“When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.” —Rodney Dangerfield

 

Moving is never fun. In fact it’s downright painful. That said, moving has always meant that great things are in the offing. While we have always been thoughtful about growth and building a business that is sustainable, we have managed to grow rapidly and have moved seven times since 2011 (yes, seven…crazytown). From the early days in the Sonoma County hamlet of Glen Ellen to our many offices in San Francisco, each location represents a significant change in how we’ve evolved as a business.

 

Join us for a tour down memory lane and check out the moves that made us the company we are today.

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In the beginning.

In 2011—the olden days—we laid down roots in bucolic Glen Ellen. Armed with the idea that the agency business could be fun, we rented out a tiny office whose main selling point was a fancy copy machine that you could pay through the nose to use. Lucky us. We had what we needed: a room, two desks, and a heater.

Business-wise, we had a single small client and a kinda, sorta request from another. We were small but eager to do whatever our clients needed. We started with project work—doing events, strategy support, and direct mail. We were only two employees strong with a couple contractors.

After a few months it was time to make a move. Like the Beverly Hillbillies, we got a few bucks in our pockets and moved to the other side of the bridge. The space was actually a bit smaller, but we had a three-minute walk from home instead of a seven-minute one and, lo and behold, we were in a winery.

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The second and third moves: Période de vignoble.

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Picasso had his blue period, we had our winery period. Still in our tiny Glen Ellen downtown, but now in a cool historic building with a tasting room. We were in the center of the universe. We could see the stop sign from our front door but not from our office—a 200 sq. ft. converted wine storage room.

We had a couple of moves from late 2011 to early 2014. We remained in one building but two very distinct areas—the first was an expansion of our initial office and the other—to another floor.

By early 2014 we were growing our business and starting to commute into the city and the valley. We were nine full-time employees and we needed more space. Our rural surroundings being classically rural, we always ran into our landlord at the grocery store across the street, because of course, he owned that too. “You interested in the upstairs?” he asked. Queue up The Jeffersons theme song. Pretty soon we were living large in our spacious 1200 sq. ft. office with a non-working fireplace and an actual boardroom.

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Our fourth move: heading to the city where we belong.

Wine Country was great, the office was great—BUT there is always a but. We got a sizable piece of business in San Francisco with a new client that required a lot of creative collaboration and face-to-face meetings. Plus, we were up to 21 full-time employees. It was time to buckle down.

So we made the move. We packed up the Oldsmobile Model 46 Roadster with all of our worldly belongings and moved south. And when we moved south: sticker shock. We settled on a shared office space at Embarcadero 1. Not too hip, not too big, but a short walk from the Ferry Building and BART. Killer view, tiny office. Businesses are not exempt from the San Francisco real estate surge.

We spent months working together on a variety of creative projects. At this point we had doubled our size, and we were onto something with this new way of thinking about the agency model. A minute to explain: We built Firewood on the idea that business can be better, and business can be different for everyone involved. So we dumped the traditional agency model and pioneered what we call “the embedded model.” Our approach instead is to build a true partnership between a client and its agency through a deeply collaborative structure. Our teams work on-site, on the same side of the table with clients, dealing with all the daily ups and down. Read more about our agency model here.

So why would we need a new office when our people are embedded? A clarification: not everyone is embedded and it’s important for our company culture to maintain an HQ and have a home base for everyone.
We were up to 42 employees, and more and more people were digging the camaraderie. You guessed it, time to move.

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Our fifth move: the Post Office.

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The location could not be beat: near art galleries; across from Ferragamo, Cartier, and Zara; four doors from Union Square. Finally, ample space to collaborate, two large conference rooms, amazing light, and a whole 1,800 feet. We were set!

Things were cranking. We had 89 full-time employees and our business had grown by 211%. We were working more together and our embedded teams were spending more and more time in our city office.

You guessed it. Time to make the move after only 11 months. We were expanding so much with very little space and not enough conference rooms—we had to give our people more room to work. But leaving the neighborhood? It was not gonna happen. Union Square had proximity to BART, food, the Ferry Building, and more. We started to search and nothing really made sense. Then voilà… someone looked out the window. We found our new home just blocks away.

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Our sixth move: growing into a true SF agency.

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By now, you’re probably wondering “why all the moving?” The short answer is that we grew faster than we expected. A great problem to have. Even being thoughtful about growth, we kept outpacing our expectations.

Our new location at 214 Grant between Post and Sutter was two blocks from our Post address, and if you opened our fourth floor window you could see our old building. It felt like home! Nearly 4,500 square feet located above the North Face SF flagship store—a pretty awesome space.

However, the growth continued. We spent just nine months at “Grant Central” before we picked up and moved again.

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Move seven: our lucky number. One Kearny, we have arrived.

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One Kearny (actually 23 Geary if you come and visit us) is our brand-new current home. We are 130 people strong, partnering and supporting some of the top tech companies in the world. We love what we do, and our home at One Kearny allows many of us to comfortably work and hang out with each other and our clients. Plus you can’t beat the views.

 

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Our other locations.

 

And in between all of the moves, we added two other awesome offices. One in Dublin, Ireland, and one in Sandpoint, Idaho. From extremely local in Glen Ellen to three offices, one of which is international, we feel lucky to have grown this much.

 

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” —Albert Einstein

Moving isn’t fun, but every time we arrive in our new digs we realize we’re starting fresh again—stronger and better for it. Let’s just hope move eight doesn’t happen soon.