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VOLUNTEER HIGHLIGHT: Njon

6/25/2019

Please introduce yourself (name, location, family, hobbies)
I'm Njon (pronounced "John"). I've been in the Bay Area most of my adult life but have also lived in Paris and briefly in Hilo, HI. I'm a total foodie, a TV/Film commentaries junkie, and an avid urban hiker. Come walk some hills with me!

What do you do for OrgOrg?
As Community Manager and Membership Co-Lead, I help moderate member content and assist in member on-boarding and support.

What Inspired you to volunteer with OrgOrg?
After successfully using the advice from other members, I wanted to share my admin chops with the group that has also helped build my confidence level so that I can better advocate for myself and my needs.

What projects have you worked on for OrgOrg?
I've taken on much of the group moderation and support issues, and my goal is to help members more easily navigate our ecosystem. I'm also helping on the web side with content and design.

What is your day job?
I'm Operations Manager at a bookkeeping startup. I cover the SF and Nashville offices and my focus is Facilities, Workplace, and IT.

How did you get to where you are today?
I struggled with mental health and addiction issues for a long time during and following high school and have spent the past decade picking myself up and developing my professional persona. Office Management was the perfect entry point for me to dip a foot into multiple areas to find the path that I love.

What is your typical day like?
HAHA!!!! Nice try! I think I can speak for 95% of members when I say we do the "everything else" AND our special projects. Mine include office builds, IT support and updates, managing my vendors and service providers, but mostly relationship building with my internal stakeholders and suppliers.

Anything fun or interesting you’ve worked on?
Office expansions and relocations is my happy place and I've had the pleasure to work on several. They have been some low-budget, quick and dirty jobs and some multi million dollar gigs. They each have their challenges.

If a high schooler or new grad walked up to you asking for your advice and you only had a few minutes to give ‘em your best tips, what would it be?
It sounds corny (and it's taken me a long time to understand) but I tell them that they actually can shoot for whatever position they want. It can happen with (a lot of) patience and perseverance. I emphasize that they not be afraid to change course if they find that their interests lie elsewhere. I'm not exactly where I want to be today, but I'm enjoying the path to getting there.

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Top 5 Things to Consider when Leasing your next Office Space in San Francisco

6/14/2019

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<Sponsored Blog Post by our friends at CBRE>

1. Start your process EARLY.
Begin planning for an office move at least 3-4 months before your ideal move-in date. The typical Leasing Process from start to finish can take anywhere from 2-6 months. This depends on a variety of factors:

Speed: We know you can move quickly and so can your broker, but can the Landlord (or Sublandlord if it is a sublease) move as quickly? The answer is usually no, so jump in early and allow others for extra time.

Tenant Improvement Work: Is there any construction that needs to happen in order for you to move in? This could add another 2-3 months to your timeline.

Sublease vs Direct: Are you planning to sublease your new space? Subleases are especially popular options in San Francisco and are great for hypergrowth companies because they frequently come as "Plug & Play", fully furnished suites. That said, when you sublease space in any building, you are required to go through a final extra step after the sublease process: Landlord Consent. The Landlord has a 30-day window to review the Sublease & the incoming Subtenant's financials and determine whether they consent to the sublease or not. If not, the Landlord usually has a right to recapture the space (email us directly if you'd like to discuss Recapture in more detail).

Finding the Right Space: You can find your perfect space in the first building you see during your first tour. That usually is not the case. It takes time to find the perfect space for your company. We see various situations where companies will begin their search 1 or 2 months prior to their Lease Expiration and get forced into a space that isn't perfect for them because they were on a time crunch.

Note: The only 2 scenarios where things can move a lot quicker are in coworking suites (WeWork/Regus/Knotel) or in Live/Work suites.

2. Stay FLEXIBLE
Do you know how many employees you will have in the next 12 months? How about the next 24 months? Reality is, it is difficult for startups to project headcount growth far into the future. We see too many scenarios where companies lease either too little or too much space and end up needing to move again far sooner than they hoped. This is what makes San Francisco one of (if not the) hottest sublease markets in the country.

When leasing directly from the Landlord in San Francisco, Landlords typically try to push Tenants to go for long-term leases (at least 3-5 years if not more). Their goal is to keep their spaces leased and earn additional revenue from the 3% annual increases that come with every lease, which is understandable. The longer the lease term, the less work the Landlord has to do in marketing the space and leasing it to a new tenant (and possibly having to incur the cost of having a vacant space).

Push back! Don't commit to 3 years if there is an 18-month sublease out there that fits your company's needs, especially if you are not sure where your headcount will be in 3 years. Do everything you can to stay flexible so that you do not have extra liability and incur the cost and time of subleasing space and "becoming Landlords".

