Your Office Should Mirror Your Brand

When you walk into the hint? headquarters you know exactly where you are. Our logo is everywhere, our product fills refrigerators and lines the walls, and you’ll even find original art proudly highlighting our bottles in iconic San Francisco locations. However, it’s not just the physical presence of our product that makes our office a reflection of our brand.

At hint, we’re all about transparency. Our customers know exactly what’s in our product, our business partners know exactly what they’re getting when they work with us, and all of our employees are “in the loop” 24/7/365.

Transparency is so important to our brand that we actually designed our headquarters with the goal of creating the most transparent, open, and collaborative workplace possible.

We are also on a mission to help consumers live healthier lives, and enjoy doing it. This mission is baked into everything we produce and everything we do, including our office space and culture.

The exterior / physical location

There’s a five-block stretch on Union Street, in the heart of San Francisco’s Marina district, where you feel like you’re far removed from the hustle and bustle of the country’s 13th-largest city.

Cars drive slow, restaurants and boutiques line the tree-covered sidewalks, and there isn’t a high-rise in sight.

There is, however, a giant hint sign (actually three signs) because our headquarters are located there — three storefronts smack dab in the middle of gastropubs and boutiques. Why? A whole bunch of reasons. Here are two:

• Exposure: If we were downtown surrounded by hundreds of other businesses, we would blend in. But over here, we stand out, and often spike curiosity, which all but guarantees that pedestrians see our brand.
• Open-door policy: hint HQ is comprised of three storefronts (and soon four!) on the same block, giving us a much more welcoming appeal than a corporate building. We encourage people to come right in and try a new flavor or give us feedback. We actually have a retail business out of our office so people can pop in and buy a bottle, a case or our sunscreen. There are kids in the neighborhood who come in every day on their way home from school to grab a bottle, and there’s just no way we could do that from the 14th floor of a skyscraper downtown. We want health to be easy and accessible, and there’s nothing more accessible than being able to casually walk into our office to buy your favorite flavor water (we of course have them all), or even have an impromptu chat with me or other team members.

The interior

We don’t have a whole lot of conference rooms at hint HQ. As a result, everything is kind of “out in the open,” including my, the CEO’s, business. We have an open floor plan, and my husband Theo (hint’s COO) and other high-ranking employees sit amongst the team so there are rarely “closed door” meetings.

Every team is aware of what the other teams are working on because they can overhear them talking about it. Every employee knows what I’m working on because they can see my desk and approach it at any time.

The lack of private office space also encourages people to get out of the office for calls and meetings, even if it’s just a walk around the block during a business call. I love this because there’s nothing worse than being stagnant at a desk all day, and this helps the team get fresh air and a little bit of exercise throughout the day, which is key to the culture of a brand centered on health.

Having an office that mirrors your brand is important for a variety of reasons, but for me it really comes down to maintaining a consistent message with everything that we do.

Whether you’re a customer buying our products, a job candidate visiting our offices, or a business partner speaking with a hint employee, we want your experience to reflect what we’re all about. We want you to walk in and immediately feel immersed in the brand and excited to be part of what we’re doing.

Of course, a Union Street storefront isn’t the right model for everyone. But whatever your business is, make sure the environment where you conduct that business is one that not only emulates but communicates your values and brand ethos, and everyone that walks through your door will become an advocate.

Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of San Francisco–based hint, a healthy lifestyle brand that produces the leading unsweetened flavored water and a scented sunscreen spray that’s oxybenzone and paraben-free. Listen to her podcast, Unstoppable, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs and disruptors across various industries and keep up with her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

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