Incrementing on West Oakland
I moved to West Oakland 6 weeks ago. It’s the most urban place I’ve ever lived. And I love it.
Recently my roommate/CEO wrote about how he’s watched West Oakland change over the past 7 years. West Oakland is certainly not perfect, but it’s growing and changing in search of its identity much like a startup does in search of its business model.
For the past 6 weeks, my studio/Andrei’s basement/our office has been Kato’s home; it’s been a little cramped. We returned from Techstars and started clearing out Andrei’s storage space to build an office.
6 weeks ago the space I’m writing from had plywood floors, unfinished walls and windows, and was filled to the ceiling with stuff. Today it’s totally redone with patched up wood flooring, brand new window trim and a vibrant blue accent (Andrei’s choice).
The awesome part about our office project is it’s happening all over West Oakland. Just drive down the street and you’re guaranteed to see people working on their properties.
Piece by piece, room by room, West Oakland is incrementing on itself. Restaurants like Brown Sugar Kitchen, B-Side BBQ, 10th and Wood and Fusebox can’t be beat in the entire Bay and there’s more coming every month.
It’s a powerful feeling to be a part of a neighborhood changing for the better. We’re already seeing cool startups like Clef proudly relocating to the greater Oakland area and we just heard our amazing friends at Elihuu are moving here next month.
I can’t wait to see who joins us in West Oakland over the next year.