For eight years Donna has led the Spark Public Relations team from the San Francisco Bay Area. We started off in the heart of the Silicon Valley in Los Altos (in cofounder Chris Hempel’s spare bedroom, if I’m getting the story straight) and then moved to offices in Palo Alto and Menlo Park before arriving at an emptied out and bathroom fixture warehouse at 87 McLea Court in San Francisco that we remodeled from the ground up (we’re now at 2 Bryant Street in SF).
From these locations, we’ve provided global public relations support to our clients, working with companies and reporters in places like Canada, Japan, Sri Lanka, Estonia, Spain and Finland. The globalization that has drastically changed the face of business has also impacted the way we do public relations. The most interesting startup may not be in the Bay Area anymore. And articles or blogs that run online aren’t limited to a specific region or location. Because of this, we decided that it’s time for Sparkpr to formalize its global footprint. Starting in June 2007 we will have an office in London, giving us not only a physical location in Europe, but also exposure to different conversations, ideas, and trends.
The idea is that we’ll be able to work with leading technology companies in the UK, providing them on the ground, in person support, with a direct line into Silicon Valley, a place that still drives much of the technology discussions that happen today. There is so much happening in Europe right now, evidenced by the amazing companies we met with during a trip in February. These companies are changing the way we think about wireless access, defining how our online identities manifest themselves in the real world, and leading the discussion on internet radio and online music communities.
On a personal note, this is a big change for me, not even a year after getting married. But I’m excited about what London has to offer right now. It is a city hitting its stride with a level of excitement that I haven’t seen in years. It feels like it is the right time to be going over there and it means my husband and I have a whole new city to explore. While I am sad to leave San Francisco and have a heavy heart as I plan for this new phase of life, I am looking forward to learning a new city and eventually calling it home.
I’d love to hear from you if you have any tips! Always looking for great restaurants and interesting technology companies. And, of course, the invitation to come visit is always open!
Yes, Rachel, we started off in a small spare bedroom of our home in Los Altos with the bases of our desks made out of black and yellow plastic saw horses from Home Depot and long pieces of plywood from our garage as desktops. Our lovely office chairs (a plastic cream colored lawn chair taken from our back patio for me and from what I recall a cheap barstool for Donna) became unbearable to sit on after 2 months of working 12+ hour days. What a surprise! Our first client was Jim Barksdale followed by VA Linux Systems and Tellme Networks (both were in stealth mode at the time). When we finally got around to billing our clients (at the time we didn’t have a billing or time tracking system but just sent a letter with an amount owed!) and received our first checks, Donna and I decided it was time to splurge and we purchased the most expensive office chairs we could find. I think we might have even cracked open a bottle of wine to celebrate the occasion. If you look at the chair Donna sits on today you will see it’s the same chair we bought 8 years ago in Palo Alto. Donna, I think it’s about time for an upgrade!
When we started the company, our vision was to become a global technology firm with international offices. I’m absolutely thrilled to see us executing on our original plan and opening our first international office in London. In many ways, our London office is like a start-up. The good news is that you have a lot more support and infrastructure in place to get this office up and running than Donna and I had when we started the company and you’ve worked with so many start-ups that you know what to expect on some level. Of course, there will be many challenges along the way. However, I am confident that your skills and abilities will enable you to navigate any challenge that comes your way. Your first challenge was accepting to take on this major assignment. I am so proud of you (and Rick) for taking the personal risk to go on this journey. It’s going to be a wild ride. In the weeks and months ahead, you’ll be getting lots of advice from many different people. If there are a few words of advice I can offer at this juncture, it’s this. Make sure you get yourself a comfortable chair!
Chris