11SquareFeet @ SFNewTech

I’m going to be presenting 11SquareFeet at this months SFNewTech on the 18th of November. If you’re unfamiliar with SFNewTech it’s an evening event in San Francisco that happens once a month where five or so companies get to present their product in a 5 minute live demo format. there’s networking, drinking and a funny moments to be had. You can find out more on SFNewTech here http://sfnewtech.com/

I’ve been a supporter of NewTech for a long time and I think that Myles puts on a great event (check out Mylermedia for more info on Myles and the things he does) and this is an exciting opportunity. If you’d like to come and see me bumble abound on stage for 5 minutes (might be good for a laugh) you can buy tickets here

http://november18sfnewtech-emailinvite.eventbrite.com/?invite=ODg4ODAvcGV0ZXNhbHR5QGdtYWlsLmNvbS8w%0A

Hopefully we’ll see you there.

Dale Cook

Service Upgrade

In response to requests from our customers, 11SquareFeet has undergone a major upgrade. Users no longer need to register in order to post a listing. Users may now post listings using a “Craigslist”-eque process, where a “Further Action” email is sent to the user for confirmation of their email address. Users must retain this email to access their listing to publish, or make changes to that listing. Listings placed using this method are not published automatically but require the listing to be manually published, using the link provided in the “Further Action” email.

However registration remains an option and there are some definite benefits to registration with registered users enjoying the following features:

• Immediate Publishing – Registered users have their listings published immediately and automatically.
• Easy Listing Management – Registered users have access to all their listings in one place and can edit and remove their listings easily, without the need of “Further Action” emails.
• Advanced Tools – Registered users have access to advanced reporting tools not available to other users, i.e. listing view report, contact reports and additional features coming soon.

This process should make it a lot quicker for casual users to list their properties while maintaining a more robust solutions for users who manage many listings at one.

The 11SquareFeet Support Team

Changes in Commercial Real-Estate

SFGate, the online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle, has an article on ROFO, a company that’s also trying to make some changes in the way commercial real estate works. I’m not sure I 100% agree with the way ROFO works, but I like the fact that they’re trying to make some changes and have some really good ideas. Anyway, you can check out the article at

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/11/05/BULJ13PJ5C.DTL

We’ve Been Interviewed

I recently did an interview with Cristian Dorobantescu over at Entrepreneur Interviews. Christian’s a great interviewer and you should check out his site for other interesting interviews. My interview can be found at

http://www.entrepreneur-interviews.com/interview-with-dale-cook-from-11squarefeet/

Let me know what you think.

Dale

Cutting the Burn

Obviously we’re going into a recession and companies need to spend less to stay alive. One of the biggest costs is office space and many companies end up with more of it than they need, especially after layoffs. However, many companies fail to utilize their space effectively during tough times, often being stuck in a lease that leaves them with more space than they need. Since the space if often already equipped, often in the form of empty desks, sub-leasing to other small companies, start-ups or solo professionals, all of which are also trying to bring down their costs. is a win-win situation. Ten desks in an office in downtown San Francisco can bring in between $3000 and $4000 per month, on average.

But that’s not it, there are also has another advantage. Empty desks are a real moral killer, as anyone in this situation can attest to. Having people who are committed to their own businesses filling that space helps being energy back into the office. Finding companies, or individuals, with complementary experience also, obviously, benefits both sides.

As budgets get tighter it’s the smart choice to make, and 11squarefeet.com makes it easier to do with its focus on this exact situation.

Update and Free Listings

Well, we’ve been at it for a while and, regrettably, we have to report that all of our backup data was indeed lost. This means that if you’ve already made a listing with 11SquareFeet you’ll need to recreate your user account and reenter your listings. We’re extremely sorry for this huge inconvenience. If you need any help, whether it’s setting up your account, or your listings, please  contact us (we’ll be sending an email to customers this morning with further details) and we’ll be more than happy to help.
We’re also implementing a new back up scheme, with multiple layers of redundancy, so this won’t happen again.

To compensate everyone for this we’ll be extending the free listing period through November. This means that all listings will now be free until December 1st. That’s over 6 weeks of free listings.

We had planned on announcing our future pricing schedule this morning anyway, so here it is. Starting December 1st, listings will cost $4.99 per listing per month. For those of you with many listings we will be offering bulk discounts as follows:

10 listings per month – $4.49 per listing
20 listings per month – $3.99 per listing
30 listings per month – $3.49 per listing
More than 30 listings per month, contact us for special pricing.

Remember, many other services, you only need list your space once, not many times to have the same effect.

Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused by our outage and if there’s anything we can do to win you back as customers please let us know.

Dale Cook
Founder , 11SquareFeet

11SquareFeet back on line

We’re back on line. We have the server (well, a new server) in place and reconfigured.

Unfortunately it looks like all data was lost at this point. We’ll continue to work throughout the night to see if anything is recoverable but we’re not holding out much hope at this point. We’re very, very sorry to anyone who this has inconvenienced. We’ll send out a mailing in the morning, and place an update here, detailing how we’re going to make this right.

Dale Cook

11SquareFeet Goes Down Hard

At approximately 10am Pacific tonight our server had a catastrophic failure, which essentially means that the server is currently dead and all data on the server was lost. Unfortunately this was also the exact time time that the server was performing it’s database back up, and we currently believe that that data too has been corrupted beyond repair. This is, of course absolutely devastating, and our biggest fear is that all our customer data may be lost. We’ll be sending an email to all customers soon with an explanation of what went wrong and how we plan to make it right. Our sincerest apologies to anyone who may have lost data due to this event.

Dale Cook
Founder

Reuters Agrees With SF Chronicle

Or maybe it’s the other way round, I’m not sure, but Reuters published an article today about office occupancy being at its lowest in two years. You can find it here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4922AJ20081003

Too Much Space Says SF Chronicle

There was an interesting article on the San Francisco Chronicle today about a large amount of commercial space coming into the real estate market in San Francisco. This, according to the article, is the result of a number of larger financial companies folding and/or being acquired. It might be doom and gloom for some, but this is great news for all the SquareFooters out there. We don’t need a lot of space but an abundance of it in the market simply means more choice for us and lower prices, and we all like lower prices.

If you’re a commercial broker and you’re not dealing in the micro-space market you should be, this is where all the growth will be in the next few years.

Check out the article here

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/02/MNJ6139RQA.DTL

And, as always, to list your micro-space use 11squarefeet.com, the only real eatate listing service specializing in micro-spaces.