My friend’s home business is growing faster than anticipated, and he is looking for office space. He had some specific questions like whether he should get an executive suite, or just a room at a flat rate in some mall/business complex. As always, I was clueless, but my boss wasn’t. Here’s a list of the recommendations he made, for future reference, just in case I decide to wing it on my own, some day…
- Get an executive suite if you want a reception service, meeting/conference rooms, a package handling service etc.
- Ask for the price with the modifications you need – or you might just get a base rate and hidden costs.
- check on the quality, and lead-time for the services (add-ons as in #1 above), maybe with existing tenants.
- Ask if there are any “per-use” fees or additional monthly charges.
- Check for ease of access outside normal office hours.
- Check for provisions in case of emergencies – fire, natural disasters etc – Insurance provided free of cost is a plus.
- How easy will it be to upgrade to more space/resources while keeping the same address?
A cheap hack, to save money, would be to instead sub-lease space from an attorney or other individual – they usually have additional space. By the way, this office-connections.com is a great url for a company that could find and provide office space – right now it seems to be some firm that provides virtual offices. Let’s see how long it takes before that domain name gets bought by someone who provides such services. I wish I was free from temporary financial pressures – there are so many cool businesses that are begging to be implemented.