Today’s story comes from Jacob Sayles, Office Nomads co-founder and partner with Susan Evans. Jacob is a software developer in Seattle, and telecommutes from his own coworking space. How cool is that!!!
The turning point came when I threw my best friend a bachelor party. This wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill bachelor party. This was an event. I pulled every favor and leveraged every connection. I lined up entertainers, a jazz band, rented a coffee shop, and recruited people to help staff an underground speakeasy. I even flew in a long time idol of ours, Steve Brown, the biggest rock-star there is in the yo-yo world. It was a class act, and it went off without a hitch.
Having proved to myself I can pull off big ideas larger then I can execute on my own and that my ideas weren’t just total craziness, I gave notice first thing the following Monday. I still didn’t know what exactly I was going to do. The plan was to give myself one month, April, to give the idea some space and see what developed. I had enough money in my savings to not sweat one month without a job. My only lead on where to start was that I had heard of some folks down in San Francisco who were doing something similar. A little Googling and I found Coworking. At that moment I knew I had found what I was looking for. Out was the idea of a coffee shop. I was inspired and everything in my life started to fall into place. Early efforts were on community building as well as figuring out how I was going to structure the business. I was working with my good friend Craig Fell who helped me throw the bachelor party. The name Office Nomads came to me one morning just after I woke up.
Luck would have it the domain was available. We started hosting BBQs, pub nights, and coffee shop work days. I made business cards and shook a lot of hands. In June I went back to my old software job part time so I could get off my savings. Craig’s job was ramping up however and he wasn’t able to keep up. About that time I found Susan and we quickly joined forces and were off. We spent a little time trying to secure the space in Ballard that I had found, and when it fell through we found the space we are in now. We signed the lease a week into October and opened the doors November 1st.
Jacob
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