Business Opportunities Weblog

August 8, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

BusinessWeek:

Plenty of Web entrepreneurs start their ventures at home and move into commercial spaces only when they expand.

Unity Stoakes and Steven H. Krein did it backwards. They ditched their office space in midtown Manhattan a year after founding OrganizedWisdom, a health search, and sent their staff of nine to work from home.

And after more than a year of running OrganizedWisdom remotely, Stoakes and Krein wouldn’t do it any other way.

With the infrastructure already in place, Stoakes and Krein gradually switched to remote work early in 2007, abandoning their office entirely that September.

Now, Stoakes works from his apartment in Manhattan’s West Village or sometimes from a nearby park, his building’s roof, or a neighborhood café. Armed with his MacBook, iPhone, and paper notebook, he says he can work wherever he has a Wi-Fi signal. At first, he and Krein debated whether the change would make them more efficient.

Almost a year into operating without an office, Stoakes is unequivocal about the benefits, which he recently enumerated on his blog.

In financial terms, eliminating the cost of Manhattan office space cut OrganizedWisdom’s operating expenses by about 30%, Stoakes says. The company now recruits new hires from anywhere, rather than focusing on people in New York.

And Stoakes has positioned the shift as his company’s commitment to environmental sustainability, pointing out how it eliminated the energy, paper, and travel costs associated with an office.

Photo by John Tozzi.

In Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Tags: Internet, Telecommuting, Work at Home