This as told essay is based on a conversation with Sami Akkawi, the 26-year-old co-founder of Petra Labs. He lives in New York. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I used to work through consultancy, where I interviewed almost 1,000 people heads of marketing and CMOs.
It became very clear that they didn’t have good solutions for determining how much revenue came from AI searches. That’s why I co-founded Petra Labs.
My team and I have outgrown five offices in the past year. From apartment lounges to an entire floor in SoHo, this is how we found our dream place.
Office #1: The lounge of Akkawi’s co-founder’s Dumbo apartment
The first work area had uncomfortable chairs. Sami Akkawi
There was a pool table, which was great. Every time we had good news, we would play pool. When we signed our first customer, we received a number of games.
Other than that it was just tables. We had portable monitors that we took with us. There was no one there, except for the occasional other remote employee and us.
There was ice cold water coming from the fridge and plenty of natural sunlight all the time.
We only had one key ringso we had to be very strategic when entering and exiting. The chairs were also super uncomfortable. We were there for a few weeks.
Office #2: Lounge of the Lower East Side apartment in Akkawi
Petra Labs moved to the lounge in the Akkawi apartment complex. Sami Akkawi
We upgraded to my apartment lounge as it had meeting rooms and telephone booths. During that time, the three of us started taking more calls.
While one of my co-founders had to commute from Dumbo, and the other from Long Island City, I just headed down. The gym was a big plus.
There was an outdoor terrace. This was in the summer, so it was a lot of fun. There were also some fun celebrity sightings, like random people from “The bachelor‘ and New York influencers.
The second workspace had an outdoor terrace. Sami Akkawi
Many other companies operated from that space. We got our biggest contract ever at the time by simply saying ‘hello’ to someone sitting next to us. We saw him carry an entire monitor out of his room and put it on one of the tables. I asked him what he was working on and he said marketing. I said, “We sell to marketers.” We still work with them today.
We would get some complaints from management because we were there seven days a week14 hours a day. They wondered if we were running a company with this as the official business address.
We were there for three months.
Office #3: Afore’s San Francisco office
At the Afore office, Petra Labs employees had their own monitors. Sami Akkawi
We grew a small pre-seed check Before Capital. As part of the check, they invited us to work with a large number of startups from their office. We all flew to San Francisco, rented a house in Nopa for two months and set up shop in their office.
This was the first real office where we had our own desk. We all had monitors and there were snacks in the fridge.
We became good friends with Afore’s office manager, which gave us a lot of influence over which snacks they would stock. A lot of coconut water requests, lots of Chomps.
The other guys were really cool and built cool stuff. We sat next to people who were also there seven days a week and stayed later than us. It was really motivating. We are still very good friends with all of them.
The telephone booths of the Afore office became hot. Sami Akkawi
It just wasn’t our own space. We got our first employee there, but they didn’t want us to bring in any more people. The telephone booths also became very hot.
Office #4: A SoHo WeWork
Petra Labs’ WeWork had enough space for eight people. Sami Akkawi
We moved back to New York and got… a WeWork five months in SoHo. It was a room for eight people.
We also met other startups there, like a noisy Italian startup. They were very loud, but very fun. There was free kombucha on tap.
Man, we were tight. It was a small space and we had no direct access to sunlight. We were there all winter, so it would get dark at 4pm and we still had six hours to go.
There were three different employees treadmill runningbut they couldn’t use them at the same time because there wasn’t enough space. We had to buy a fan because it would get stuffy.
The WeWork was cramped and had no direct access to sunlight. Sami Akkawi
That was probably the worst of all the offices. We became very, very good friends with our first employees at WeWork.
We tried to leave earlier, but the Rental scene in New York is heavy. A number of rental contracts fell through. We finally moved on May 1st, which was the absolute last deadline. If we hadn’t moved, we would have had to live remotely.
Office #5: Petra Labs’ SoHo office
Petra Labs moved into its first fully independent office in SoHo. Petra Labs
We started working with a broker and looked at backup options through Tandem. They found us a place that was listed as short term, but actually had a two year lease.
They are two technically separate units. The second has a large conference room with a Costco couchwhich is probably our best investment. The other main area has a kitchen and a large, open layout with very high ceilings. You get a lot of natural light.
We also have a fire escape, which is very nice.
The SoHo office has a fire escape. Sami Akkawi
This space is so nice. It’s nice that we all work next to each other; no one is in separate rooms. We try to eat all our lunches and dinners together.
The only downside: we have outgrown it and we have a two-year lease. The landlord also made me sign a personal guarantee.
They said there might be another room in the same building. That would be ideal. If not, we’ll see.
