While most people were catching up on sleep between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. during the pandemic in 2020, Fuel Venture Capital managing director and founding partner Jeff Ransdell was hard at work creating his dream office in Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida in a new office space spanning 20,000 feet, which is ten times larger than his former office space before the pandemic. Ransdell, at the time, had little idea what the future of the workspace would hold.

“At the time, everything I read said nobody was ever going back to the offices and companies were walking away from their leases,” Ransdelll told Forbes. “I never bought into that. I thought it was the perfect time to do something like this, so when the lights do turn back on, we’re farther down the road than everyone else. There are two types of people: those who hunker down  and those who get on their front feet and proactively try to make something better than they had before.”

With many Americans still working from home, Ransdell, who was one of six people that ran the worldwide wealth management business for Merrill Lynch, wanted to create an office that made his 55 employees excited to get back to the office. His goal? Create a space that facilitates collaboration, fun and hard work. The office will house space for Fuel’s 25 portfolio companies.

“Portfolio companies like to be together because there’s peer-to-peer learning and a creative environment when everyone is together,” he says. “You might have engineers and coders in one company next to engineers and coders from another. They might hear someone talking and walk over to give them ideas and vice versa. It’s an interesting and inspiring way to collaborate, so for the office we were very thoughtful about everything we did in an effort to bring people together.” 

After securing the lease, Ransdell was weary about the safety aspect of having construction crews and strangers in his space due to Covid-19. The solution for Ransdell was to do it himself. He (quite literally) put on his tool belt and got to work. He built all of the offices, laid the wood floors, replaced fluorescent lighting with design-forward lighting fixtures, wired the sound, gutted a few rooms and furnished the space. 

His skills are in part thanks to a sound and light production company he started in his 20s, designing nightclubs and installing the sound and light.

“It brought me back to my 20s and fast-forward to now, in my 50s, those skills came back to be very useful,” he says. 

The space took a complete 180 from the original framework. The design elements reference the open-space plan of WeWork but with more elegance and style. The three-floor office features a Fuel Station, a coffee station; a library with a pool table; lounge areas; a cafeteria; a ping-pong table; and artwork curated by Ransdell. Throughout the office, there is unique branding for the current companies they work with, including Olympian Usain Bolt’s company, Bolt; OhmniLabs; Bipi; Boatsetter; Hastee; Taxfyle; Merge; Brandhouse; and more.

“I envisioned creating a place that would become a home to a lot of our portfolio companies and ourselves,” he says. “We built a library with a pool table, a bar, and people can hang out, have some drinks and visit about their weeks.”

Ransdell took safety and the level of people’s comfortability into account when creating the common areas. 

“After work, you don’t have to go to a bar where you might be surrounded by people you don’t know,” he says. “You simply come up to the third floor, go into the library, pour yourself a beer from the key, play pool and visit with your coworkers.”

The design is contemporary and high-end, but every room is a little bit different. For example, the library features blue velvet couches, chic chandeliers and art. Ransdell wanted this area to feel almost like a jazz club, with a different look and feel than every other room in the office. 

Art was also a major component, as Ransdell himself is an art collector. 

“Art is a big thing for me, and every room has elements of art,” he says. “Everything we have in the office is original art from amazing artists around the world, and I’m really proud of that. We’re building a book, which will be displayed in the office so people can go through all the different pieces we have. We’re going to create a story around each of those pieces and the artists, because it’s important for me to be connected to the art world.”

Perhaps one of the coolest elements of the design is the “Wall of Fame.” The black wall features a neon sign with the company’s logo and signature of important people who come through the doors. The wall currently features the artist Pitbull; Mayor Francis Suarez; Tour De France winner Chris Froome; and all of the founders of Fuel Venture Capital’s portfolio companies.

“We are a global firm with global investors and companies we invest in, and Miami has turned into a hub of technology and finance,” he says. “They can stay at the hotel across the street and have an office to use for as long as they are in town. We know who we are and who we need to serve. We have something different that you don’t see everyday.”