The New Digs
As I was running after work the other day, I happened to jog by a young couple just as they were getting engaged. I mean, I was about 5 feet away right when the girl said yes. It was pretty cool and made me realize how lucky I am to have found an office in such a great area, and near such a beautiful running route.
A few months ago, when my co-founders and I started this new company, we looked long and hard before finding this space. Several other office buildings would have worked just fine, but this one was perfect. Like Goldilocks perfect. It’s not too small, not too big, and seems to fit just right with what we’re doing. It’s right on the water, near plenty of great restaurants, and is only a six-minute walk from my condo uptown.
Since moving in here several weeks ago, the team has accomplished an inordinate amount of work in a very small amount of time. So much so that we think a launch before the end of the year is highly probable.
But it’s not all work and no play around here. On a sunny day a couple of weeks ago, the crew went out parasailing in front of the office, and we have photos to prove it! Below are some shots of the new digs:
That really looks like a lot of fun. Congrats on the new digs.
Mike,
your office looks great. I don’t know if I’ve missed any posts (I subscribe to the feed), but you really haven’t given out any details about your new company you started. does it have it’s own website, or what? anyway, everything looks great. good luck
Zeerus: Yep, no details quite yet. Don’t want to start any hype before we have anything to show. Soon, soon…
Not to get too personal or anything, but how’d you guys bankroll this place?? Was out of the founders’ pockets or did you have some outside funding? Help a fellow entrepreneur-hopeful out! :)
You should visit my church on Sundays. It’s like three blocks away in Belltown: The City Church.
Gorgeous office space. Nice Macs. ;)
Well, that just reminded me how beautiful the City of Seattle is. Haven’t been in almost a year. I’ll have to take the new Passat for a road trip. :)
The office looks great. Nice paint, nice sconce. Nice tease with the logo! It starts with an “N!”
Funny part about you trying not to hype the new venture. I think the lack of info might end up hyping it plenty.
Congrats to you and your partners, looks like a great office space!
That deck is practically screaming for a good BBQ grill…
BTW – is that real brushed aluminum signage? At my old office we had a plastic logo sign on the wall that had brushed aluminum vinyl on it. If you didn’t know it was fake, you wouldn’t realize it was.
And very affordable!
I think that’s unavoidable – I already can’t wait to see what it is that you have up your sleeve… ;)
Yeah, that’s hot. Just go ahead and let me know when you have some positions open, will ya? :)
Man that’s nice….
Nice office, even better surroundings. Looking at all the beautiful scenery, modern architecture, landscaping and person-friendly details, it for some reason reminded me of an agency I worked at in Philly. But that building was falling apart, was shared with a some sort of free vd clinic, was constantly strewn with litter, and wasn’t a place you wanted to be after dark.
I can’t wait to find out…
Getting in shape eh? How far did you run? And what else do you do to keep yourselves from being desk-jockeys?
Nice photos.
Office looking sweet there Mike. Your giving me dot com flashbacks. My enterprise is run out of cardboard box.
That logo of yours makes me think of distributed apps or some funky network dealio. Hmm.. Whats Mike & Pals up to? ;-)
My gosh is your office and where it is located absolutely beautiful.
Who wouldn’t want to work in that environment?
I’ll second Jeff Croft and Ryan Brill.
Nice statues!
Great office! When you’re ready for a company chef, let me know. Consider me the first applicant, please. The idea of some pink scallop ceviche really turns me on.
Now that’s a perfect teaser post…not some silly ol’ “I’ve got big things coming soon…check back often” thing. Great post, great story and excellent new office space.
Now about that running route…my friend and I have a little side project called WalkJogRun. It’s a google maps pedometer that saves the routes that people have created (accounts are coming soon). You could plot out your route to see how far/how fast you were going. There’s already 33 routes in the Seattle area…just thought you might find it interesting.
That’s for sharing the great photos. I’m reminded, yet again, how much I adore this city. And what a prime office space, Mike! Good luck with your new adventure. I, too, look forward to seeing what you guys are up too.
Where is the cat?
or giant globe?
or the big TV with a link to the president?
… you are taking over the world, right?
Mike –
Looks incredible! Wish you and the crew much luck in this journey. New digs are always nice and make everything seem fresh again.
Great shots! My new condo is also six minutes walking distance from the office, I can’t wait for them to finally finish pulling the thing out of the ground. Hope the new space continues to deliver for you guys!
Bench is my favorite. Nice pictures, great office space.
Good luck!
Dave Simon wrote above: That deck is practically screaming for a good BBQ grill…
Size matters when it comes to grills – you need something like this bad boy – http://www.komar.org/bbq/biggest_bbq/
Ditto other comments – love to hear what you guys are up to, but the mystery does seem to be feeding the buzz better for ‘ya – good luck.
Dude — You forgot to mention the best part! You’re right across the street from my new office. ;0)
No, seriously, I’ve got to get over there this week and check it out. Looks really nice.
Mike, at first glance, those letters in picture 24 looked like an echo to me, but I found out what they really mean. They are a sound from a native american myth about water and apparently, there are soundpipes nearby.
