About Town: Thinkspace Founder Finds Success in Small Businesses

As a father who once worked from home, Peter Chee knows how challenging it can be to carve out a work space and present a professional front when more than half the people in your "office" are under the age of 5.

“Working from home became not an option,” for Chee as his three children grew and it became harder to separate himself from the melee during work hours using merely double French doors, he said.

Enter , Chee's solution for small business owners, entrepreneurs and other office-less professionals who seek a quiet, organized space to get work done. A techy turned real estate developer, Chee says that everything just kind of jelled to open the flexible office space company in Redmond.

He had already developed and was leasing out space in the office building where Thinkspace opened in 2008.

“As leases turn over, you start to think about what you want to do,” with a space, Chee said. He had been kicking around the idea of a flexible office building, and since he needed some external office space himself, he took the leap and launched Thinkspace.

“It’s not a brand-new concept, but what we’ve done is much more than office space—it’s the collaboration. We are really trying to foster a community here,” Chee said.

Along with renting out office space, Thinkspace also offers a variety of services to both onsite clients and those who may still be working from their homes, with monthly fees starting at around $200, depending on the services used. The company also brings in speakers regularly and holds networking meetings and symposiums for clients.

The current facility is located in downtown Redmond on 164th Avenue NE and offers 25,000 square feet of space. Thinkspace is about 95 percent occupied by companies that have anywhere from one to 18 employees, Chee said. The leases range from six months to a year, or small companies can rent “divvy” space for two days a week, eight times a month if they just occasionally need quiet space for working or holding meetings.

Thinkspace offers a variety of administrative services to its 250 member companies, Chee said, including mailboxes and a phone answering service. This extra help can allow a company to be professional and launch or expand without having to hire its own employees or work out a lot of details that can take away from the core of its business activities, Chee said.

One of Thinkspace’s early clients, a social media strategy firm called Ant’s Eye View, started with three people and moved to larger spaces within the Thinkspace building three times before finally outgrowing the space and moving to an office in Seattle.

Sean O’Driscoll, a Redmond resident who co-founded Ant’s Eye View and serves as its CEO, said not having to spend time on a lot of mundane decisions or committing to a long lease as a small company allowed the company to focus on building its business.

“The opportunity cost associated with having to figure out all those things on your own” is a big factor for a lot of startups, O’Driscoll said. More importantly, however, launching in that innovative environment gave Ant’s Eye View the chance to cement its own corporate culture within that framework, he said.

“I don’t know why any company under five people would really contemplate doing it any other way,” O'Driscoll said.

As for Chee, he says he’s really happy with how Thinkspace has progressed so far and is ready to expand. The company plans a Seattle location in Pioneer Square, and Chee is currently scouting additional locations, though he declines to say where. He said he would ultimately like to go international with the company.

“I would like there to be a Thinkspace everywhere,” he said.