Aquablu

What surprised me most when we moved was the most expensive things are the ones you can't see. They're also the hardest to change afterwards. Ventilation and climate, acoustics, your water lines. We learned that one the hard way. We had weekly meetings with architects and builders but the pipes in our own kitchen still didn't get plumbed to plan. The two takeaways from that were: 1. Choose your subcontractors carefully and when you can, work with people based locally. 2. Spec your hydration points the moment you scope your location. It will save you time and money. You might not be managing the move yourself, but hand The Office Move Guide to the person who is. It covers what to decide and in what order. With advice from workplace strategists and real case studies from office managers who have managed a move. Get the guide here: https://lnkd.in/eR5aAS2z

This year, our Utrecht team at Van Gooi moved into a larger office following a renovation. I was happy to contribute to the project and support the move alongside my colleagues. Aquablu recently asked me how we approached the move for a feature in their Office Move Guide. The Utrecht team wanted an Aquablu system similar to the one in our Hilversum office. Before the new kitchen was built, we mapped out where the water connections needed to be so everything could be installed at once. One lesson learned: it helps to plan the office layout early. Think about desk locations, meeting rooms, and where people will get their coffee and water. Having a clear plan from the start makes the move much smoother. You can read the full story in the guide here: https://lnkd.in/ephBQhTb

Something I learned this year I didn’t expect is just how much goes into moving offices. Don’t get me wrong, it (mostly) turned out great. But it was a lot. Late contractors, screwed-up plumbing, and meeting rooms without proper ventilation turned stand-ups into sauna sessions. No one hands you a guide for this stuff, so we took all our lessons and made one. The Aquablu x work-club Office Move Guide is five chapters on how to run the smoothest office move, and land on something made for your team. To write it, we partnered with work.club for insights on everything from earning the commute to how to manage a move plan. We interviewed workplace strategists from Powerplant , Hospitality Group and Elmar Wilens for their take on how to design a space with hospitality built-in and how to future-fit. Plus our own clients who have managed a move themselves. A move is a chance to reset how your team works, and the decisions that matter get made earlier than most people think. We wrote this for the person carrying those decisions. It’s free to download with tools to manage your own move built in. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/erRJEJUP

As a CEO you need to emotionally counterbalance your team. Leading a scale-up, there's a lot of energy when things go well. People want to take risks, chase new ideas and move away from the base strategy to take big bets. When things are slow, doubt creeps in and confidence takes a hit. My job is to not get caught up in either. It’s to ground the team when the energy pulls us off the plan, and feed them when inspiration when it's low.

Aquablu moved office this year. When we started planning, I thought the team could run the move alongside their normal work. In hindsight, I was wrong. It turned out one of the bigger changes we've made as a company and a few things, like planning the things behind the walls first, caught us out. My take: put someone on the move full-time from day one, and give it the attention it deserves. Fixing things afterwards always costs more. We published the Office Move Guide so you can hand it to the person running your office-move and avoid our mistakes. Made with work-club and featuring Elmar Wilens, Hospitality Group, Powerplant and DMG Office. Get the guide here: https://lnkd.in/eR5aAS2z

The world is full of sustainable products that make things worse. And we've spent a decade celebrating swaps that solve half the problem. I was reminded of it again on my recent trip. Paper straws that disintegrate halfway through a cocktail. Bamboo toothbrushes with a weird mouthfeel that never fully dries in a humid bathroom. Hotels with "save the planet" towel programs that are housekeeping cost savings in disguise. The list goes on. They all have one thing in common. They solve half the problem at the expense of the experience. The funny thing? That's not sustainable. That's a compromise. Compromises might survive for a while on good intentions, but eventually we go back to the solution that delivers the better experience. True innovation solves the environmental problem, improves the experience, and doesn't cost 3x the original price. Next week at Dublin Tech Summit, I'll be talking about what this means for product companies and how it's shaped the way we build and design at Aquablu. See you there?