With the hope of gaining a deeper understanding of the people and culture of startups, last Friday I joined the Walkabout NYC, a city-wide open house event for technology startups organized by Harvest.

Looking at the relationship between a company’s physical space and its philosophy and work culture, I talked to staff members at five of the 21 participating companies to find out how their work space influences them.

“I have never worked some place that was so creative everywhere. We’re surrounded by the things we believe the most in. We really support our sellers and our buyers. People actually want to come to the office. There’s pingpong and there’s the strange little monster, and dogs running around. There’s a lot of life here. It’s really vibrant and that really leads to passion about what we do. I’ve never worked somewhere where I care about my desk so much. I know who made it, I met with them about making it, he would send me pictures while it was being made. You might do that for your home, not for your office. However, we spend more time our offices than anywhere else.”

-Sarah Starpoli, Office Manager, Etsy

“As is common in startups, there is an open environment. You’re not separated by cubes or different offices, and if you have an upper level question you have the founder sitting right next to you and that’s helpful especially when you’re a young company and you really need to figure out what you’re about.”

-Daniella Jaeger, Community, Kickstarter

“I think for us the important part is making the space a happy one. When we saw this office space, we saw all the windows on the walls, and we didn’t have to think twice. It was the first one we saw when we were starting to look. We like natural light. So starting with that, our aesthetics was to make it a bit more industrial – strip into the brick walls. It feels warm, we just wanted to get away from the corporate, cold environment. Making the work space feel informal, fun and bright has been the key for us.”

-Danny Wen, Co-Founder, Harvest

“It’s less about the actual space itself and more about how it’s utilized. If you look around, we don’t do cubicles, we don’t have separate stuff, we don’t have walls. What this does is it creates this overwhelming feeling of family. I’ve never felt more at home in a job than I do here. Your work gets that much better when you’re in a space around people you love being around. And then what that does, is create the culture we have that we love. And that culture seeps into the user’s experience, which makes a product that’s that much more fantastic, that much better.”

-Mark Burstiner, Engagement Leader, Squarespace

Creating an open, welcoming, and community-oriented office is the common thread linking these very different startups. What makes a company a startup? Some might say the date the company received VC funding or launched their product. However, I would argue that a startup is defined by its culture of openness, innovation and community. Although heading into our tenth year, we try to maintain a startup culture at Big Spaceship by facilitating an environment where people feel at home. As Etsy pointed out, “we spend more time our offices than anywhere else.” At Big Spaceship, there are no cubicles, our work space is set up with the hope of inspiring cross-collaboration and interdiscplinarity. This approach informs the work we produce and our relationship with clients and consumers.

Attempting to strike the balance between productivity and fun, we take breaks from our computer screens to play pingpong or foosball. Mid-day almost all of us stop what we’re doing to have lunch at the table or in the park. We also have an in-house bike rack for the many staff members who cycle to work. Through our physical space, we try to keep the startup spirit that exists at Kickstarter, Harvest, Squarespace and Etsy alive.

How does your work space influence your company culture and philosophy?