I'll keep this simple. I am a freelancer, but myself and a long term friend are tying to combine to build a small company.

 

Neither of us are in debt, but neither of us a has a large amount of capital, yet we ideally need to work together, ideally somewhere public enough for design walk-ins.

 

Neither of us has enough space at home to set up a home office, does anyone have any suggestions? What do you guys all do?

Ask your local business link if there is anything like a business incubator locally, or they might know someone who wants to sublet an office (which is what we did for a while - IIRC it was £26pw inclusive)

Its a sticky area. You definitely bring a much much more professional appearance by saying, lets meet out my office instead of..."Uh...lets met at a coffee shop". An office is a definite improvement and will allow you to charge more for your services and will probably bring in more clients. The downside to this is that it will take time to see the returns from the office space. Depending on what you have in the pipeline you might be able to pay the overhead for a few months and see how it goes. Hopefully you can sign a flexible lease if it doesn't work out. If your serious about your business, an office is probably a necessary expense. I'm in the same boat right now. I'm 1/2 of a two man operation and the other half is doing IT for a large real estate company that allows him to use his office as our office which is very nice.

 

In my opinion if you can really afford it, go for it because in the long run its a night and day difference. Good Luck!

Are you based in or near London?

 

If so it may be worht looking at EasyOffice (By the same company as EasyJet etc) - You can rent office space cheaply.

 

Here is a link if your interested:

http://www.easyoffice.co.uk/

 

Regards

Its a sticky area. You definitely bring a much much more professional appearance by saying, lets meet out my office instead of..."Uh...lets met at a coffee shop". An office is a definite improvement and will allow you to charge more for your services and will probably bring in more clients. The downside to this is that it will take time to see the returns from the office space. Depending on what you have in the pipeline you might be able to pay the overhead for a few months and see how it goes. Hopefully you can sign a flexible lease if it doesn't work out. If your serious about your business, an office is probably a necessary expense. I'm in the same boat right now. I'm 1/2 of a two man operation and the other half is doing IT for a large real estate company that allows him to use his office as our office which is very nice.

 

In my opinion if you can really afford it, go for it because in the long run its a night and day difference. Good Luck!

 

That's exactly how we feel. We've held meetigns in a nearby hotel and a coffee place, but it's exactly as you say - it would make us look more professional and probably let us charge more...