Main > Everything Else
Thoughts on expanding home business
RayB:
Anyone here work from home and tried to expand to have employees come in and work with them?
I work from home in web media/web games/interactive stuff. I made myself a cozy little office in the smallest room, have my bedroom next to that, and there's a 3rd room with lots of sunlight that's not being used at the moment.
I often get inquiries from college students wanting to intern. The way those programs work is they get credit for the internship, they do not need to be paid, and the colleges cover liability insurance. I could get them doing the easy stuff, which frees me for time spent on more billable tasks.
I could also have contractors come in and work on jobs, paying them a fair wage, which I can then bill higher for to my clients.
I have room to set up 2 work stations. I figure that although this is in my home, the stairs up are right by the main entrance door, and I can keep the bedroom door closed, and I keep the bathroom clean and pretty bare. Shouldn't feel awkward, right? I've been to several small companies that work out of old victorian era houses and have converted each room into office space, but in those cases, nobody lives there.
Another alternative is my (finished) basement. I would have to move all the junk that's there up to the spare room, and probably take out the carpet since static is not a friend to computers. I'd also have to move my own work space down there so I can keep an eye on workers or answer questions without travelling from 2nd floor down to the basement. It's also not as cozy since there's only 1 tiny window, and the furnace room is there with the cat's litterbox in there. But there is a bathroom.
I've wanted to expand for a very long time, but I've always been risk-averse to doing it. I've tried doing it virtually by using people in India, but it never really works out. Some face to face is always best.
I'm looking for the thoughts and opinions from people who have actual experience, be it success or failure.
drventure:
I've mostly telecommuted for companies for the last 10 years. The last place I worked for, the owner was originally officing out of his house, but he eventually bought the place next door, rented the upstairs out and converted the downstairs to an office. The rent covered his mortgage, so he was doing pretty nicely with that deal.
He was really big on the idea of a virtual company. All his sales and dev staff were virtual. His support staff was in the office for several years, but eventually he made them virtual as well. Then he flew everyone in once a year for a face to face.
With phones, IM, and email, it worked out pretty well.
Interesting about your exp with outsourcing to india. Every single person I've ever spoken to that had any exp with that said it was a terrible experience. I think it's one of those things that looks good on paper, but doesn't work well in practice. It never saves the kind of money you were told it was going to save.
I'd think the basement would likely work pretty well. Pick up a small office phone system (you can get them from sams or Costco for <1000$ usually.) and then you don't have to walk up and down stairs to answer questions.
Or better yet, make the employees virtual and there's no need to bother with them coming in at all other than maybe for once a week "status and lunch" meetings. Of course, that's dependent on people have decent machines and broadband at home. If they don't, they can't possibly work virtual.
Also, if you do go the virtual route, you want to make sure people are reasonably well versed in maintaining their own machines. Nothing worse than trying to play tech support for your employees because they can't keep their own machines working. If they're in office, it IS your problem, but if they're virtual, they should be able to handle most of the common stuff.
shmokes:
When the economy turned sour my wife's boss moved their office into his home. He had worked out of his home before many years earlier. It's pretty similar to your situation. His spare room has two workstations from which my wife and another employee work. He has a separate office for himself. It seems to work fine. They are a graphic design firm.
CheffoJeffo:
+1 to drventure's thoughts
We are, for all intents and purposes, completely virtual and almost entirely comprised of telecommuters.
Some folks share space, but I don't. Occasionally when one of the others is in town, they will come by and work out of my house, but that is rare and very short term. I totally dig the virtual aspect and can't actually imagine working any other way. Like working at home, it took some getting used to and some discipline to make it work, but now it is second nature and completely integrated into my life.
The face to face is important, but I've found that the frequency isn't as important as I had thought it might be. My business partner and I see each other 3-10 times a year and that works great. With some of the people in hands-on roles, we need to be more frequent with our F2Fs, but it depends on the nature of the work being done. One thing that I have found is that sometimes it is more important to get out and meet somebody for a talk and a coffee than it is to actually have that specific conversion face to face (I guess I am suggesting having semi-regular F2F sessions, even if the work doesn't require it).
My experience with offshoring has been mixed, but the projects that we have been offshoring are small and self-contained. Ultimately I find that, by the time the specs are done, communicated and understood on the other end, I (or one of the other Canuckistani) could have written the damned thing better anyway.
RayB:
DrVenture, Jeff, what type of work? The reason I mention face to face as an advantage is that for me, we're talking lots of visual/creative type work like graphic design, animation, games, websites, etc and I see myself hiring juniors or 20-somethings with a few years experience at the most. So they may need guidance.
The "virtual" (aka "remote") thing only really works with experienced people who can self-manage, and with the type of projects that are clearly defined that a contractor can take the spec and "just do it". (right? no?) Those type of workers tend to command fair-market freelancer/contractor rate (like $50/hr and up). But for an in-house employee, we're talking $20 to $25 per hour for the level of experience I'm looking for. (or for an intern it's $0, but I'm not sure how useful an intern can be)
An other thought was having them as remote/virtual but have them in-house once a week for that face time.
How do you manage productivity?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version