Elevator Up is a web hosting and development company based out of Zeeland, MI. They value space and also host “The Garage” a coworking space attached to their own in which entrepreneurs and small business owners can come and work together.  

In the words of Elevator Up’s owner, Aaron Schaap, “Elevator Up’s whole focus is that we are just a bunch of guys in a garage hanging out and making cool stuff. That’s been our mantra since day one. So we thought, “How do we get people to come hangout with us? Let’s just call our coworking space The Garage because that’s what we are doing anyway.” 

“We move our office around about every 3 months.  For us it’s just about constantly changing for variety’s sake.  If you can walk around a room blind and know where everything is, then it’s been like that for too long. We have been in this space for 4 years now and were one of the first companies to come to this building.  We did coffee shops and stuff like that when we first started. I still usually start my day out at a coffee shop for a few hours and then come here. We actually dida company website in exchange for their coffee, so we have an ungodly amount of coffee, which is actually really convenient. 

Starting out we just went as basic as possible and got a bunch of stuff and now we are actually looking for nicer chairs. You start out and are okay with just getting some cheap chairs from some outlet and then you sit in them for a few years and realize “This is terrible!” I’m a web developer. I sit in my chair all day- so I need a good chair with “thought about” ergonomics. I knew I’d have to spend some money for them and I was willing to save up for that. We ended up getting Leap chairs and it wasn’t like I sat down in it and all of my back problems were solved, it was more of a slow thing, feeling more awake at the end of the day and feeling fantastic by the end of the week.

We like things that are movable because you never know what the moment will be and what that moment needs. Sometimes we will have a meeting and it will start out with about 3 people and just get bigger and bigger, so the room needs to be able to quickly change. Having spaces to draw is really important and that has been a struggle. We are huge white board people and love to just pick them up and draw on them wherever. 

I usually need a little guidance on the direction of how to layout our space. For me space isn't just about hanging out, it’s a place that you live. You work most of your life.  I feel that our office should be a place that people would want to go hangout even if we aren’t talking about work,  so we could even get together and play poker in the office.  Its important for us to have a space that supports our philosophy allowing us to move things around, invite others to come and work, and really just integrate our work and our life.