The WeWork Irvine pitch deck that made me stop chasing office space

Saw a founder pitch at the Irvine tech meetup last month. He talked about his $8,000 a month WeWork lease. Said it was for 'credibility' with investors. I almost bought into that same trap back in March. My garage office costs zero rent and I close deals just fine. Has anyone else skipped the fancy office and felt weird about it?

2 comments

2 Comments

harper_wright10d ago

Bro honestly your garage is a power move. I've seen too many startups burn cash on a fancy address just to impress randos at demo days. Investors care about your numbers and your product, not your mid century modern furniture. If your garage closes deals then you're already ahead of half the WeWork crowd. Save that $8k for actual growth instead of rent.

fisher.charlie10d agoMost Upvoted

Totally agree with @harper_wright on this. I ran my first startup out of my bedroom for 18 months and it forced us to be lean and scrappy in a way that paid off later when we finally did get office space. The lack of a fancy address actually made us work harder on building real relationships instead of coasting on the place we worked from. Investors only started caring about our setup once we had traction, not before.