An Office Rent That Never Exceeded 7,000 Yuan: The Moral Yoke KangAi Commune Put on Itself for Fifteen Years

Some time ago, because of a user complaint, the relevant authorities summoned and criticized me. In the middle of the conversation, a leader suddenly asked me: “How much do you pay for your office each month now?”

He did not explain why he asked, and I do not know what lay behind such an ordinary question. Yet this very ordinary question stayed with me for a long time.

There are also things that happen fairly often. Now and then a business partner comes to the office to discuss cooperation. The condescension is palpable.

That made me reflect on the office question.

In fifteen years of building KangAi Commune, we have rented offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and never once has any of them cost more than 7,000 yuan a month. The so-called head office in Beijing now rents for 3,000 yuan a month.

Because for fifteen years we have always felt in our hearts: every single yuan we spend comes from our members.

So we save wherever we can, and spend only when we must. For a long time we regarded this as a responsibility, and even took a little pride in it.

But today I have begun to realize that things may not be so simple.

In our eyes, an office costing under 4,000 yuan stands for frugality and restraint; in the business world, however, it can also be read as lacking strength, insufficiently professional, not even worth partnering with.

This may, of course, be a prejudice. But we have to admit that the business world has a language of its own. Offices, staff, brand, systems and service are not merely costs; they are also part of an organization’s capability and credibility.

If, in order to prove that we never misspend members’ money, we dare not invest in anything, then what we save may be only a few thousand yuan, while what we lose may be talent, efficiency, opportunities for cooperation — and even society’s trust in the organization.

That is where we really need to reflect.

For fifteen years, KangAi Commune has stood in a deeply contradictory position.

We do mutual aid, so we are bound by the ethics of public benefit; yet we must also hire people, build systems, resolve disputes, face regulation and work with business institutions like any normal organization — and find a way to survive in the long run.

The world of public benefit demands restraint; the world of business demands proof of strength.

Too commercial, and people ask: are you making money off the members?

Too frugal, and others ask: does a “small company” like this have any real strength?

So we have gradually come to see that if we try to satisfy everyone’s image of us at the same time, we may end up pleasing no one.

Perhaps the problem is not the office at all.

The real question is whether KangAi Commune has the courage to admit that even with a mutual-aid mission at heart, it must respect the ordinary laws by which any organization survives and grows.

So what we need to change in the future is not simply to move into a more expensive office, and certainly not to spend money for the sake of appearances.

It is to change the standard by which we judge whether a sum of money should be spent.

In the past we first asked: “Is this the members’ money? Can we save it?”

In the future we should perhaps also ask:

“Will spending this money make the Commune more professional, more efficient, more trustworthy and more enduring?”

If not, then even a thousand yuan is waste; if it will, then as long as the spending is reasonable, transparent and able to withstand members’ scrutiny, we should not be afraid to invest out of fear of moral pressure.

This may be the business outlook we need to rebuild after fifteen years:

Do not prove public benefit by shabbiness; do not prove strength by display.

Never spend what should not be spent — and do not be afraid to spend what should be spent.

The measure of a sum of money is not whether it is expensive or cheap, but whether it truly creates value.

We do not necessarily have to replace the cheap office right away. But it has made me realize that KangAi Commune needs to slowly walk out of another, far narrower “office.”

That is the psychological boundary — and the moral cage — we have built around ourselves over fifteen years.