Re: Looking for advice and perhaps a little inspiration

We used to have a studio near downtown and we hardly ever had clients in. We asked our clients how they would feel about a home based studio that was separated from our home by a doorway. They all said no problem and we bought a house that allowed us to do just that, 11 years ago. We have an 18x18 office, a 14x17 edit room, a 20x20 edit/machine room, a 9x24 store room, a 7x24 store room and a 25x37 studio/storage space with a 12 foot ceiling, a grid and a 16x16 cyc. This much room in a rental space would have been about $60,000 a year. So, we saved $700,000 in rent, we own the property and I have employees that work all hours. My company insurance is low and I don't wake up at night wondering who is loading my gear into the back of a van in the middle of the night. We were burglarized several times downtown. We probably lost $75k in business because we had a boutique instead of a downtown location. I've also saved many thousands in auto expense.

I have agreements with a few companies around town for conference room space when I need it.

I can't begin to tell you how much we saved by eating at home.

Now, there have been a number of times when I've thought about buying a building in a decent area and moving into a smaller house because we can't help but believe that business will grow with a more professional workspace. However, in today's economic climate, I'm glad to be where I'm at. If you have that amount of income, guaranteed forever, you'll probably want to stay in a commercial area, but, if you lost that big client, how would it impact your financial picture? We lost several huge clients who just decided to take everything in house. If we had been paying big rent dollars, we would have been devastated.

One of the best ideas was to share a place with another company but of all the people I know who have done that, none of them have have had a successful endeavor with it.

Good like


Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It's a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .