The Beach House Team Build

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago we were meeting in my living room in Emeryville. The thought of an office, a team, or even owning a camera was a goal far off in the distance. At least this is what was running through my head as our team gathered at Stinson Beach on April 11. Here we were - all of us - on a perfect spring weekend gathering to discuss the future of the company.

The weather could not have been any better - seriously. It was 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Our house overlooked nothing but ocean and a short jaunt down the steps put you right on the sand. The house was very cool and laid out around a courtyard. In the back, there was an outdoor eating table that looked out over the water. There was even an old school Webber that got a serious workout around dinner time.

We almost ran into trouble early when Kevin discovered the rental company had double booked the house and the first group that showed up got to claim it. Thankfully, he was hiking on Mt. Tam and was able to make it over early and claim our spot. We would have been seriously bummed. As it was, some poor group was stuck trying to figure out what to do in Stinson with nowhere to stay. We felt bad for about 10 seconds and then walked out to the bluff and saw our view.

The weekend consisted of eating, sleeping, massive scrabble battles, reading on the beach, and most importantly thinking through what the next year of our company will look like. On saturday, we all sat down with a formal outline and discussed how to take InHouse to the next level. What a good feeling it is to look back through all of the progress we have made to this point. We realized there will be challenges - we will get bigger, the economy tightening, etc, but we also felt a sense of camaraderie and confidence in our past experience. I believe the ideas we co-created at the beach will come true over the next 12 months and when we gather next, it will be a wonderful sense of accomplishment to know that our collective efforts made it happen.

This was truly a rewarding experience and one that will not soon be forgotten. As we all said, same time next year!