Making the Choice Between an Office Space Lease or On-Demand Facilities
It doesn’t matter what your business does, whether you’re a high-powered ad agency or you sell cute little outfits that people can dress up their pets with. You need a workspace, and so do your employees. For a lot of start-ups, business grows at vastly different paces, giving them very different needs. An increasing number of businesses are run from home offices, but when your start-up starts to grow, you may find yourself in need of a professional space to use.
So now the question becomes, can you justify an office space lease, or do you just simply need a space to use for meetings, pitches, and other occasional business needs? Well, that depends on you, your business model, and your staffing.
Leasing
So your tech start-up finally caught its big break, and now you’re going to need to hire more staff, but there’s just not that kind of room in your house. What you need is an office for them to work in. You love the idea of an open-concept office where employees can freely communicate with each other, and you want one for yourself. Fortunately, you can actually rent out such a space for a price comparable to that of an apartment. When you sign a month-to-month office space lease, you’re investing in a space that will serve as the productive engine of your business. The biggest considerations before signing an office space lease are how much space you project yourself to need over the next year (make sure to accommodate for planned staff expansions) and making sure you have the budget to justify it.
Executive Suites
If your company has yet to hit its big break, or it has but your staff is still small and works from home, then you probably can’t justify having a leased office. But you’re still going to have to make pitches to investors and potential partners, make corporate presentations, or hold meetings with representatives of other businesses, and you really don’t want to do that in your kitchen. Fortunately for you, many office buildings have executive suites that they rent out on a per-use basis. That way, you can have on-demand access to a furnished office space that lets you make a powerful and professional impression – just don’t forget to change out of your Batman pajama pants and into something more work-appropriate!
In the end, you know what’s best for your business, and the decision on meeting its needs rests on you. Whether you decide to lease an entire office or just make occasional use of executive suites is a decision you should base on those needs, so long as you know what your options are.
