The best ideas are had over food with friends

Sometimes the best ideas emerge at dinner with friends. Since launching in 2012, Kit Check CEO Kevin MacDonald has enabled hospital pharmacies in more than 400 locations (and growing) to be more efficient and accurate as they dispense, track and restock millions of medications every year. It’s a quintessential story of entrepreneurship, financial growth and, ultimately, the cultural stewardship of his team. Now 55 employees strong and operating from a hip office space in Dupont Circle, Kit Check continues to innovate and grow. We can’t wait to see where they land next.

Kit Check has tracked 50 million medications, saved thousands of hours and helped keep the focus of medical care where it should be—the patient. It all started when Kevin was having dinner with his wife’s friend, a pharmacist at a large hospital in Baltimore. He learned that she spent her entire day picking up vials and looking at expiration dates. There had to be a technology solution for this problem, right? So Kevin reached out to a friend now, co-founder, Tim Kress-Spatz for help. Together, they launched a technology that helps hospital pharmacies manage their inventory by automating prescription processes.

At the start, Kit Check operated out of Kevin’s Washington, DC apartment. Eventually they moved on to coworking space. That’s when Kevin and Tim met Andy O’Brien from JLL. With the success of the product launch, Kit Check’s team needed office space of their own, so they asked Andy for his help in their quest to find it. Specifically, Kit Check was looking for:

• Prebuilt, ready-to-go space 
• A short-term lease to accommodate the company’s growth 
• A location in DC near the Metro
  

With Andy’s help, Kit Check found a short-term option in Chinatown that was already planned to be built out by the landlord. On this rare occasion, Kit Check was able to provide input on the construction and design of the space to suit the company’s needs. It worked well for a while, but not long enough due to the company’s rapid growth. A year into their sublease in Chinatown, Kit Check had expanded not once, but twice. They had reached max capacity in the building.

So, Kevin and Tim found themselves in the same situation, only this time with the added task of backfilling their current space while quickly relocating to a larger, ready-to-go, short-term solution. The true challenge was matching up the deals so that Kit Check wouldn’t have to pay rent on two spaces at once.

After an exhaustive search, Andy helped Kevin and Tim find space at 1875 Connecticut Avenue, a 15,000 square foot, short-term sublet conducive to Kit Check’s projected growth over the next three years. Not only does the new space have great functionality but it was fully wired and furnished upon move in. Kit Check only had to rebrand the space to make it home. Andy was able to sublease their former Chinatown location to another client with no loss, downtime or out-of-pocket costs to Kit Check.

The technology startup is now thriving in its new location in the heart of Dupont Circle—that is, until their next move. When that time comes, Andy will find a solution.