Do You Need a Physical Office in 2022 | EP 723

Do You Need a Physical Office in 2022

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, I’m David Blackmon

00:35 Tim Strifler: And i’m Tim Streifler

00:38 David Blackmon: Do you need an office in 2022? I mean, i guess maybe, maybe not. Hell no you don’t need an office i don’t know um you know it’s kind of funny, we wanted to talk about this because you know the world is definitely changing, you know it’s becoming more location independence, is a huge deal. Especially with even in the workspace two years ago pre pandemic before the world kind of went crazy uh businesses wouldn’t even consider people working from home. No they got to come to the office and stuff. If you were a brick and mortar business and what they realized in that pandemic is that you know no you you really, you know it’s like they can work from home. So that begs the question Tim, do you need a physical office in 2022 ?

01:38 Tim Strifler: Yeah that’s a great question. And it’s funny because uh like airbnb that kind of made the news recently, because they announced that their employees never have to come into the office and they can work wherever they want without a change in pay. And instead what what they mentioned at least the articles i read is they’re going to offer uh like rather than doing hybrid or anything like that. One day a week it’s zero days a week but instead we’re gonna do like week-long you know meet-ups or team meetups and stuff you know once a quarter or something like that. And it’s funny because that’s what automatic the parent company of WordPress, Matt Mullenwick’s company that’s what they’ve been doing for like a decade and a half, where they’re fully remote. And then you they give you like uh stipends for like your office, so if you wanted to have a home office they’ll give you money to get you know, a nice desk and equipment. Or if you want to put that tour it’s like a co-working space you can do that and then they have week-long meetups uh in different places around the world you do that with your team maybe once a year twice a year or something and then you do a bigger one with like the whole company once a year. And um and it’s like automatic’s been doing that way before the pandemic, and it’s like all these other big tech companies are finally catching up. So um as far as like uh small web designers agencies stuff like that because that’s generally who our our listeners are here on the podcast, i would say no you do not need a physical office. If you need to have a place to meet clients you can rent a co-working space run a conference room stuff like that like you don’t need a physical office. Of course if you’re someone who you need to get out of the house you have kids you have a small space, you have roommates whatever, and you need a dedicated space then yeah maybe you should look into getting a physical office or joining a co-working space or something like that, but like do you need one to be successful absolutely not. David and i both had fully remote companies for years coincidentally David and his business partner at Aspen Grove Studios just recently got a physical office but it wasn’t because they needed to yeah first time ever they just happened to to be in the same place and they’re like what the heck let’s do it..

03:57 David Blackmon: Yeah yeah absolutely. This is our first office. We’re kind of we’ve always been a little bit ahead of the curve and a little bit backwards but yeah, we’ve been completely you know no physical office for a decade and we just recently this year got this office space. So that we could come in and and work together and stuff because Corey and i have never worked together, and we wanted to experience that and stuff. And it’s been nice it’s been good so but the fact is do we need it? Absolutely not. You know this was very much a want and not a need because we’ve been doing it for a long time and my answer to this is 100 unequivocally, no you do not need a physical office in 2022. If you want one you can have one but you do not need one especially if you’re in anything digital, you know. If you’re, if you’re working with a computer and your main you know business is being done on a computer over the internet why would you need an office? You got internet at home, i mean it’s just logical but um yeah so i guess it depends on on wants versus needs and stuff. So yeah. All right tomorrow we’ve got another great topic our favorite productivity for 2022. Until then well till tomorrow we’ll see you then, i’m going to get it right Tim I promise.

05:39 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye.