Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Exit Interview

Bergeron heads west for T3 Advisors

David Bergeron is familiar with tackling a big challenge. After all he spent a couple of years in the NFL as a linebacker, playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Carolina Panthers and the Tennessee Titans. But his latest target is Silicon Valley — Bergeron has been named the managing director of T3 Advisors LLC’s new West Coast office in San Francisco after working out of the Boston office for T3.

No stranger to tech business, Bergeron is the chair of the Cleantech Practice Group at T3. He has helped work real estate deals as a company representative for firms such as A123 Systems Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. Starting at T3 as an associate in 2007, Bergeron has just been named a partner in the firm. He talked with Mass High Tech News Editor Rodney Brown about the challenges tech companies face in the real estate world, and how the challenges differ between the Hub and the Valley.

MHT: How does this position compare to what your previous position was in the company?

Bergeron: This is definitely a step up and a promotion, and part of this transition out to spearhead and run this office for the partners out west was the promotion to managing director within the company, which I was excited and really honored about. As I was going out there and meeting with a number of people, it was important to (T3 President Roy Hirshland) and to the other partners that that was my title and that I was a partner in the firm. That’s definitely a step up for me.

MHT: What drew you to want to take this role out there on the West Coast?

Bergeron: I think first and foremost we have a number of clients that are based out here in California specifically in Silicon Valley. We’ve done a lot of work for Verisign, Adobe, Autodesk, to name a few. For us being so heavily committed and focused on the innovation economy and technology, being at sort of ground zero where the majority of those companies are actually headquartered, we knew it was only a matter of time before T3 wanted to and was going to have to have an office out here. I’m from the West Coast originally and I went to Stanford and sort of love the Bay Area and have a relatively decent network out here.

MHT: Is there going to be a particular focus within that vertical stack for the San Francisco office? Is it going to be a little bit more toward the startups or is it going to be a little bit more towards taking care of the big customers you’ve got out there?

Bergeron: We’re going to do exactly the mix in Boston. I think what we want to do is, again, stay very, very flat in terms of who’s working where. And for every client, whether they’re three guys just spinning out of Dogpatch Labs or whatever it may be, all the way up to the big guys, the model’s always been at T3, to assemble a team based on what we have available.

MHT: What can you say about the goals of the staff there? How aggressive are you looking to be as far as the number of people on staff within, say the first year?

Bergeron: We want to be aggressive with our growth. I think this market is huge and I think what we do, with this really focused suite of offerings that are custom built for technology companies and companies in general, has been really well received in the past by other tenant rep firms.  We will be able to grow and win business in this market. It’s going to take time. It’s an extremely competitive market. There’s a lot of great brokers out here that have done very well.

MHT: What do you see as the differences between the sort of tech real estate challenges that your clients might have been facing here in the Hub area versus out there in the Silicon Valley?

Bergeron: I think all in all the reason we’re here is because it’s very similar to the Boston technology market. I think the needs of a social gaming company or the needs of the next clean tech company are very similar whether you’re starting out in Sunnyvale or starting out in Woburn or Waltham. I think the geography and the real estate is different and the offerings are different and the real estate pricing can be different. Really where we, I think, play best is matching these business needs and benchmarks and financial goals that both the investors and the manager’s team set for these companies as they grow. Marrying those to really, really sound strategic real estate decisions — at the end of the day that’s still the same process.

MHT: What would you say is the biggest challenge the tech real estate sector faces in the greater Boston area.

Bergeron: I think the Boston market, from a corporate real estate perspective, is a relatively small market, in terms of if you really narrow down where the most desirable places to be are — for early stage, Series A startup companies all the way to the big Microsofts and Googles of the world. They all really want to play in the same sandbox, and that’s Fort Point Channel, that’s Kendall Square, some limited parts of Waltham. I think the challenge, which actually is similar to out here but it’s a challenge for us in general, is helping people understand the cost-benefit of location. And for us that’s not a new challenge. Kendall Square is getting much more competitive and it’s starting to fill up again, as is Fort Point Channel and the Innovation District, which are all good things. I mean it’s great for us as a cluster and it’s great for those companies because they’re growing again.

MHT: Now that you’re the number one neck on the block here out in the new San Francisco office, what is the big issue that you know you’re going to have to face right out of the gate?

Bergeron: It’s brand awareness, number one. I mean, for us, we know what we’re doing. We’re really confident about our model. It’s proven it can work in Boston which is a highly competitive market and we’re going to replicate that. We’re not starting from ground zero trying to build the thing from scratch. But the problem we face on a daily basis is we don’t do any landlord representation. And with that comes the challenge of, I don’t have clients and prospects driving down 101 and 280 in the morning seeing my signs on the sides of buildings for listings. And that’s a big sort of brand marketing challenge that we face.