When would you start your own office?

[BeerNuts]

My couch is my office and it can suck at times, I could really see benefit to having a separate space for work but id rather not sit alone in a office. You guys that are budding up with other affiliates are lucky. I wish I knew some in my area just to talk to someone that did go "um ok" when I told them what I do.

Side note anyone in the twin cities? pm me.

 

[Spades]

An office is an overhead. If you can't justify the productive advantages of an office, then you don't need one.

If you are renting space and stocking it with furniture just to deal with loneliness, boredom or some sense of pride (looking bigger than you are), then you are a fool.

No one needs to know how successful you are except you. If you're bored, learn to read (books). If you're lonely, get a dog. All of which is a lot cheaper than renting an office to deal with personality flaws.

Now if you have co-workers or a proper business, that is different. But for god's sake, don't spend money for vanity or weakness.

Couldn't have said it any better myself, don't do it until you can justify it or are positive that it's completely necessary for your biz. Regardless of how small the space is it's just another way to burn up your profits which may earn you ten times more being invested elsewhere.

On the other side of the spectrum I do personally think an office helps separate your home life and increase productivity (especially if you have employees.)

 

[LeremyMonster]

Well then you're a fuckwit.

There are hundreds of Indians who don't know wtf they're doing, but there are plenty of those that do.

I think your idea of outsourcing SEO is "plz rank me #1 for 'forex.'" Whereas in reality a lot of it is just general backlink building like blogpost comments, dir submissions, social bookmarking shit etc.

Hell, I'd like a reference. I've dealt with tons of them and haven't been able to find any worth dealing with. I prefer not to teach my employees how to speak English. I guess that's the price you pay for cheap labor.

 

[itchy]

fuck offices when i get back from the uk next year i'm going for a bigger villa and convert the guest house into a work/play room with pool table and all that shit. hire a couple a cute local girls to feed me grapes and err take notes and stuff.

i get my best ideas floating in the pool with a cold one. so bigger pool, bigger ideas and more profit

i didn't get into net businesses to do all that corporate shit though i can understand those who do i just see it as pointless overlooking the advantage that we can conduct business from anywhere with an internet connection.

so its pure tropical business beach office for me. as for when to do it? whenever you can. work where you feel most comfortable, you have no boss so do what feels most natural and profitable. if thats a beach, cool, corporate highrise cool too.

after all who the f*cks gonna complain!

 

[HarveyJ]

Malls and my junk room are my office.

Unless I'm having a meeting with someone... In which case, I hire a shell office for the week, and then just agree to meet them at theirs or at a nearby cafe if meetings are needed after that.
And I go into the AC offices once a week to check in on things.

And +1 for the dog option.
They're much more entertaining than regular coworkers, and are unlikely to bitch about you behind your back at the water cooler.

 

[affiliatearmy]

Kids and wife dont bode well with AM work, so I have an office. Get alot more done than at home-

 

[jdomaha]

Spot on

Sure we all love AM I think. However you get to a point where there's more ideas then you can implement on your own. That's when you want to look to getting an office in my opinion. I actually hired 2 people before I had an office and they worked on my kitchen table a couple weeks. Really if and when you decide to grow to the next level you need people that are good at things. I'm terrible at design and you can only outsource so much. So I hired a designer. Oh I hate uploading and tweaking campaigns so I hired some people to do that. Don't have time for coding anymore so I hired a guy for that. Book keeping gets over whelming for just me at this point so I needed a book keeper. Yep you guessed it I'm terrible at writing copy so we brought on a full time copywriter. Hmmm what the fuck do I do all day

Seriously though my favorite part is the ideas. Building, investing and testing the ideas. Where I could setup a campaign and manage a few on my own. Now we can push out a campaign from start to finish in about 4-6 hours. Throw a bunch of testing money at it and then on to the next. Some work, some don't. It's a lot like a production line though in that each person has their role and we can function much fast and efficiently as a single machine.

At first I thought I wouldn't like having an office as the few I'd worked in were stuffy and lame. But honestly it's just like working at home now but I have a bunch of like minded friends around. Pretty cool if you ask me

If I was at a point where I could have "an office," I would.

The only way I would do that is if I was making enough for the wife to not work so she could spend the days with our kids - IE: 15k a month.

That said, I know - just know - that working with a group of like-minded, dedicated individuals who just "get it" would spur my productivity through the roof. As it is, I get distracted by random things that come my way that I "have to try out." My wife calls it the "Oh, look! Shiny!" syndrome.

In November, I told a friend of mine at work what I was doing and explained to him that it was a bitch to get everything done that I needed doing. Building the sites, researching the niche, writing content - I could do that, but promoting the sites in addition to all the above was getting to be a bit much. So I gave him 5 sites, told him how to promote em, and told him that I'd split the revenue with him 50/50. This month he's earned himself $600 so far. I can totally see me hiring him/working with him if I get to the point where it would be financially viable. Right now, he's happy making extra cash (newlywed/newgraduate) and I'm happy not having to do the work he's doing.

Having people around who you can bounce ideas off of, who you don't have to be afraid of stealing your idea, who can contribute their own piece of the puzzle, would be ideal for me.

 

[jdomaha]

Well then you're a fuckwit.

There are hundreds of Indians who don't know wtf they're doing, but there are plenty of those that do.

I think your idea of outsourcing SEO is "plz rank me #1 for 'forex.'" Whereas in reality a lot of it is just general backlink building like blogpost comments, dir submissions, social bookmarking shit etc.

Paying Indians for SEO is probably fine. Paying Indians for content is just a bad idea, unless you don't particularly care about the content.

 

[Rajuthan]

I operate a virtual office - maintaining quality can be an issue but I hire only people I trust. Most jobs are outsourced to India (thus, the often made fun of comment of having 35 employees) - these teams have been funded by me, and only work for me. They do jobs ranging from data entry, graphic design, article writing, to SEO. Right now my house is big enough to hold 1 more employee working at the same time - but I like to keep costs way down by moving it to India.

My Father - full time VP.

2 Part time employees in the US handling day shifts of ad recreation, creation, etc.

1 fulltime book keeper / accountant

1 part time system admin (24/7 on call)

So you and your dad run a porn site eh

 

[JohnCJackson]

Really I could have an office at any point if I wanted. I have looked into office space before and I could actually get something decent for a few hundred bucks a month with no need to spend much else.

The thing is, what I do and who I am is all about living life without the office. It doesn't matter if I'm the "employee" or the "boss." Neither appeals to me. I don't do business with the public. I don't have employees and never plan to- only contractors that I never plan to meet nor would I want to.

I think it all really comes down to your personal preferences, which reflect your personal values and philosophy. As we've seen here, we have some people who want to work on the beach/home and others who crave an office setting and some kind of more formal? interaction.

While I'm closer to the former, what it comes down to for me is a deep personal philosophy that has evolved to the point that I fucking hate The State and agents of the state and conformist mentality. I want to be as low key as possible, which helps for health and well-being as well as my philosophical/political/religious beliefs. There are many reasons I do not want my name on any office or related in anyway to dealing with the public in traditional statist fashion. And I try to keep it simple. That mostly means me, sole prop, working from home, and no one knows what the fuck I do.