Should You Get a Studio? (And What to Look For)
Hello friends! As you may have seen on our Instagram, we recently signed the lease on a new studio! We're so excited, but the process also made us really think through what's important to us in a space, and we thought that it could help any of you who are thinking about getting your own studio either now or in the future.
To start, let's talk about how we got our first studio. For the first year of our business, we stored all our stuff in my garage, and either rented lights and then shot in my kitchen or dining room, or we would rent a full studio from Peerspace. We were charging those rental expenses to our clients so it wasn't costing us too much financially, but it was taking up a lot of additional time especially since most of the studios in our area are 45-60 minutes away (before Silicon Valley traffic). Even though this whole set up was not the most convenient, it was very affordable and since this was just a side hustle for both of us, we were planning on continuing like that for a while.
Then we met our friend Diane Villadsen. She's an incredible photographer who's also based in the south bay, and the very first time that we met she brought up the idea of getting a studio space together. As we talked, we came up with the idea of getting a space that a bunch of photographers and creatives could share in order to make the rent more affordable. If you know anything about Silicon Valley you know that we have some of the highest housing prices in the country and commercial real estate is just as bad so this sounded really good to us.
We looked at place that was completely out of our price range, but the real estate agent who showed that property sent us some other spaces that were also available. When we went to see them, we immediately knew that we loved one of the units. It was smaller than we had originally wanted, but other than that it was great! This is the space that became Little Sunday Studio. Diane ended up choosing to not move forward with the rental because she ended up buying a house, but at the time we still planned to make it a shared space with other photographers.
Here's a photo of us signing the deposit check - the largest check we had ever written up to that point haha.
You guys we signed that lease with no financials to show that we could pay rent. Seriously we had not had even one month where we had made enough to pay rent. Looking back I feel like we were kind of insane haha. And it was even more insane that the landlord went with it - although he turned out to be a jerk. We did have my dad cosign which I'm sure helped, but it's pretty crazy that it all worked out how it did. At the time that we signed the lease, I felt like two years was an eternity, but it seriously flew by so fast. I can hardly believe that it's already over!
A lot of people probably would have said that our decision to get a space was dumb and we should wait until we made more money, but it was definitely the best thing that we could have done for our business. Prior to the studio, our expenses were extremely minimal which was great, but suddenly having a lease and all of the other bills that come along with that really pushed us to actually grow our business. It was the kick in the pants that we needed to level up our work as well as our efforts to book clients. I ended up quitting my job only a few months after we signed the lease, and I really don't think that would have happened if we had not gotten that space. It definitely was a risk, but it grew us in the best ways.
A lot of people probably would have said that our decision to get a space was dumb and we should wait until we made more money, but it was definitely the best thing that we could have done for our business. Prior to the studio, our expenses were extremely minimal which was great, but suddenly having a lease and all of the other bills that come along with that really pushed us to actually grow our business. It was the kick in the pants that we needed to level up our work as well as our efforts to book clients. I ended up quitting my job only a few months after we signed the lease, and I really don't think that would have happened if we had not gotten that space. It definitely was a risk, but it grew us in the best ways.
In case you're thinking about getting a space, I thought it could help to create a little list of the pros for both getting a space and keeping your studio at home - I'm sure there are many more than this, but here's a few that I came up with off the top of my head. If you want to know the cons, you can just reverse these lists haha.
HOME PROS
*Less expensive
*You can write off some of your home rent on your taxes
*No commute
*No long-term commitment if you aren't sure how long you will be in business or how long you'll be in the area
STUDIO PROS
*Can look more professional
*Easier to have clients join you on shoots
*The expenses can force you to grow your business
*Your home isn't cluttered with all your props and equipment
*You have a space that you can leave which helps you to shut off work
And now some questions that you can think about when you're deciding if you should look for a space:
*What will change in your business if you get a studio?
*What do your finances look like? How consistent is your client work?
*Do you have good personal savings in case you have to put more money into the business to pay your rent for a while?
*What is the commercial rental climate like in your area?
*How long are you planning on staying in your area?
*Do you have a partner or any employees that will be affected by this choice (this could be positive, for us it was beneficial to have a space that was both of ours vs shooting at my house)?
*Are you the kind of person who works better when you leave your house?
*How often do your clients come to your shoots?
*Will this create a better client experience?
Since we weren't even really looking for a space super seriously when we got our studio, there were a lot of things that we didn't think about that at the time became essential when looking for our new space. Just being in our current space made us realize the things that we loved and the things that it was missing. While some of the things that we wanted were pretty specific to us (like a podcast/livestream room), here are some of the things that we recommend looking for (or at least thinking about) in a space:
*A sink - this was something that we did not think about at all before we got our space, but we were SO glad that we had one and it became a non negotiable for us. Having a sink that is separate from the bathroom allowed us to create a little kitchenette area and it's super great for when we work with food. It also makes it easy to clean paint brushes, fill up our steamer, get water for sets, etc.
*Enough space - the amount of space that you need will really depend on what you do. We ran out of space for our props pretty quick so we wanted more storage space. We also wanted a separate place for me to keep all my tools and build sets, as well as separate office and podcast spaces that were not a part of the studio space. You'll also want to think about what kinds of things you'll be shooting. We mostly shoot products so we don't usually need too much shooting space, but there have been times when we wanted to shoot models and just didn't really have enough space. Our current studio is about 950sf, and our new space is 1560sf.
