.

Just a search, engines do not solve....Rofo has more

Jason Kincaid said in his Techcrunch post -'One of the most irritating obstacles encountered by growing startups is the hunt for affordable office space. Startups with a dozen employees generally aren’t interested in leasing vast tracts of space, which makes them unattractive clients for business Realtors, so they’re typically left to fend for themselves.'

You may believe this is true in our little corner of the commercial world if;

a) you just call the listing brokers with space that doesn't fit or you just call the tenant brokers that are fat and happy only working bigger deals

b)or, your company is not ready to be decisive or you are calling everyone in town to have many do the work of one

c)or, you and a broker have yet to connect on a meaningful level that might create an awareness for you that its more about negotiating and understanding the process than just about finding available space.

A tenant representative commercial broker that understands that Medtronic, Caribou and Best Buy too were start-ups once upon a time should see value in a young company. They should be willing to a least discuss their needs and maybe offer up a little advice.

Rofo maybe a beginning step toward introducing the connection or at least getting some of this value out to the young companies.

Rofo (which stands for “Right of First Offer“)has intuitive search and selection steps paired with reviews, Google Map and Virtual Earth features.

Rofo's real potential, in Adam's mind, is with the advice section. Being ex-brokers at the helm, the content is great advice for people new to the process and with an added feature of posting questions, the advice can only get more specific. Still as it sits today, people don't know what they don't know and rofo advice starts to introduce these topics in a intuitive, easy to use format. Now, we just need the Minneapolis Warehouse District listings and the rest of the commercial space in Minneapolis/St. Paul be listed on their site. When Adam traded email with their founder, it sounded like it may happen in '09.

Until then, call a tenant rep broker. They will save you time and money!

posted by adam commercial @ 2:08 PM 1 comments