Lyris' first office in Piedmont For the first several years of my company, everyone worked at their home, including my wife and I. Then, in January of 1999 we knew we could not keep growing without an office, so we rented a 2nd floor office in the city of Piedmont. The office was a former psychiatrist's office, so it had plenty of individual offices with doors: excellent for programming efficiency (everyone has their own quiet space). The old office was also well situated for us: it was a 15 minute walk from our house, and there were plenty of restaurants and cafes right outside our door, since this was a busy shopping neighborhood. However, within 6 months, our growth rate meant that we had a dozen people crammed into 4 office room. The lunchroom had been sacrificed to become an office, and the hallway was now the lunchroom (made getting around the office during lunchtime difficult!). During that year in Piedmont, we hired lots of new people: Dave (programmer), Daniel (biz dev), Stephen (marketing), Joann (sales), Bryan (programming), Manju (programming), Vince (programming), Jane (IT), in addition to me (programming/management) and my wife Jan (she stayed at home, doing the books and tech support), Kip (our first programmer hire). Marlene (sales) and Torri (sales support) still worked at home, because their homes were too far to commute. The Move to Berkeley After 11 months of growth, we decided that we had to move. We wanted to stay someplace where our employees could walk to work, and preferably, those further away could take the BART subway to work. That left either downtown Berkeley, or downtown Oakland as possibilities. We considered the swank Rockridge neighborhood in Oakland, but there was no office space there. Downtown Oakland was still pretty dicey at night, and we much prefer the culture and feel of Berkeley, so we concentrated our office space search to downtown Berkeley. There, we struck it right, and found a fabulous space only 1/2 a block from the subway station, in the same building that houses a movie theater, a Starbucks, a Taco Bell, and a Mel's Diner (a wonderful 1950's style restaurant). Almost exactly one year after moving in to Piedmont, we hired Mercury Movers (a small hourly-based moving company in Berkeley [recommended!]) and moved to Berkeley. The photographs below document the move. Moving out of the old Piedmont office Joann, Jason and James grinning away in the main hallway. Joann is standing in front of the door to her office, on the left at the end of the hallway is my (John's) office, which the door at the end of the hallway is Bryan and Manju's office. The staircase leading outside is on the right. This photo is taken from the door to office facing the street. My old office, as seen from the patio outside my office, which connects to Bryan's office. A view of the hallway from Bryan's office. The staircase leading outside is on the end, toward the left. Bryan and Manju's office. Moving into the new Berkeley office Stephen setting up his office. James helping out in Nicolas' office. Jane putting together the kitchen. The main (first) room of the new Berkeley office. My new office, looking out the window.