*Bathroom - is it important to you to have your own bathroom, or are you ok sharing with the other tenants? We preferred to have our own, but this was something we would sacrifice if needed.
*Ceiling height - again, we mostly shoot product, but we do want the ability to shoot with models. We also want to make our studio more appealing to portrait photographers to rent out, so we knew we needed high ceilings. Our current space has 8ft ceilings, and I don't even know how high the ceilings are in our new space because our measuring tape wouldn't even reach haha.
*A dumpster - as much as we try to be sustainable, we create quite a bit of trash and recycling, especially when we're working on a set or shooting with food. Our current studio only has a tiny trash can and recycling bin and so we wanted to make sure that our new space had a dumpster.
*Lighting - we mostly use strobes, but we do love shooting with natural light sometimes, and we wanted to have this ability without having to take all our stuff down to the parking lot. Our current windows have an overhang so they don't let in too much direct light but our new windows are incredible.
*First floor - this was another thing that wasn't essential but we definitely took into consideration. We currently are on the second floor and it's a pain to have to carry set pieces and props up and down stairs every time we make a purchase or return.
*Look/vibe - it was important to us that the space had some character. Our current studio was pretty generic, and we wanted something a little more interesting. We actually never really pictured ourselves in kind of space that we got - really industrial - because there aren't many spaces like that in our area, but we love it. Again, this may not be the most important thing to everyone, and it's definitely possible to make any space look great with a little TLC, but we did care about how it looked, especially for renting it out.
*Location/safety - we are two women with a lot of expensive equipment. On top of that, Arabela is a night owl and loves to work late into the evening. We wanted to make sure that our space would be safe and we wouldn't have to worry about it too much. We are moving from a smaller town to downtown San Jose which isn't the safest place in the world, but we have a gated parking lot, super secure windows and doors (and the windows are high off the street) and the landlord said there hasn't been any issues there. We also wanted to make sure that we were close to both of our houses so that neither of us had a long commute. Because of where we live, traffic can easily double or even triple our commute time so this was definitely important.
*Lease length - many commercial leases are 5-10 years long which makes sense because it costs money to move and it would be inconvenient for established businesses to be moving all the time. Our first lease was two years and we quickly realized that we got a very good deal in that area. It was hard for us to find a lease short enough. We didn't want something longer than 2 years since we outgrew our other space so quickly, and we aren't 100% sure that we will stay in this area long term. Thankfully we were able to find another 2 year lease, but this is something to consider.
*Other tenants - having other tenants in our current building has been a pro and a con. We preferred a space where we had the whole building to ourselves, but that's not what we ended up with and that's ok.
*Parking - we've both worked in an office downtown where we had to pay for monthly parking and still walk several blocks to work. We knew that we wanted easy and free parking for us, our clients, and anyone who may rent. We're lucky to have a gated parking lot with 4 spaces as well as free street parking which is perfect.
*Our own PG&E meter - this is something we never would have thought about before, but in our current space, we share a PG&E meter with some of the other tenants. This means that we have very little control over the temperature in our space and we also pay WAY more for electricity than we would if we had full control. We made sure to ask about this at every space that we looked at since it has been a huge issue for us at our current space.
Now that you know what to look for, I wanted to list out the expenses that come along with a space because I really had no idea how many things there were to think about. Some of these will be things you will have to buy whether you have a home studio or a lease, and the costs will vary based on where you live and what kind of lease you have, but here are some things to look up if you want to get an idea of what your studio could cost:
*Rent/lease
*Deposit
*Internet
*PG&E
*Water
*Garbage
*Building improvements
*Building repairs and maintenance
*Insurance (business and rental)
*Furniture
*Equipment
*Props
*Storage for props/equipment
*Decor
*Security (we use Simplisafe)
*Office supplies
Some other tips that we learned along the way -
Take your time. We started looking early because we didn't want to be rushed and take something that wasn't right because we were running out of time. We actually almost signed the lease on a space a month ago - it was such a great space, but there were some major red flags with the landlord and since that's been an issue at our current space it definitely gave us pause. There were also some other things that made us hesitate including the price and the fact that it would be a 3 year lease. We decided to wait and really think about it, and we're so glad that we did! We knew that if it was meant for us it would still be available, but what we ended up finding was even better and checked all our boxes.
It's normal and expected that you will negotiate the lease. Some things that you can negotiate are the lease terms (including length), price, and number of days free at the beginning of the lease.
If you're wondering where to look, we mostly looked for spaces on Loopnet, but we ended up finding our space on Craigslist. We also drove around areas that we liked and took photos of for lease signs.
Make sure to read up on commercial real estate and understand some basic terms. Something you will want to know for sure is the difference between different types of leases - gross, net, and modified gross. I'm not an expert by any means, so I'll let this article explain it better than I could.
Read through your lease carefully and note things such as rent increases, renewal (could be good to lock this in at a specific rate if you can), and anything else that could cost you money down the road. If you can pay to have a commercial realtor or broker review the lease we definitely recommend that.
Phew, this post was so much longer than I expected it to be haha. I hope it was helpful for you! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. If you want to see more of our bts, and our studio journey make sure to follow our studio account here.
I would love to know, do you have a studio or do you shoot in your home? Do you have any advice to add?
Is it the weekend yet?
Elle