My tour of Etsy HQ in New York City

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Are you an Etsy addict like me? I could totally buy most of the things on there if the budget allowed. Quite a lot of my Piccadilly Market stall holders are sellers on Etsy so was pretty damn excited for the chance to take a tour of this amazing business.

Etsy is located in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) in Brooklyn. They employ 400 people of which most are tech based and solely work on the website running like clockwork. They are a B corporation defined as voluntarily meeting higher standards of transparency, accountability, and performance, Certified B Corps are distinguishing themselves in a cluttered marketplace by offering a positive vision of a better way to do business.

As you can imagine they are incredibly eco friendly and do everything they can to do good in the world and make it a better place.

We were so excited to visit, like kids in a candy store and said as much to Mike our fabulous tour guide, he said he feels the same way coming to work everyday. Honestly you would never want to work anywhere else. I took A LOT of photos as it is the best way to see what it is all about. My proper new camera turned out to be a lemon so had to use my phone and was so giddy with excitement that a few are blurry...ooops

This is a new installation and is a living wall entrance.

This is GRIT who is the official Etsy mascot, he gets blinged with lights at Xmas and even gets to wear a Halloween costume

Each of the meeting rooms are named after a combination of food and music. Memos are sent around office and lots of input goes into these quirky names.

Everyone at Etsy uses reusable cups with Etsy cosies on them...super cute.... if they take them to local cafes they get discounts. A good initiative.

A cool hang out room is in here, there are a lot of different hang out zones around the building you can work in and did I mention you can bring your dog to work? Yes you can, there are pooches scattered around the place on their dog beds and just having a wander. LOVE that.

No phones are used at desks, if you want to use a phone you go into a phone room....cool right!!!!

Another little lounging area

Love the Fall pumpkin display in the kitchen

They have Eatsy days twice a week where a spread of delicious food is provided for all the staff. That is my kind of workplace. Vegetarians are catered too also.

Whip up a treat for lunch in the kitchen if you choose.

bet your lunch room doesn't look like this...nice right!!

This is action stations, all these screens show how fast the website is performing and all other nerdy, geeky yet super cool stuff. The ultimate goal of the 400 staff is that you have a great experience on line.

Some random office installations

Where it all happens. These floors are super amazing, recycled timber. Every staff member gets a $100 budget to buy from Etsy to decorate their desks.

This here is techy heaven, every type of gadget is here so the site can be tested on everything to make sure it is doing its thing.

This here is the bumping stump, when you grab a gadget you bump it on the stump and it registers that you have borrowed it. When you return it, bump it back. I love S#$% like this.