profiles we have on TheOfficeStylist.

Sayeh

The Office Stylist