Remedy Drinks came to us needing six to eight desks. We secured a 12-desk office in Vauxhall within the agreed budget, in a location chosen around how the whole team travels to work. The extra capacity lets the business keep hiring in the UK without starting the search again as soon as the team grows.
An Australian brand building a London base
Remedy Drinks was founded in Australia in 2012 and has since built a business in the UK, with employees living across London and the surrounding areas. As the UK team grew, the business wanted one office that would bring everyone together in a professional setting, with room for the growth still to come.
The search started with an enquiry form on our website.
What made the brief difficult
Location came first. Around six employees would be travelling in from different parts of London and the surrounding areas, so the office had to sit where the commute worked for the whole team. Personal preference couldn't decide it.
Size and budget pulled against each other. The starting brief was six to eight desks and costs had to be managed carefully, yet a space sized exactly to the current team risked putting Remedy Drinks back on the market as soon as the next few hires arrived. Repeating the whole search in the near future was something the business wanted to avoid.
The office also had to feel like Remedy. The team wanted a workspace that reflected the brand and its culture, with amenities that would make it somewhere people want to spend time.
Starting with the commute
We began with where the team was travelling from, before looking at a single building. That turned the search into a comparison of areas rather than listings, and we assessed several, including Waterloo, Old Street and Southwark, on how practical each would be for everyone.
Vauxhall stood out. The station combines the Victoria line, mainline trains on the route from Waterloo towards Clapham Junction and the south-west, and a bus station, giving staff coming in from South West London and other parts of the city a convenient hub. Vauxhall is easy to overlook in an office search. For this team, it was the practical answer.
Sizing the office for the next hires
With the area agreed, the question became size. Our first step was to check whether a six- or eight-desk office was the right starting point, with the option of moving the business into something larger later.
That would have met the immediate requirement. It would also have meant running the whole search again once the team grew.
Instead, we negotiated with the provider and secured a 12-desk office within Remedy Drinks' budget. The team can grow from six to eight people towards 12 at the same address. One search instead of two.
An office that suits the brand
Location, size and cost decide whether an office works on paper. Whether people want to spend their working day there is a separate question. For Remedy Drinks, it mattered.
The selected provider offers a modern, amenity-rich workspace with access to facilities such as gyms, cafés and roof terraces. That suits a dynamic drinks brand, and it gives employees more than desks and meeting rooms to come in for.
What a broker added
An office search usually starts in areas the team already knows, then sizing the office space to the headcount. Both are reasonable instincts. Together, they could have left Remedy Drinks with a smaller office in a less practical location.
What changed the outcome was the order of decisions: commute first, then size measured against growth, then a negotiation that brought the larger office inside the budget. Our service is free to the client, so none of that work came out of the money Remedy Drinks was protecting.
The takeaway
The smallest office that fits today's headcount can turn out to be the expensive option once a second search and a second move are added to the bill. Bigger isn't automatically better either. Desks that sit empty for years cost money too. For Remedy Drinks, the extra desks made sense because the business wants to keep growing in the UK and the negotiated price kept it within budget.
The right office balances cost, location, culture and growth. If your team is growing faster than your current office allows, get in touch and we'll build the brief around where you're heading.
.avif)
