Firm that counts Disney as a client hopes to entice developers to plush Cork headquarters
Teamwork.com also announced plans last night to turn its former office in Blackpool, on the northern outskirts of the city, into an incubator unit to help foster promising new software startups.
The cloud-based business management applications firm, which has grown from 20 staff to 70 in the last two years, hopes to create 50 jobs next year and reach a workforce level of 120 by the end of 2017, and reach some €20m in revenue.
It completed the move into its swanky new office, Campus One, in Blackpool yesterday, which has capacity for 150 staff.
It has been designed around developers and provides individual offices for each developer to allow them work in an undisturbed environment.
The office has community areas, in-office libraries, quiet spaces, music rooms, a games rooms and hidden rooms, hanging seats, window seats, a garden roof deck, garden meeting pods, and two internal slides from the upper floors.
Teamwork.com co-founder and lead developer Peter Coppinger said they needed office space to reflect the company’s culture and their passion for technology and great design, while also providing a comfortable environment where the team can be productive.
“Every developer will get their own office, a concept taken from the book Peopleware, which advocates the need for private offices in order to allow developers to have uninterrupted time,” said Mr Coppinger.
“Both my co-founder and I are programmers and have seen first hand the benefit this can bring.
“We see it as part of our job to provide the facilities to keep the machinery of our business humming along, and for us, those machines are our developers.”
In an effort to entice developers to work in Cork, the pair has launched an interactive animation to showcase the advantages to living and working in the region.
The website http://escapetocork.ie/ highlights the cultural, social, and educational benefits in the city, and gives an insight into what it would be like to work for Teamwork.com.
However, Mr Coppinger said they also want to use their old office space to help foster software start-ups.
“We were an early stage startup once, trying to make ends meet while at the same time trying to get our business up and running and it was very tough,” said Mr Coppinger.
“It seemed like help wasn’t available without a catch. We want to play our part and help businesses succeed and create great products.”
“While our current office is empty we’re going to use it as an SaaS [software licensing] incubator and allow startups with a legitimate product to use the space with access to wifi, snacks, coffee and mentoring for free with absolutely no strings attached.”
Founded in 2007, Teamwork.com develops business management applications, including a project management app, a help-desk tool and a real-time messenger.
It is one of Ireland’s most profitable SaaS companies, with over 268,000 companies, including PayPal, eBay, Disney, Forbes, and Spotify using its products, with an estimated 2.8m users.