Here is the project page for the public art piece.
http://www.haddad-drugan.com/projects/undercurrents.html
Nice to see that Seattle is treating you well.
Off-topic: I was at a flea market yesterday, killing time actually, and I stumbled across a vintage GEM safety razor.
Its handle was quite a bit older-looking than others I have seen. In the box, the insert said something about it being the “$1.00 model”, and that you should use it with some special “35 cent” shaving lotion. It had two of its five original replacement blades still wrapped, never used.
For sale, $7. I swear I was *this close* to buying it for you, just for kicks.
My girlfriend Rebecca was like, “You want to send it to Mike Davidson? Who the heck is Mike Davidson?” I don’t know why I couldn’t talk her into it.
I think we need to strengthen your brand, friend. If a 24 year-old registered nurse from Texas, living in northeast Ohio, does not know who you are then you must be a nobody.
Maybe next time. :)
Wow, Mike that’s a real nice office and surroundings! The tower in the background reminded me how much I miss the Dark Angel series. Some great camera work you have going there ;-)
That is such a lovely office, it certainly beats my 17ft square, boring white office with a view of a building site where they’re apparantly building a new college!
Great photos too!!
Nice photos. Office looks great(what office wouldn’t with Imacs on the desk?). If things don’t work out in the new venture, at least you’ll have the bench to sleep on(kidding).
Best of luck.
-Fred
hehe looks like a barrel of laughs
Lucky MFer, swap! you come live here in Northern Ireland and I’ll move there. Sounds great to me you have sun we have terrorists! Happy days.
Congrats on the new global headquarters. Looks like a great place to work!
Georgeous! You guys really found a great place. Makes me jealous working partially out of the house.
The new office looks gorgeous. Do you use the iMacs for design and development? If so, have you had any overheating issues?
That’s one sweet location .. That deck would be most likely hangout that’s for sure, drinking some fine -imported for you- Canadian brews!
“Zeerus: Yep, no details quite yet. Don’t want to start any hype before we have anything to show. Soon, soon…”
Come on, Mike, give us a clue!
Product or Service? At least tell us that. ;)
Yeah, at least tell us if it’s product or service. Anyway, I say we rip apart his SSP directory and see if we can find anything not shown here. Who knows, there has to be some other pictures he’s not showing.
I wish you’d give us a general idea of what you’re working on. I’m scared that it’ll be something similar to a major project I’m developing right now! :/
Does that pretty Ajax image gallery have anything to do with it?
Dave S.: Yep, it’s quarter-inch solid aluminum. You can do an aluminum veneer on foam for a bit cheaper, but it’s not really that expensive anyway so went with the solid stuff.
Dustin: Been running about a three-mile route almost every day with the occasional two-a-day. That is, until a bad ankle sprain last week. I’ve been hating it for the past several days. Can walk just fine now, but no more running for at least a week or two. I’ve never sprained an ankle before… not fun at all. :(
Jeff K.: Thanks for the link to WalkJogRun. Cool stuff. Will contribute to it.
alek: Holy crap that is a big barbeque. Oh my god. We actually did get a BBQ for the deck but your BBQ would chew this BBQ up and spit it out like a watermelon seed.
Bradley: Funny about the razor. I totally would have used it too! Thanks for thinkin’. Give Rebecca my best by the way. :)
Beth: No iMac overheating issues so far.
Everyone: With regards to the new company, it won’t be long now before I can release some details. It’s not even that I want to hold stuff in. It’s just that after I explain what we’re building, I’d rather actually demonstrate it or open it up for immediate use than just leave it hanging in the air. It’s just not quite ready for that yet. Only several weeks away though.
Paul D: not to answer for Mike, but that pretty little gallery isn’t powered by Ajax, at least I don’t believe it is. It’s called SlideShowPro. It’s a $20 flash component made by Todd Dominey that allows you to create amazing Flash photo galleries using XML. I have it myself, and find it extremely useful. You can find it at http://slideshowpro.net
just another quick note, found something on Scriv’s site that says your new company equals hotness + web 2.0, so I’m guessing the new company has something to do with web applications? the post Scrivs put up is at http://9rules.com/whitespace/boom_20.php
I spent a couple hours today thinking about employment and what the devil I’m going to be doing for grocery money in ten years (I’m 19 and a reluctant CS major). Browsing through Monster just for kicks and reading articles on being a corporate drudge and breaking away from corporate drudgery, I was getting a little depressed and thinking I’d be coding legacy frameworks on a low-end Dell for minimum wage.
But the point of all this melancholy is that your pictures really cheered me up. A swank office, white computer equipment, and PARASAILING. Hey, not bad. Step one, become Manager of Media Product Development for The Walt Disney Internet Group, er, entrepreneur.
Kidding aside, those are some great pics and I wish you the best of luck with whatever you’ve got hidden up your sleeve.
Mike,
The letters on the ground…
Have you ever shouted hello into the grand canyon to listen for the echo?.
Nice digs.
J.
