Under the Sheets is an ongoing series of articles that chronicle what it’s like inside the office of Ohlala. Written from the perspective of the social media and content creation crew, the pieces show you the thoughts and actions behind what you already know about our content and paid dating platform.
Ohlala has outgrown the old office and so we have upped sticks and moved on to somewhere bigger. As luck would have it, Lufthansa Innovation Hub have outgrown their office (flown the nest, as it were), and so like the hermit crabs we are we shuffled sidelong into new digs at the Factory start up campus in Mitte! Opting to move everything from the old office to the new without the help of a moving company may seem a little odd, and that’s just what it was. A little mawkish. A little sweaty. But damn, was the beer and pizza worth it, looking out from our terrace toward the main Factory building, making plans for the future. Everyone has just about settled in. I managed to lose my comfy chair in the process, but gained a book of post-its so things are evening out.
Still, the conflict that was missing from our launch decided to present itself in the form of an angry downstairs neighbour. She doesn’t approve of what we do, whatever that means. She’s also complained that Ohlala has hired somebody from Ireland. We are just as confused as you.
Next month we will finally overhaul the design of the blog and integrate it on the landing page. This has been a long time coming but we are a small team after all, and some things take a backseat when the pressure is on. We’re also re-launching the app within Germany so Ohlala will have one uniform design and functionality across all locations. There will be a few tweaks and here and there to better suit each location but fundamentally the app will now be the same for every user worldwide. This will give us the opportunity to roll out changes and implementations a hell of a lot quicker than before. The time’s they are a-changin’
In any case here we are, on The Factory startup campus. Growing. Developing. This office will see more rollouts, more all-nighters, more Club Mate, but most importantly more people. We have the room to grow and make Ohlala into the product we want it to be. Seeing our little app reach its potential has always been the goal. To think, this whole thing started in a living room. Where will we be this time next year? The moon? Will Ohlala be the first dating app to have office space bordering the Kepler crater? Who knows. But that’s the point, who does know. It’s half the battle, half the sweat and half the fun. ‘Certainty’ and ‘Startup’ are oxymoronic. What we all feel though is a sense that we will writing another one of these in the future, at a desk in a bigger office. Here’s to whatever 2016 brings. This is only the beginning.
