Every growing team hits this inflection point. The work is going well. You’ve hired a second person, maybe a third. But you’re still working from kitchen tables, rotating cafés, and booking meeting rooms on the fly. It works — until it doesn’t.
Here are five signs you’ve crossed that line.
1. Your video calls have become embarrassing
When you’re a solo freelancer, a slightly messy background on a Zoom call is charming. When you’re a team of four pitching to a client, it’s a liability. If you’ve caught yourself apologising for background noise, asking a teammate to mute while the dog barks, or postponing a client call because nobody has a quiet room — that’s a signal.
A professional meeting space isn’t about impressing people. It’s about removing friction from the interactions that generate your revenue.
2. Collaboration happens on Slack when it should happen in person
Remote-first tools are brilliant for async work. But when your team is in the same city and you’re still having 45-minute Zoom calls to work through something that would take 10 minutes at a whiteboard, you’ve over-indexed on remote flexibility.
Small teams build faster when they can sit together. The overhead of in-person coordination drops dramatically when everyone is in the same room — and the quality of the work often goes up.
3. You’re spending more on ad hoc spaces than a membership would cost
Add up what your team spends on café coffees, casual coworking day passes, meeting room rentals, and the productivity lost to context-switching between locations. For many small teams, that total exceeds the cost of a dedicated desk plan or a small private office.
A regular workspace isn’t just a cost — it’s cost consolidation. One monthly fee, one location, every day.
4. Onboarding new people feels awkward
You’ve just hired someone talented. Now where do they work? If the answer involves “we’ll sort something out” or “just work from home for now,” you’re creating a first impression that doesn’t match the quality of what you’re building.
Having a workspace gives new team members somewhere to show up on day one. Somewhere with a desk, a screen, a kitchen, and people to meet. It’s a small thing that signals you’re serious about the business — and about them.
5. You need an address
Not a PO Box. Not your home address on invoices. A real business address in the CBD that you can put on your website, your business cards, and your ABN registration.
For clients — especially government clients — a physical address adds credibility. For your team, it adds a sense of place. This is where the business lives. This is where the work happens.
Making the move
Transitioning from fully remote to a shared workspace doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. Many small teams start with two or three days a week in the space and keep the flexibility of remote days. The point isn’t to mandate attendance — it’s to give the team a home base that lifts the quality of the work and the experience of doing it.
If your team is two to six people working in tech, design, or consulting, a dedicated workspace can be the infrastructure that takes you from functioning to thriving. The cost is modest. The compounding benefits are not.