Sorry about begin late, but thats a great office space Mike! Is it infront of the Puget Sound? Seems like a beautiful place, but then again so is the whole Seattle Area.
Thanks for the tip, Zeerus. that’s a pretty nice Flash app.
Hi Mike,
Love your Blog, that’s why it’s part of my change detection routine. Couple of big problems though:
1. I already know what I want to type, which is much faster than your instant preview “feature”. If any of this is mis-spelled, it’s not my fault.
– Talk again to Jeremy.
2. You’ve lost my non-cookie. If I wanted to see Puget Sound, I’d live there. I have. I got over it. Come to beautiful part of the country. I’d tell you where, but your site can’t keep up with my typing.
3. Did you see the last Saturday Night Live? When I did I thought of you!
4. Why does it show Posted by: John on 10.06.04 when I haven’t posted yet? (Thanks for slowing down everything, which tried to come out as Tanks fo slowin don evering wich to comou treid a tin
5. Love to chaek tat that Nofitify bos, but don;’t think I’m gon for that.
I I wanted to see what i’d type, I’d use Word (or up).
Please do at least me a favor, can we go back to the stuff that worked? I have yout on the watch because I like to see the cool, stuff that you are doing.
This reply has taken way too longd. Normally I would be gone. Don’t forget about the ‘bots that us programmers use to really keep track of things, not just the normal “public” that gets stuff delivered. This is the longest POST that I haverevermaedce in the lat 2-0+ years.
No Really. They used to call me Overlord beforee the gov. made it retroavtively ellligal to admit it. We called it a log burning party.
‘Nuf not said. The books were burned. Please, let my bots check for new content, and give me the chance to quit getting a dialy update when there has only been a wheater change.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE (damn that only took 20+ backspaces)!!!
I love your opinions, iincite, ideas, SiFR,, but I’m abouty to drop it.
It’s becomig too much work now,
John (formerly know as Overlord befor the the retroactive BS)
that’s one big soapbox dude …
Overlord: Thanks for reading and I appreciate the feedback (I think). Need to see that Saturday Night Live to see what you’re talking about. As for change detection, RSS is a nice solution for that, no?
Beautiful office.
Among all the pictures taken outside the office, there’s only one common thing that I noticed that made everything look great… the sky.
It filled everything with depth and the sun made everything so dramatic.
Beautiful.
Wow. Will the next giveaway be a desk in that office? If so, sign me up. Congrats on the great digs – that is truly a dream workspace.
I’m excited to hear what’s coming up!
On the razor, Mike: The next vintage piece I see at a flea market is as good as yours.
You know, Apple is moving away from brushed metal. If you want to be in style, you should probably use a darker, less subtle version of a color harmony that is working well for you. Perhaps use your default style for mikeindustries as a model? You can really work with the slate blue/gray thing.
Call it something clever, like, “Non-unified”. Heck, that could even be the name of your new company all ready, since the first letter is an “n” and the second is definitely round. I can see its shadow, you know. It would most likely be a vowel anyway.
There is still time. You haven’t gone public yet. You can get another sign.
OK seriously though… were all those pictures taken with your Casio? Man that thing takes great outdoor photography. I have to photoshop my photos to get the sky to look like that!
Wow nice place indeed! :)
I leave the continent for a couple of months and you come up with a new company. And a real nice office I must say. Pretty good!
Good luck from down under New-Zealand! Cheers
The logo suggests a network and a tree. So could the new company be called Net Tree?
The offices look great anyway, as do the outdoor pics. Do tell what camera you used.
Quick! You’re sidebar’s running away.
Yep, all the photos were taken with the diminutive Casio EX-Z750.
… with the diminutive Casio …
“Diminutive?” Definitely had to use ctrl+d+hover_over_word for that one. You must belong to song word of the day email list. Yeesh.
Mike, I’ve been trying to convince my wife of a reason to go back to Seattle, and this may very well do the trick! Just let me know when my health benefits and technology allowance kick in …
That’s a beautiful location in a beautiful place.
Congratulations, and I second the motion for a grill (or two or three …) on the deck!
Next time I’m in Seattle, I’m going to stop by and see what you all are really up to.
Speaking of new digs: I’m moving out of the 1st and Wall office (87 Wall; nice brick building) and am looking for some small space nearby.
The best I’ve been able to find is in the Melbourne Tower on 3rd and Pike, but they’ve increased their rates to nearly a grand for a 592 sq foot space (two rooms). This is a good price, I agree, but it’s more than I need for more than I’d like to spend for a one-man shop. All I’ll be using the space for is a place to get work done on multiple machines (a little video, a lot of Web – contract work as well as my OSNAP.net stuff), and two rooms and a grand a month is a little much.
Any suggestions? This is nearly off-topic, but I thought I’d at least throw it out there to the readers and you as well, Mike, since a lot of people have posted about working in the same neighborhood.
Later,
Chad
very nice digs. when are your blog subscribers invited over for a cookout! and will you pay for me and my friend Augusto Nandu Savimbi to fly from Nigeria for a visit? we will bring the ice and the $35M.