Over the past couple of years, I have worked with a dozen start-ups in an advisory capacity. Through my interactions with entrepreneurs, and my personal experience starting Intalio, I developed a fair understanding for some of the challenges that most founders face when creating a company. Funding and hiring are among the most complex, and there is no substitute for direct experience there. But there is also a class of logistical problems that can be addressed with simple solutions, and can be shared across multiple companies. Here comes the Monolab|Incubator, which my wife May and I are starting together.

May gave her resignation today, leaving a QA Manager position she held at a local software company. She is about to work full-time on a couple of ventures, including the Office 2.0 Conference, and an experimental photography and videography business (ever dreamed of shooting a wedding with a RED ONE 4K camera?). The two will be hosted by the Monolab|Incubator, which will be located in downtown Palo Alto, CA.

The idea for the Monolab|Incubator is to create a space that could host 18 to 20 people working for half a dozen companies. By sharing the same open space, they would gain access to state-of-the-art tools, while reducing operating costs by up to 50%. They would also benefit from direct interactions among peers, reducing the feeling of solitude that is so prevalent among solo entrepreneurs.

At Monolab, we believe that frugality is a key success factor for any business venture, especially during its early stages. Nevertheless, we’re also convinced that one should always use the right tool for the job — as my grandfather (who was a farmer) used to say, “un bon ouvrier a de bons outils.” As a result, we designed the Monolab|Incubator as a place where technology-minded entrepreneurs will find the very best tools money can buy, in an all-inclusive manner.

Most incubators make money by selling add-on services, such as access to meeting rooms and use of specialty equipment. The Monolab|Incubator is different: there, everything is covered by the relatively low monthly fee, from brand-new computing equipment (no need to carry your laptop to work), to unlimited use of our meeting facilities (including the HD video-conferencing system), and even soft drinks.

Similarly, most incubators require long-term contracts and impose hefty setup fees, discouraging many entrepreneurs who are either bootstrapping their venture, or operating with limited angel funding, thereby having a relatively short runway. In order to address this issue, tenants can join for as short a period as a single month, and do not have to pay any setup fees. This is made possible by a fully automated on-boarding and off-boarding process, implemented using RFID cards that can be used for the entry door and the multi-function color printer (Xerox WorkCentre 7328), a customized version of Salesforce.com, and a variety of others online tools. The Monolab|Incubator itself will be a case study for Office 2.0 technologies used for running a business.

The building we have selected and for which we have applied for a lease is located in downtown Palo Alto, one block from University Avenue and City Hall. It offers almost 2,600 square feet of newly renovated space, with an industrial yet clean look to it, featuring bare concrete walls and wood beams.

For the furniture, we adopted a pragmatic approach based on the realization that what matters most are comfort and space. As a result, we’ve invested a fair amount of money on ergonomic chairs (Humanscale Freedom Task Chair), but went for affordable desks and storage cabinets (IKEA GALANT). We ordered an equal amount of left-sided and right-sided desks, allowing us to reconfigure the space’s layout at will, in order to accommodate our tenants’ evolving needs.

For networking and telecommunications, we went for a full wireless IP-based architecture, deploying a handful of local 802.11n networks, and providing a wireless bridge on each desk, to which we connect a Polycom SoundPoint IP650 phone and an Apple iMac 24-inch. The rationale for the later is two-fold: first, we want tenants to be able to walk or bike (one shower on site) to the office, without having to carry anything. Second, we’re using the computer to drive an external 19-inch LCD monitor that displays the tenant’s logo, in much the same way we did for demo pods at the last Office 2.0 Conference. All data stored on the iMac computers is backed up on a daily basis onto a local file server that offers up to 1TB of storage per end-user. This backup is then archived on a monthly basis in a remote location. The local backup server itself is accessible remotely using a VPN connection.

For meetings, we offer three options: a boardroom for 12 people equipped with an Optoma EP910 DLP Projector, a Polycom HDX 7001 XL video-conferencing system, a Polycom SoundStation IP 7000 tele-conferencing phone, and up to 12 Apple iMac 24-inch computers (great for training purposes); a chatroom for 4 people equipped with the same projector and tele-conferencing phone; and an open space meeting table that can sit 4 to 6 people, located in the middle of one of the two open spaces that are hosting our tenants’ pods. The space also provides a couple of mobile whiteboards equipped with digital cameras for instant data capture, and a 46-inch LCD flat panel display mounted on a rolling cart and connected to an Apple Mac Mini that can be used for a variety of purposes.

As much as we want the space to be a paperless environment, everybody needs to print a slide deck or scan a document now and then. For this purpose, we acquired a Xerox WorkCentre 7328 color multi-function printer that can print up to 26 color pages per minute in letter or tabloid formats, scan large documents, and provide all kinds of finishing options. We even have a fancy embossing press that can be fitted with a custom die displaying a tenant’s logo and used for personalized greeting cards for example. Also, while online printing services such as VistaPrint are great from a pricing standpoint, paper and printing quality are not exactly up to our standards. In order to address this issue, we are providing a syndicated monthly printing service, allowing multiple tenants to get business cards and other jobs printed on a single sheet of paper, thereby reducing costs significantly.

Because the first employee is always the hardest to hire and the most expensive to pay for, we’ve developed a set of services that might delay this critical hire to a time when the right candidate has been found, or additional funding has been secured. Among them, we offer access to an on-premise system administrator for $50/hour, and an off-shore team of administrative assistants and data processing clerks for $10/hour. We also can make introductions to accountants and lawyers who are used to work with early-stage start-ups and are located in the Palo Alto area. On top of it all, May and her future staff are happy to help with mundane tasks such as ordering meals that can be consumed on our outdoor patio.

And because we’re strong advocates of the Extreme Productivity Process and the Salesforce.com platform, every tenant will receive a complimentary seat for one of our Extreme Productivity Seminars that will now take place in the incubator’s boardroom, as well as a seat for the Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition platform, extended with our upcoming Extreme Productivity AppExchange application.

The full set of services offered by the incubator is described on this public spreadsheet. The place is scheduled to open on July 1st, 2008, and single-user packages start at $1,200 per month, making it about 40% cheaper than comparable alternatives in downtown Palo Alto, CA. Because space is limited and interactions among tenants are strongly encouraged, applications will be reviewed by a selection committee. To be eligible, companies must operate in one of the industries we understand (enterprise software, Office 2.0, Web 2.0, etc.), or provide services that could be directly useful to tenants (graphics designers and accountants welcome!). If you’re interested, please send us an email.

A launch party will be scheduled for early July.