diff --git a/containerd/main.go b/containerd/main.go
index 68bdd8e..c9f5bd3 100644
--- a/containerd/main.go
+++ b/containerd/main.go
@@ -157,6 +157,10 @@ func main() {
 }
 
 func daemon(context *cli.Context) error {
+       stateDir := context.String("state-dir")
+       if err := os.MkdirAll(stateDir, 0755); err != nil {
+               return err
+       }
        s := make(chan os.Signal, 2048)
        signal.Notify(s, syscall.SIGTERM, syscall.SIGINT)
        // Split the listen string of the form proto://addr
@@ -171,7 +175,7 @@ func daemon(context *cli.Context) error {
                return err
        }
        sv, err := supervisor.New(
-               context.String("state-dir"),
+               stateDir,
                context.String("runtime"),
                context.String("shim"),
                context.StringSlice("runtime-args"),
diff --git a/supervisor/supervisor.go b/supervisor/supervisor.go
index e1fd5d6..a6700b1 100644
--- a/supervisor/supervisor.go
+++ b/supervisor/supervisor.go
@@ -20,9 +20,6 @@ const (
 // New returns an initialized Process supervisor.
 func New(stateDir string, runtimeName, shimName string, runtimeArgs []string, timeout time.Duration, retainCount int) (*Supervisor, error) {
        startTasks := make(chan *startTask, 10)
-       if err := os.MkdirAll(stateDir, 0755); err != nil {
-               return nil, err
-       }
        machine, err := CollectMachineInformation()
        if err != nil {
                return nil, err