The idea of home office in India is catching up and there are a number of new generation entrepreneur out there who started from his home and them made it big. Setting up a home office in India is easier today than ever before. All that you need to begin with a good comfortable chair and a desk to work on.
Lots of people ask questions on various forums like Quora about how to start a small business with little or minimum investment and so on. Recently a friend who is all set to start his own office was discussing it with me. First he tried to rent out space, but given the advance deposits and other expense he need to make, he decided to setup a small office at his home. If you are also planning to setup an office then this post is a must read for you.
Here’s how to setup a home office in India
Depending on the number of people or kind of business or trade you are in, your requirements and priorities may vary and hence feel free to make adjustments as per your needs. This post is to just give you an overview on how to setup a home office and you have all the liberty to apply these tips as per your specific needs.
So here’s how to do it right.
How much space do you need?
How much space do you need to setup your office? How much space is available? Everything can be tweaked, but most likely you can’t increase the size of your room, can you? So just asses how much of space you have and is it enough for you to begin with? How many people will be working with you initially and do you have enough space to accommodate your team? If yes, then you are god to go. If no, then give it a second chance and see if you can setup it at your friends place? If nothing is working out then maybe you can look for a small space in a residential area which will be comparatively cheaper.
Decorating and accessories
By properly decorating your office, you can give it a good look and it will look like a real office and that’s important. You must decorate your home office to give it look like a real office. What kind of décor you want is up to you, but just don’t think of spending lots of money in decorating and buying accessories, you can do that later. But to begin with just look for things that is important like a white board, dust bin, desk, chair, a couple of motivational posters etc.
Natural light for your home office
When you are just starting up, it’s important to spend money wisely and avoid recurring expense when possible. To do so, you can use natural light when possible. It is important to allow natural light so that you can save on your electric bills. If possible, open window on both east and west side; to get natural light. Natural lights can bring lots of charm in your home office and you can get benefited.
Avoid noise if possible
This may not sound like a serious issue, but trust me it is. If you have to interact with your customers and associates most often on phone then you should give it a thought. When you are discussing something serious with your customer and there is weird sound of horn and other noise then you won’t’ be able to carry on your discussion properly. Office environment needs to be calm so that one can concentrate on the work.
Important office supplies you should have in your office
To run an office you need various types of office supplies likes pencils, pen, pen stand, staple, pencil sharpness, desks, computer, printer etc. Don’t spend lots of money in accessories initially, do with the most essential ones that you need like water purifier, kettle, glass etc. But yes, spend on good quality chairs because you are going to spend most of your time working on it. It must be comfortable. You should also spend on good quality computer, laptop, printer etc.
Connectivity for your home office
Connectivity is important like telephone line, broadband internet etc. For telephone thankfully you can purchase walky from different operator which is wireless and can be moved. Similarly for broad band internet connection, you can get it up and running with a week’s time in general. To begin with you may have plans to use wifi dongles and mobile phone, but getting a landline connection will help you in many ways. If you are planning to setup a team, you may need certain hardware like router, switch etc and it is worth spending on good brands here so that you can use it for long time without any issues.
Over to you
Setting up a home office in India is much easier today and it can be done super quickly when you know how it should look and what you need in your home office to begin with. Don’t commit the mistake of spending lots of money in furnishing and decorating because it’s not a wise decision. Spending lots of money while setting up your office and starting a new business is not a good idea, especially in case of home office. You can always furnish when your business is setup and it has started generating cash flow.
