• Recommended by Alex Gajewski, helped them find their spot
• Background:
  • Looking for a space, ideally with space for coworking and private offices
  • Budget is around 5k-10k/mo, could do more if larger
    • Targeting ~20-40 people a day
  • Target areas: Nopa, Alamo, Hayes
    • Close to cafes/restaurants ideal
  • Not urgent, willing to wait a bit (for financing)
• Questions:
  • Recommendations for how to search?
  • Broker commission?

Notes

• Will - Helped with the SF Compute space
• Have more time to find a space
  • Can find the right space
  • Helps from a leverage in a negotiation — our back isn’t against the wall
• Submarkets that we’re targeting are limited in the office inventory
  • Timeline to have more time, things come online arbitrarily in commercial real estate, the more time, the more opportunities
• Jack:
  • Been with JLL for 10y, specialize in helping entreprenuers and venture firms for real estate
    • office, coworking, R&D. Sweet spot is tech. Some different and unique inflection points and drivers within the ecosystem that differs from other companies
    • Venture backed, scaleability we need to pair with rigitidy in the commercial real estate
    • Longer term lengths bad, buildout bad — solving these on our behalf is JLL’s bread & butter
• Will
  • Joined JLL 2.5y ago, helping early stage startups find their first or second office in SF
  • Already have a few spaces in mind
• Process:
  • We’re their real estate team, go out and source options. Don’t represent those landlords, representing tenant. Represented SF Compute, surveyed market, create a list of availabilities and options, pull together data
  • Can sift through ourselves, check down different option
    • Narrow down list of 8-20 options to 4-5 that resonate, go out and tour the market
  • Iterable process - spaces come online. Space around the corner from SF compute came online
    • Start as blocking off time to see a bunch, see specific availabilities in the future
    • When identifying 2-3 options. Then draft out term sheets — see what would be agreeable
      • Monthly base
      • Term lengths
      • Auxiliary items (asking about adding conference room, repaint, furnish)
    • Once that’s agreed to, decide the best terms, Landlord uses to draft lease document
      • That becomes binding. Similar to apartment lease. once signed & sent, the space is ours for the commitment time.
• On the commission fee — don’t cost anything
  • Services are no cost — fee paid for transaction paid for by the landlord
    • They’re paying the fee to bring off tenant
  • Sometimes it’s a %, sometimes $ per square foot. E.g. for Alex, $2/sqft/y
  • Sometimes total lease values, get 3% of X
    • Sometimes landlord are less sophisticated
  • Either case — Discussion are pretty nominal on their side. Strive for developing relationships with people in our position
    • Because one day we might scale and need a new location
    • Or with Alex, can refer more entrepreneuers looking for space. Will work hard for us as for larger clients. Xai, Ad yen, $100k
• Next steps: Start monitoring the market, pulling together options.
  • Address, picture, floorplan, monthly basis — start filtering through and show what’s out there
  • Will schedule tour
  • Fiduciary duty to represent
  • Shortform working agreement, cancelable with 7day notice. Will let them access info on our behalf.
• [aside] Austin on hearing back from grant around November
• Will need to be one entity signing the lease
  • Can sublease, etc,
• 40-50 is pretty sizeable for this market
• Next steps:
  • Hear over email, have an initial survey in the next 24-248