Learning to Make Door Desks
August 14th, 2007 by Dave
You’ve all heard about the legend of Amazon door desks, right? The idea is that startups that haven’t yet made a profit shouldn’t waste their money on things that don’t matter to customers. Thus, Amazon pioneered the use of “Door Desks” — that is, using a door, 4 wooden legs, and a few metal brackets to create a functional and solid desk.
We share the belief that frugality is a great thing, especially since we’re investing our own money, and that of our families, in making TeachStreet a reality! Plus, we’re always up for learning something new.
So, we thought we’d share what it really takes to construct a Door Desk — we headed to our neighborhood Lowe’s and picked up the necessary materials:
- Doors - ~$20
- 4×4 Legs, which we sawed down to size - $10
- Brackets, per desk - ~$15
- Screws, per desk - ~5
TOTAL COST = ~$50 per desk, not counting the blood, sweat and tears that went into construcation, and the cost of the U-Haul rental.
I’m not sure if it was worth it, when you consider that you can pop onto Craigslist and pick up a fairly inexpensive collapsible table, but maybe we should just think of it as a team-building exercise!
And, not only is it useful, but that’s one handsome desk!
Below is a video of our newest employee, and some door desk leg cutting!
August 15th, 2007 at 10:27 am
nice work! that’s a dangerous piece of machinery you have there…i hope you have medical insurance
August 15th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Very nice.
We’re sporting ikea over here, but i miss my good ol’ door desk.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:57 am
[...] site. Check them out and if you think you fit the bill… let us know. We may just have a door desk with your name on it. (Of course, your first task will be building it [...]
August 18th, 2007 at 9:05 am
um… so are you running an internet startup, or shop class?
October 9th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Doesn’t JeffB have a patent on door desks? Add licensing fees to your door desk cost structure.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Heh
Yeah, Amazon Legal contacted us, and our licensing fee is one latte per year to El Jefe 
October 10th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Should have called it a “dork” desk!
Nice job, team - looking forward to the finished site!
October 17th, 2007 at 11:05 am
[...] at appropriate “start up-y” levels. (Note, you can see a video of our staff at work on door-desk making on our [...]