Office Move!

The good news today is that it looks like we’ve settled on an office in Capel St. as the place to grow the startup. You would think that getting space in Dublin would be easy - and yes, there is a load of office space available. You would think that you would pay a keen and competitive rate for it too, considering the depressed market, but on that point you would be very, very wrong.

We visited buildings that have lain vacant for two years and the lettors would refuse to lower their prices. This makes a sense in the most perverse way - the financial way, I mean - in that lowering the rental will automatically take value from the ‘apparent’ investment worth of the building itself. These guys are heavily delusional - and they are hurting startup businesses. A letter to Enterprise Ireland has been delivered by the usual suspects.

Back to the venue itself - we’re delighted that we are sub-letting a space from another technology company that are scaling up. I plan to pick those guys’ brains on all topics relating to making startups go.

Capel St is a fantastic street. There’s a mixed-use pub and music shop. There’s pet shops, pubs, camping stores, martial arts shops, adult naughty fun stores, Asian markets, Polish markets, Sari Sari stores, more pubs, chippers, more music shops, Asian restaurants and the highest concentration of Korean Barbecues I have ever had the privilege to see in one place.

Right around the corner is a large cinema, a gym, many second-hand book shops, an early-morning fruit market and 3fe, one of the best coffee shops in Dublin city.

If you go check it out on Google Maps, you will see the street as it was about three years ago, it’s changed a bit even in that short time. More restaurants, less headshops.

At this moment in time we are searching the skips and dumpsters of Dublin looking for furniture to put into this ex-Art Gallery space. Or maybe we are going to just visit Ikea, not sure yet. Once the furniture is in, I’ll be looking for developers to keep the seats warm :)