Work from home or rent an office?

buglawton

Did my post mention the need for a physical office in order to have the right business image?

Or, read post #2

phill99

Near me I have seen websites set up for £350. That means your first website every month has to pay your rent. You will have other costs such as phone, power etc.

As a start up, you need to keep your cost baee as low as possible or you may struggle.

You can rent a room in a serviced office such as Regus for £20 an hour, so you can still meet clients in an office, but at a lower cost.

macfanuk

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'm just going to have to give it a go working from home and if it doesn't work, then at least I've tried right?

I get what you're all saying about it being money saving to work from home but as others have said, it's not really about money saving, it's about productivity and impressions.

Basically, I mean that if we give a better impression to potential customers, we're more likely to get business. If we're more productive, we get work done quicker, customers are happier and we get more business.

@phill99, yeah I used the same idea as you - 1st website per month would need to pay for the office - problem is, while working full time, I can't guarantee we'd get 1 website per month, let alone more than one.

I don't have a problem with injecting money into the company if it's going to be worth doing but £400 a month is a lot of money for little gain.

trailingspouse

If you work from home, make sure you answer the phone professionally - eg 'ABC Design, how may I help?' or just your name. We have worked successfully from home for 4 years, and we've found that answering with our own name works best (we tried using the company name, but then 'personal' callers thought they'd got the wrong number!). After 6pm everyone gets a cheery 'Hello!', but before that we stay professional.

Our web-designer is also home-based, I think - we've always met with him in our local innovation centre, where there are comfy sofas and a decent coffee shop. I've also met people in hotel lobbies and up-market pubs. Case the joint beforehand, to make sure they have WiFi and somewhere to plug your laptop in, and that it's relatively quiet (you don't want to find yourself shouting over the background music). If your work is confidential, then book a private room.

As far as distractions are concerned, it's up to you to make sure you don't get distracted. That's one of the reasons people go self employed, isn't it - to no longer having a boss breathing down your neck? It's up to you now.