3. Do your best to minimize cost/capital expenditures
Leasing office space is similar to renting an apartment in that it is a sunk cost for your company. You don't own it and you can't earn appreciation from it, so do your best to minimize your overall expenses.

Until your company grows more and can afford to spend the money needed to improve your space, build extra conference rooms & make it nice enough to attract the talent you need. Try to stay away from doing Tenant Improvements in your suite. Paint & carpet/flooring is okay, but once you begin moving walls, building rooms and working on the electrical, construction costs really add up and (speaking from experience) companies almost always spend more than they originally estimate when planning the project.

If you can get "Plug & Play” space that is fully furnished, even better! Buying new furniture can be expensive and companies tend to leave it or discard it when moving because moving furniture between offices can sometimes be just as expensive as buying new furniture altogether. There are also other costs you save when taking on a “Plug & Play” space, such as cabling/wiring, purchasing AV (if the previous tenant is willing to pass the AV on to you) and hauling the furniture.

4. Be Responsive, Act Quickly
San Francisco is an insanely competitive market. We're hovering at ~4% vacancy throughout the city, which is SF's lowest vacancy rate since the dotcom boom. Spaces come and go extremely quickly in this market.

The majority of tech companies are all looking for a similar type of space: high ceilings, brick walls, polished concrete floors, a surplus of meeting rooms and a creative overall feel. Those spaces get leased even quicker than the rest. If you have your eyes on a certain space or if your broker shows you a space that just came online and seems perfect, go see it immediately. If it's perfect, send a proposal immediately. Get your name in the ring before the space gets snatched right from under you.

5. Work with a broker that you like and that you know will hustle on your behalf
As we have noted, SF is a fast-moving city when it comes to office space. Work with someone you know is on top of the market, continuously sending you new opportunities and keeping you updated throughout the lease process.

Know what's going on throughout the process. Having a broker you trust and can call/text for a quick update is crucial. It is unacceptable if your brokerage team is unresponsive or if your broker keeps you out of the loop. Good brokers will keep you posted throughout the process and make sure you know where things stand. There may be situations where you lose out on 1 or 2 or 3 spaces because of high demand and stiff competition, but continuing to stay on top of the market and evaluate new options is crucial to any tech company in San Francisco looking to find creative and flexible opportunities.

We would be happy to answer any questions about these 5 things to consider or about real estate in general. Please don't hesitate to email or give us a call anytime!

Jenny Haeg | Global Real Estate Services
[email protected]m

Reuben Torenberg | Global Real Estate Services
[email protected]
C +1-201-240-8479

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Announcing OrgOrg's First Executive Director!

6/11/2019

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Dear OrgOrg Community,

For years, I’ve acknowledged that while we can accomplish ridiculously amazing things with our scrappy part-time volunteer team, OrgOrg would really benefit from someone whose entire job is making this thing great. For the last couple of months, I’ve been working with Eden to find OrgOrg’s first paid employee: an Executive Director to take this community to the next level. We’ve been a 100% part-time volunteer organization since 2010, but with our new partners at Eden, we have the opportunity to scale OrgOrg at a much faster velocity.

I’m incredibly honored and humbled to announce that OrgOrg has found its new fearless leader, Executive Director Kelli Doré. Kelli has been an OrgOrg member since 2015, and worked with the OrgOrg Org for the past two years (on multiple teams), most recently leading our Boston chapter and Sponsorships initiatives, in addition to much, much more.

She has a vision for a globally-connected, fully-resourced OrgOrg, with a more robust sponsors and partners program to help further fund our operations and provide amazing connections and opportunities to our members. I love how passionate she is about our mission and the vision I’ve been driving towards for the last eight-plus years, and how many great ideas she has for how to propel our efforts forward.

I will continue to be involved with OrgOrg as an Advisory Board member, and I’m excited to see where Kelli takes this amazing community. Please join me in congratulating Kelli (and heck, congratulating OrgOrg) on this new chapter in OrgOrg’s life!

With tremendous gratitude,
Kim

My top 10 Moments in OrgOrg history:

Our first meetup: a picnic (with our only 6 members!) on the Yerba Buena lawn
Co-hosting the first ever Admin Bash with OfficeNinjas
The first OrgOrg swag (tshirts with our “owl” logo)
Collaborating on a shiny new face for OrgOrg at orgorg.co
Running the “Outstanding Organizer” contest with Eden and sending an OrgOrg’er to Hawaii
Hosting two fundraisers to sustain operations with small donations from the community
Launching official chapters, complete with events all over the country
Getting acquired by Eden
The first ever CampOrgOrg
Hiring Kelli Doré to run this thing and take it to the next level

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VOLUNTEER HIGHLIGHT: Njon

Top 5 Things to Consider when Leasing your next Office Space in San Francisco

Announcing OrgOrg's First Executive Director!

OrgOrg

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